HERPES TONIGHT begins June 5, 2008

Life Lessons, and Lesions, on Stage. See What Develops.

West Coast premiere following successful New York debut!

Preview June 5th

Opens June 6th, through June 24th, 2008

(Los Angeles, CA) (April, 2008)… The Immediate Theater Company is pleased to announce the West Coast debut of the uproarious solo comedy HERPES TONIGHT!, coming to the Lounge Theatre in Hollywood beginning June 5.

About The Show

HERPES TONIGHT! began with the experiences of writer/actor Corey Moosa - experiences he had not seen dramatized elsewhere.

Moosa, whose acting credits include several noted productions in New York, explains that “every day, thousands of people are diagnosed, and sometimes misdiagnosed, with sexually transmitted diseases. It’s really scary. Also really funny.”

Originally entitled Herpes: A Corey Story, the show had a successful premiere in 2007 at downtown Manhattan’s HERE Arts Center. Hailed as “a touching and hilarious one-man exploration of the diagnosis that changed everything” (nerofiddled.net), the show was embraced by audiences inside and outside the STD self-help community.

During the course of the eighty-minute performance, Moosa plays more than a dozen characters, including his Iraqi father, several members of a New York herpes support group, and Kurt Cobain. In addition to the wealth of medical information conveyed in the show, Moosa shares the advice of doctors good and bad (”He told me to Google it,” he says in astonishment, recalling the initial diagnosis), and the wisdom of personal experience (”I’m here to tell you it is possible to adjust your opinion of yourself and the world you live in to accommodate any number of viruses”). Arriving at the conclusion that “shame is not an STD,” he wrings pathos from comedy and comedy from pathos.

“Now, I’m not an expert in much,” Moosa tells his audience at the top of the show, “but I’m pretty smart when it comes to this stuff. I’m also really knowledgeable regarding popular television of the past forty years, which is totally unrelated to herpes, but crucial to my personal history.” Indeed, HERPES TONIGHT! is laced with references to the pop culture universe in which Moosa grew up. He explains the behaviors of viruses by comparing them to Star Trek characters, and identifies his ex-girlfriends as “Kathie Lee Gifford” and “Kelly Ripa,” to protect the innocent.

About the Writers

Moosa credits his collaborators with making the show work. Playwright Brian Shoaf, who co-wrote HERPES TONIGHT! with Moosa, helped him weave his experiences into drama. Shoaf’s previous plays, which have been seen at UCLA’s New Play Festival and the Seattle Fringe Festival, include Joist Wrote Ulysses and Girder Wrote Faust and This is Calm. Shoaf’s Conspirators was produced by the Immediate Theater Company, under the direction of José Zayas, who staged Herpes in its original incarnation.

Immediate Theater Company

The Immediate Theater Company (Best Theatre Company, 2005, New York Press) has won acclaim for such productions as The Germans in Paris and Strom Thurmond is Not a Racist, and Zayas was named one of nytheatre.com’s “People of the Year” in 2007. The sound effects and slide projections used in Herpes were designed by Noah Diamond, another frequent Moosa collaborator, who cast him in the political satires Burning Bush: A Faith-Based Musical and Moral Value Meal.

About the Team

Performed by Corey Moosa. Written by Corey Moosa and Brian Shoaf. Lighting design by Matt Richter. Sound, graphics, and direction by Noah Diamond. Original direction by José Zayas.

HERPES TONIGHT! runs June 5th through June 24th, 2008. Preview is June 5th, with opening night June 6th. Performances are at The Lounge Theatre at 6201 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM. Tickets are $20 (preview night $15). Running time is 70 minutes with intermission and concessions available. Allow time for street parking.

For reservations, call (323) 960-7776 or RESERVE ONLINE:
www.plays411.com/herpes

Other places you might like to check out are as follows:

1.) Herpes Help

2.) Social Support Networking Alliance

3.) Shut Up N Post! STD Message Board