Brick Aux presents
If You’re a Man at Night…You Gotta Be a Man in the Morning
by Diana Lobontiu
at Brick Aux Gallery – 628 Metropolitan Ave
May 4, 2024 at 7:30pm, Doors at 7pm

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Welcome to “If You’re a Man at Night…You Gotta Be a Man in the Morning” staged reading X reality TV show X pity party!

In the wake of his cancelation after an unfortunate pissing-on-a-gas-station-in-Rio-and-lying-about-it debacle, a looming pandemic, a ban from swimming, and a disastrous marriage, Ryan L*chte starts to do crazy things in order to feel seen. He manifests a robot version of his wife, he fights his longtime rival Michael Ph*lps, he shows the audience snippets of his reality TV show, he begs for compliments.

But when someone is all goofy machismo and no interiority, how does he even begin to express the aching loneliness he experiences? Can we, the audience, help him? Can we, the audience, even relate to his plight? Is there a way for us to “create the ‘Lympics inside us,” as Ryan says? Gotta take a gander to the Brick Aux to find out, hunty…

Written by Diana Lobontiu

Directed by Nola Latty

Videography by Steffany Poveda

Assistant Directed by Sabina Unni

Featuring: Drae Campbell, Diana Lobontiu, Utkarsh Rajawat, Sabina Unni

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Drae Campbell

Diana Lobontiu

Diana Lobontiu is a Romanian American playwright, actor, administrator, and educator based in Brooklyn. Diana holds a Playwriting MFA from Brooklyn College and graduated from Wellesley College with a BA in Theatre Studies and Psychology. They are an Adjunct Professor in playwriting. They are interested in exploring the intersections of masculinity, power, failure, oppression, absurdity, and loneliness. Diana was named a 2024 MacDowell Fellow, a 2023 Jane Hoppen Resident with Paragraph Workspace for Writers, and received the 2023 Puffin Grant for My Cousin Nelu Is Not Gay. Recent writing includes My Cousin Nelu Is Not Gay (The Brick Theater 2023, Ars Nova’s ANT Fest 2022), Rentabutch (Bushwick Starr Reading Series Finalist 2023), and If You’re A Man At Night…You Gotta Be A Man In The Morning (The Workshop Theatre 2023). Diana has performed their solo show Sfânta: Hell Bent on Heaven, about a teenage wannabe Russian Orthodox saint, at the Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Kalamazoo, Oregon, and Orlando Fringe Festivals.

Nola Latty

Nola Latty (they/them) is a director, producer, and performance artist from Philadelphia, based in Brooklyn, New York. They create work that balances the intimate and strange. Nola recently directed Kinderkrankenhaus, which was nominated for Broadway Worlds’ Best New Off-Off Broadway Play in 2023. Their surreal digital play, Still Goes, was a part of the 2022 Exponential Festival. 2024 directing credits include Crawl Space at The Flea, Berlindia! with the Workshop Theater, Dee and Di’s Beauty Shop with the InFormation Festival at Lincoln Center, and Miss Margaridas Way at Brick Aux. Passionate about uplifting a new generation of theater artists, Nola has produced shows and workshops at Ars Nova, The Brick, and New York University. Nola has performed at New York and Denver Fringe Festivals, The Tank, Grace Exhibition Space, and Chaos Computer, along with several other DIY Venues. BFA: NYU Tisch Drama ‘22  www.nolalatty.com

Steffany Poveda

Steffany Poveda-Solorio is a Brooklyn based photographer and videographer. Ever since breaking their dad’s camera as a child, Steffany has been committed to understanding how to capture memories through their lens and loves playing with light and color. Their previous projects include Toast (2019) a two panel installation of moving portraits documenting the shifting performance of queer nightlife in Boston and Lesbian Semiotics, an ongoing mixed media project documenting identity and signifiers in the queer community.

Utkarsh Rajawat

Utkarsh Rajawat is following the call of Rasha Abdulhadi, who they know of through “Notes on Craft” by Fargo Nissim Tbakhi, to use their bio to uplift resistance efforts against the US-sponsored, Israeli genocide of Palestinians. You can contribute to the movement by donating food baskets, e-Sims, endorsing PACBI, attending an action, engaging in BDS, calling your representatives. I hope more institutions are moved to full-throated support, with their words, their resources, their (divestment from Israeli) money, as Palestinian people like those of The Freedom Theatre have been asking for. You can contact PACBI@wawog.com if you have questions or concerns, including legal ones, about your cultural or academic organization’s commitment. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

Sabina Unni

I am a public theater artist, director, performer, composer and writer obsessed with creating performances in unusual public spaces, from vacant lots, to open streets, to the beach, to early childcare centers, to community gardens, to public parks, to piers, to online. I am the co-founder and artistic director of Fresh Lime Soda Productions, a contemporary South Asian political theater ensemble and incubator. Currently bringing my original performance, A Fun Play about How Scary Climate Change Is, to the Queens Botanical Garden: RSVP here! It’s a public part piece about leaning into hope, not despair, in the face of climate change, and launched this September at Rockaway Beach, Edgemere Farm, Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse, La Plaza Cultural, and Hunters Point Park as part of the Amanda+James Coastlines Festival, Brooklyn Arts Council, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

I’m currently performing in Dance Nation (Brooklyn College, d. Katy Early) and Warm Science (Brick Theater, d. Laia Comas). I’m a fellow with Culture Push, writing and directing a play about flooding and member of TAG @ the Tank. Previously, I was an Artist in Residency at NYU where I directed and co-wrote Rainy Day Play, a devised play about climate change and flooding in three waterfront parks. I recently directed and wrote a collaborative performance for Make the Road with workers from DRUM, Local 79, and the Street Vendor Project for their May Day Rally. I was a public space programming partner with the Department of Transportation, performing and directing a bilingual children’s play about composting throughout their open streets in Brooklyn and Queens.

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Mask Policy: The Brick strongly encourages but does not require masks for audience members. We are in ongoing conversation with our artists and audiences as we continue to adapt our covid policies and it is subject to change at any time. Thank you.

A Note on Accessibility: The Brick has trigger warnings posted in the space for each show for you to check if you so choose. If you would rather ask questions in advance of being in the space or would like to enter in advance of house opening due to our seating not being assigned, please reach out to theresa@bricktheater.com.