January 20, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Lake Simons, (718) 915-0547
Email contact:lakesimons@mindspring.com

HIP POCKET THEATRE PRESENTS TRIO MOLEMO! AT HERE THEATRE FOR THREE PERFORMANCES ONLY BEGINNING FEBRUARY 6th! COWTOWN LEGEND JOHNNY SIMONS ARRIVES TO PERFORM WITH HIS DAUGHTERS IN A HOME SPUN- MINIATURE VAUDEVILLE STYLE EVENING OF PANTOMIME, DANCE, PUPPETRY, SONG AND HANDMADE MOVIES.

Originally commissioned and presented by Hip Pocket Theatre, Trio Molemo!, created and performed by Johnny Simons and his daughters Lake Simons and Lorca Simons, premieres at New York’s HERE Arts Center, for 3 nights only – February 6 – 8 at 8:30 pm. For tickets call 212 352-3101 or connect to www.here.org

Trio Molemo! received its world premiere in 2007 by Fort Worth’s Hip Pocket Theatre. Johnny Simons, Artistic Director and co-founder, performs for a limited engagement with his daughters in a rare evening of pantomime, dance, puppetry, and song. They join together for the first time on any New York stage to undertake an unique exploration – as only they can – of the mystery of their primitive familial bond, their journey in a search of higher meaning and the majesty of a life devoted, above all, to each other.

"This family of theatrical magicians comes from Fort Worth to bless us here in the chill of New York with their warmth, artistry and love for one another...a truly beautiful show."(Basil Twist)

Trio Molemo! is an original collaboration in celebration of the relationship between fathers and daughters that goes straight to the heart. Lorca Simons and Lake Simons have a lifetime of involvement with Hip Pocket Theatre – a theatre breathed, built and nurtured by their parents. Through this unique family bond, they have been immersed in their father’s onstage direction since early childhood, but had never actually performed together.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram described it as “... a touching three-dimensional history of a loving father who passed his gifts for movement to his daughters. Each is an incredible performer. As a triple threat: out of sight.” (Mark Lowry)

JOHNNY SIMONS

Johnny Simons has served as Artistic Director and a founder of Fort Worth's Hip Pocket Theatre for 32 seasons. As director, composer, and playwright of over 400 productions, his collaborators have included musician/composer Douglas Balentine, the underground cartoonist and artist R. Crumb, Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman, and most recently, internationally-renowned puppeteer Basil Twist in this past summer's Hip Pocket Theatre production of H. G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau.

In addition, he has performed with the Midland Festival Ballet company for the past thirteen years in the role of Drosselmeyer. Mr. Simons has also appeared as Dr. Coppelius in Delibes' Coppelia, directed by Alexandra Danilova, and as King Dodon in Rimsky-korsakov's Le Coq d'Or opposite Nathalie Krassovska.

He received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Texas Christian University, and has been Artist-in-Residence and Assistant Professor in mime and acting at Duke University, Texas Christian University, and Texas Wesleyan University.  He founded the Drama Department at Tarrant County College Northwest campus in Fort Worth, and was Artistic Director of Casa Manana Children's Theatre and School for several years, appearing in many productions as an actor and dancer in innumerable summer seasons.

His plays and adaptations have been performed throughout the United States and Britain, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. 

This February, Johnny will join his daughters, Lake and Lorca Simons, to perform an original work, Trio Molemo!, at the HERE Theatre in New York.

LORCA SIMONS
Lorca is a founding member of 5RT, an experimental theatre collaborative directed by 5 Rhythms pioneer Gabrielle Roth. Lorca performed Savage Love with 5RT for which she was given the Critics Forum Award for outstanding performance by an actress, and participated in Donna Karan’s “Urban Zen Initiative” supporting programs that advance integrative medicine. She has appeared in many Off-Broadway productions, including Collected Stories opposite Uta Hagen, The Habitation Of Dragons, Savage Love, Careless Love, and Fear and Misery of the Third Reich. Regional productions include: Restoring The Sun opposite Richard Easton, Of Mice and Men, Big Love, Syncopation, On The Road, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Three Tall Women, The Notebook of Trigorin, The Nina Variations, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Collected Stories, On the Verge, Picnic, Freaks, Trio Molemo!, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, and Water Bearer’s Dream. National tours include: Three Tall Women with Marian Seldes and Michael Learned. Film and TV credits include: Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, As the World Turns, 100 Centre Street, 5 Up 2 Down, Pluto Nash, and most recently No Reservations, as well as several national network ad campaigns. Lorca is an artistic associate with Hip Pocket Theatre as a performer, designer and producer. She is also artistic associate with The Waka Foundation focusing on the healing arts, and an advisory board member to several theatre organizations. Lorca has recently conceived Water Bearer’s Dream, being further written and directed by Gabrielle Roth. For more information see HYPERLINK "http://www.lorcasimons.com" www.lorcasimons.com. She is a graduate of The North Carolina School of the Arts and the Duke University summer theatre program.

