LOSING $10,000,000,000,000 HAS NEVER BEEN SO MUCH FUN.

Los Angeles, June 1, 2013—LA-based Black Hive Theater Projects and internationally renowned Cirque du Soleil clown and director John Gilkey team up to bring MORE BIGGER MASSES to the 2013 Hollywood Fringe. Fridays and Saturdays (June 14, 15, 21, 22, 28, 29) of the Fringe at 10:30pm. Shepard Studio Theater at The Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd. Tickets are $10 and available at http://hff13.org/1312.

In the dank sub-basement of an abandoned office complex, former employee Guy Johnson awaits an important business meeting that was never scheduled at a job that disappeared long ago. When his love for his old job consumes him, a day in the office turns into a playful, and ultimately transformative, allegory of our beloved national past-time—making money.

“MBM began as a comedy about the 2008 financial collapse,” says Black Hive founder Gabriel McKinney, who plays Johnson. “But the goal soon became stripping away the minutiae of complex fiscal instruments, policy issues, bubbles; basically everything that gets talked about vis-à-vis the Great Recession. We wanted to discover instead the inexhaustible heart of American Capitalism. At its core, we figured capitalism is simply people who play this game of ‘How much is More and how much More can I make?’ So we created someone who played this game, lost and is dealing with the fallout.”

With nothing more than one actor, an office chair, a giant piece of paper, and the audience, MBM delves into themes ranging from the disappearance of jobs in 2008, to Colony Collapse Disorder of honey bees, to the disappearance of early settlers at the Lost Colony of Roanoke. All the while, Johnson, eternally optimistic about his future with the shuttered corporation, leads the audience on a journey that not only evokes our present fiscal crisis but also questions the role of blind hope in the face of grim reality.

”Gabe . . . has created this wildly funny and wonderfully lovable character who in spite of all the signs remains hopeful,” says director John Gilkey. “We simultaneously pity him and admire him.”

In addition to MBM, McKinney is also appearing in Wet The Hippo, a physical sketch-comedy show also directed by Gilkey. Wet the Hippo plays at 7:30 and 9:00 with MBM immediately following at 10:30, all in the Shepard Studio Theater at The Complex.

Black Hive Theater Projects is a theater collective exploring creation and design at the intersection of play. MORE BIGGER MASSES fuses the talents of internationally renowned Cirque du Soleil clown John Gilkey (Director), master clown Ronlin Foreman (Original Direction), and Black Hive’s team of creators and designers, including Gabe McKinney (Johnson) and Ann Loud (Costume and Set Design). The result of a year-long development process, MORE BIGGER MASSES is the collective’s debut production, and has toured to northern California and St. Paul, MN.

To download high and low resolution press photos, please go to: blackhivetheaterprojects.com/press