FIRST LOVE/WORST LOVE PROMISES STORIES AND SURPRISES AT HOLLYWOOD FRINGE FESTIVAL

Los Angeles – First Love/Worst Love, written by Rebecca Cox and directed by Julie Civiello and premiering at this year’s third annual Hollywood Fringe Festival, is a live rendering of the examinations of love and its constant allure, as well as the inevitable surrender to its slippery mutability. Expressed on the stage by an ensemble cast comprised of five Los Angeles-based actors, Hayley J. Williams, Len Davies, Maggie Lehman, Seth Burnham, and Anna Moon, the First Love/Worst Love characters’ voices range in age and sexuality, with variegated gender roles and perspectives, each of them identifying as someone in the lapses, statis, earliest leaps or deepest hollows of love. First Love/Worst Love is a non-linear expression of contemporary love stories. Says Cox, “These stories are mostly about just being human, undergoing the humor and heartbreak of love, sometimes simultaneously.”

The twelve intersecting narratives of First Love/Worst Love were composed and selected specifically for this staged production, and intimate proclivities, repetition of stories, and utterances such as “I fell in love in a basement,” “He smelled like vacation,” and “How will you stay in love next time? You will not assume anything,” produce the 45-minute experience of love’s shapes and spectres both. Breathing love’s disappointments, fervor, fear, indolence, loss, and, the lynchpin of Pandora’s proverbial box, hope, First Love/Worst Love will elicit tears, laughter, and joy.
Born from Rebecca Cox’s minutelovestories blog, a project of her 200-word original love stories, First Love/Worst Love marks the second staged effort launched with both Cox and Civiello, an actress and COO of The Audition Studio, on board; the first performance being The 13 Most Beautiful Stories, a live staged reading at Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station last fall. Director Civiello, who’s performed in Fringe productions in previous years, namely The Wolf Girls, the recipient of Bitter Lemons’ BLOAT award in 2010 – says “The Fringe is such an energizing, inspiring event and we are incredibly excited to offer our bit of love to this year’s line up."

WHO: Written/produced by Rebecca Cox
Directed/produced by Julie Civiello
Co-produced by Ben Pollack
Featuring Hayley J. William, Len Davies, Maggie Lehman, Seth Burnham, and Anna Moon.

WHEN:
June 8 – June 23, 2012
Opening Night: Friday, June 8, 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, June 16th, 8:30 p.m.,
Wednesday, June 20, 5:30 p.m,
Final Performance: Saturday, June 23, 2:30 p.m..
*Each performance is 45 minutes

WHERE:
Open Fist Theatre | 6209 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood, CA 94941
Tickets: $12
For advance tickets and to find out more about The Hollywood Fringe Festival 2012, go to http://www.hollywoodfringe.org/

To learn more about Open Fist Theatre, visit http://www.openfist.org/

To learn more about minutelovestories, visit http://minutelovestories.tumblr.com/

For press inquiries, contact [email protected]

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