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Heavy Sleeper – Phase One
Hammer Beaten Sky
August 26 - August 27
$15 – $30
The Brick and Hammer Beaten Sky present
Heavy Sleeper – Phase One
by Ryan William Downey and Jeff Tobias
August 26 and 27
8pm
doors 730pm
A pulsing red light on the horizon line phasing in and out left to right lifting and falling the shallow breaths of a sleeping killer. That’s where we begin. Through a series of hypnotic vignettes and musical interludes our precious little characters must reckon with the foreboding forces that surround them and exist within them.
I think you should answer that.
featuring Nadia Pinder and Jesse Heffler and special guest Anuj Panchal as Killer Gary
visual design by Chris Georges
lighting design by Theresa Buchheister
Join us for a giggle in the graveyard as we make peace with a vengeful ghost, watch an interrogation unfold, and visit with a children’s puppet come to life. Heavy Sleeper is a phone call you don’t want to answer. And, who knows, our old pal Gary may even show up.
Who is that voice that calls to me in the night? Why am I drawn to them?
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After party to follow on August 27 9pm-Midnight at The Brick Theater!
Content Warning: This show features fog, strobing effects, and very loud noises.
Ryan William Downey is an actor, playwright, and musician who serves as Associate Artistic Director of The Brick Theater and Co-Director of Title:Point, an experimental theater company that has been producing and presenting work in New York City for more than a decade. His most recent play, Sleeping Car Porters, was a New York Times Critic’s Pick and Biter (Every Time I Turn Around), which he co-wrote, was one of Helen Shaw’s 10 Best Plays of 2015. He has also written Periscope (featuring Richard Foreman and Mary Harron), Persistent Dream Body, The Assassination of Julius Caesar and co-written Post:Death, Never Odd or Even, Everything of Any Value, and SPACEtruck. He has performed at The Whitney Museum of American Art, La Mama, Incubator Arts Project, Dixon Place, The Brick, Invisible Dog, AS220, Silent Barn, the Gowanus River (in Jeff Stark’s The Dreary Coast) and many more venues in NYC and beyond. As a voice actor he has been heard on podcasts, audiobooks, in many plays and, most notably, on Pokémon film and television series playing a variety of characters.
Jesse Heffler is a performer and cultural producer living in Kingston, NY. Past projects: Echo In Camera (LaMaMa, Palais des Tokyo, Dialog Festival), anatomy theatre (PROTOTYPE, LA Opera/REDCAT), Fête of Mistakes (Incubator Arts Project, Silent Barn) Birthright: The Movie (Sarah Lawrence College). He’s had the pleasure of working with Fisher Center at Bard, Beth Morrison Projects, Dead Puppet, Advanced Beginners Group, La Pocha Nostra and Landlords (band). Presently: Director of Programs and Operations at GARNER Arts Center in Rockland County, NY. MFA, Theatre: Sarah Lawrence College.
Jeff Tobias is a multi-instrumentalist and composer who has been an active part of the American music underground since 2003. He has contributed to over ninety physically released recordings performing on over a dozen different instruments, and he has toured the United States and Europe extensively. His saxophone playing has been described as “authentically fearsome … just the sort of thing that fries microphones and never pays the rent.” (Bill Meyer, The Wire, March 2018)
In 2022, he released his debut solo full-length, Recurring Dream, drawing praise from The New York Times. He is a member of groups including Sunwatchers, Modern Nature, and Thee Reps, and has also collaborated with artists including David First, Arthur Doyle, Brigid Dawson (The Oh Sees), Andrew Bernstein, Matt Bachmann, Katie Eastburn, Dan Friel, Heather McIntosh, and many others.
He has composed music for podcasts (Milky Way Underground from PRX) and theater. He holds a degree in music composition from Brooklyn College, where he studied with Tania Leon, Jason Eckhardt, Doug Geers, and Doug Cohen.
Anuj Panchal is an R&B and knife enthusiast living life a quarter mile at a time.
In consideration for the health and safety or our staff members, artists, and audiences, The Brick remains committed to maintaining vaccination requirements and mask mandates for our in-person presentations for the foreseeable future. We ask that all audience members remain masked. All staff and performers will be vaccinated; performers may not be masked. Audience can provide proof of vaccination with a government issued I.D. along with a physical copy or picture of your COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card, the NYC COVID Safe App or the New York State Excelsior Pass. Please be patient with staff.