For Immediate Release: September 13, 2006
Media Contact: Bridget Dougherty, HATG Theater Company, 215.525.1551

HATG Theater Company is staging a reading of Streamers by David Rabe, winner of the Best American Play in 1976 and the winner of N.Y. Drama critic's award. A portion of the proceeds will benefit Operation Helmet, an organization that provides helmet upgrades for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. This event will also spread awareness of Operation Helmet and their goals. Streamers will run on November 9th, November 10th, and November 11th at the Triangle Theater-1220 North Lawrence Street. Tickets are ten dollars. Please join us at the Triangle Theater for this astonishing play and support this great organization.

In this timely and devastating masterpiece, four young soldiers fresh from boot camp wait anxiously in 1965 Virginia, watching the Vietnam conflict escalate. Although Rabe's play was written in 1976 and reflects attitudes about the war in Southeast Asia, its themes and sentiments are powerfully relevant today, with American soldiers under siege in Iraq. Streamers is about a small group of soldiers from divergent backgrounds -- a socialite from Manhattan, a farm kid from Wisconsin, a young man trying to escape from an inner-city ghetto. It's 1965 and they're stuck in an Army barracks in the middle of a war they don't understand. They wrestle with ideals of manhood, stereotypes about race and preconceptions about sexual preference. As they struggle to make sense of their new life in the Army, tensions rise over race, sexuality, and class, culminating in an explosive act that changes them forever. Streamers is a savage exploration of the anger, fear, and confusion facing young men threatened by forces beyond their control.

"Streamers is absolutely a knockout! A shocking and provocative play emerging with something of the poet to it." -Clive Barnes, The New York Times.

Operation Helmet founded in 2003 by Dr. Robert H. Meaders, supplies upgrade kits for the helmets that the troops use in Iraq and Afghanistan. They offer these upgrade kits free of charge to service men. These upgrade kits do three things: Protection - Shock-absorbing pads keep the helmet from slapping the skull when hit with blast forces, fragments, or being tumbled along the ground or inside a vehicle. This decreases the chance of brain injury from bombs, RPG's, vehicle accidents, and falls. Comfort - If it is more comfortable, it will stay on troop's head longer and more often. Stability - Keeps the helmet firmly on the head and out of the eyes. The majority of today's helmets worn by most Marines and Airmen are designed to protect our troops from gunfire and flying debris - not blasts - which have accounted for 65 percent of U.S. military deaths in Iraq since May, according to figures compiled by the Associated Press. These upgrade kits cost seventy one dollars for Marines and ninety-nine dollars for the Navy and USAF. Many families and service men can not afford this up grade, and Operation Helmet will provide this support free of charge.

Cast

Sean Gallagher (Billy) Sean is excited, some may say extremely excited to be working with Hatg Theater Company for the first time. He has recently appeared in Speak Now- Azuka Theater and The Horoscope War -One Percent Productions, during the 2006 Philly Fringe. Other stage credits include Verges in Much Ado About Nothing-Delaware Shakespeare Festival, Miles in The Drawer Boy-Montgomery Theater, Christopher Mahon in The Playboy of the Western World-Neumann College, Charles Condomine in Blithe Spirit -Delaware County Community College, and Leslie Arthur in Love, Sex, and the I.R.S. He also appeared in several independent films with Cowbell Films Productions.

Mike Raimondo (Richie) Mike Raimondo has been living and acting in the Philadelphia area for many years. Favorite roles include: Nick in Over the River and Through the Woods, Danny in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Vito in PS Your Cat is Dead, Joe Morelli in All in the Timing, Joe Farkas in The Last Night of Ballyhoo, and Eddie in The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940. He has written two One-Act comedies that have been produced, appeared in two independent films, and is currently part of a historical play at the Johnson House in Germantown.

Chris Banker (Carlyle) Philadelphia resident, Chris Banker is proud to be making his debut for HATG Theater Company. A graduate of Temple University theatre program, Chris has performed in such shows as Top Dog/Underdog, The Libertine, Psycho Beach party, A Comedy of Errors, and No body Here but us Chickens. Recently, if you have been thru the streets of Old City-Philadelphia, you may have seen him as a black colonial solider for Once Upon A Nation.

Other cast members include, Steve Pollack, Dan Rich, Eric Pederson, and Jim Ewald.

David Rabe (Playwright) Is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for his trilogy of plays drawing on his experience as an Army draftee in Vietnam, Sticks and Bones, The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, and Streamers. He began graduate studies at Villanova University, but dropped out and was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1965. He served until 1967, spending his last eleven months of service in Vietnam. After leaving the service, Rabe returned to Villanova, studying and earning an M.A. In 1968, he began to work on Sticks and Bones, in which the family represents the ugly underbelly of the Nelson Family when they are faced with their hopeless son David returning home from Vietnam as a blinded vet.

Dave Ebersole (Director) A resident of Media, PA, Dave is the current Assistant Artistic Director of HATG Theater Company. He holds a BA in theater from Temple University. Directing credits include: Beyond Therapy, All in the Timing, A Raisin in the Sun, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, and Cat On a Hot Tin Roof.

HATG Theater Company continues to work with emerging artists in their work with contemporary classics. Their recent success with Desdemona: a play about a handkerchief and the continuing success with the monthly event, The Starving Artists' Monologue Slam has made HATG Theater Company one of the most talked about new theater companies in Philadelphia. This production of Streamers will strive in making HATG Theater Company stronger than ever and will continue to test boundaries and drive emerging artists on to the forefront of Philadelphia's growing theater community.

Press: Please contact Bridget Dougherty for more information at 215-525-1551 or email hatgtheatercompany@yahoo.com

HATG Theater Company is a 501 (c)(3). www.hatgtheater.com

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