LAKE SIMONS

Lake Simons has created theatre pieces for the past twelve years combining and experimenting with physical theatre, puppetry and live music. Lake is a recipient of three Jim Henson Foundation Grants, most recently for White Elephant. Which is currently being developed by her and collaborative partner John Dyer and will premier this spring at La Mama E.T.C. in NYC. She is an artistic associate with the Hip Pocket Theatre in Texas where she continues to participate as a director, performer and a designer and helped launch their Cowtown Puppetry Festival in 2003. Lake has worked with many incredible artists including Johnny and Diane Simons, Basil Twist, Lee Brewer, Dan Hurlin, Christopher Williams, Nami Yamamotto, and My Brightest Diamond to name only a few. Lake recently returned from Edinburgh, Scotland where she had the honor of having her and J. Dyers adaptation of Alice In Wonderland at the Fringe Festival. She is a graduate of Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, France and the NC School of the Arts.

HIP POCKET THEATRE

The Hip Pocket Theatre was founded in 1976 by Johnny and Diane Simons and Douglas Balentine, but its “grass roots” origins go back much earlier. Johnny and Diane both earned Masters Degrees from Texas Christian University. While at TCU, Johnny left temporarily to act in New York but returned to school and went to work at Casa Mañana writing and directing children’s plays. He then moved to Houston where Diane was prop master at the Alley Theatre and Johnny put on pantomime performances in public parks.
Douglas met Johnny when he was sixteen and Johnny was the director at Casa Mañana for Huckleberry Finn. Douglas went on to work as a stage manager for Casa Mañana and the National Opera Company, out of Raleigh, North Carolina. After moving back to Fort Worth, the two met again while Douglas was performing at a local piano bar called The Red Slipper. Johnny asked Douglas to perform the role of J. Frank Norris, a preacher and rock ‘n roll piano player, in a new play commissioned by the Texas Bicentennial Committee based on Fort Worth’s history - Out Where the West Begins - an early version of Cowtown! The production was staged at Casa Mañana for an audience of school children. This meeting brought together some of the founding ensemble members of the Hip Pocket Theatre - Jimmy Joe Steenbergen, Grover Coulson, Gary Cunningham, and others.
Out Where the West Begins brought together the theatrical and musical talents of the Hip Pocket Theatre ensemble and created a team led by the vision of Johnny Simons that has staged more than 400 productions, including over 200 world premieres during the past thirty-two years. The first season in 1977 was in a renovated motel on Highway 80 where Diane did the costuming and ran the business side of the theater. Johnny and Douglas did carpentry, roofing and electrical work in addition to their other tasks of writing, directing and composing for each of the plays.
The founding of the Hip Pocket Theatre is also associated with the first production of The Lake Worth Monster, written by Johnny for his Master of Fine Arts degree from Texas Christian University. This landmark production was staged in the Solarium at the Fort Worth Art Museum and began a career for Johnny and Diane Simons that has lasted for 32 years....so far.
At the Highway 80 location the Hip Pocket Theatre put on 21 plays including Cowtown!, Tarzan of the Apes, Tommy, In Watermelon Sugar, Peter Pan, Van Gogh/Gauguin, A Christmas Carol, Tartuffe, The Veldt and others. The Hip Pocket Theatre left the Highway 80 location and moved to the Oak Acres Amphitheater in 1980. They remained at this location until 2004 when they once again moved to their current location on Silver Creek Road.
While at Oak Acres, the theater also put on plays at other locations including the Kimbell Art Museum with whom they put on plays for 5 years. These plays included The Impressario by Bernini, The Spanish Brabanter by Bredero, La Fontaine’s Fables in Mime and Song, A Christmas Carol, The Beggar’s Opera and others. The theater also performed plays at the White Elephant in the Fort Worth Stockyards, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Inwood Theater, The University of North Texas, San Antonio and the Dallas Children’s Theater. The theater was invited to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival Fringe in Edinburgh, Scotland and was the first theatre company to perform in London’s Royal Festival Hall. They took three plays by Simons and Balentine with them and performed in St. Cuthburt's Church Hall, one of the most popular venues in the festival. They shared the space with Deborah Warner's London company, the Kick Theatre. Located on King's Stables Road just off Princess Street Gardens, directly at the foot of the Edinburgh Castle, right in the heart of the city. The performances included Elder Oaks, Tarzan of the Oaks, and Ely Green and the Royal Flying Corps O' Cowtown!
The Hip Pocket Theatre has a long history of impressive Outreach Programs and has presented workshops in conjunction with the Arts Council Neighborhood Arts Program, Azle ISD, Bass Performance Hall, Bethlehem Community Center, Birdville ISD, Boys and Girls Club, Cook Children’s Medical Center, Fort Worth ISD, Imagination Celebration, John Peter Smith Hospital, Kid Code Blue Program, Kimbell Art Museum, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Paris ISD, Poly Community Center, RetroFest, Southwest Theatre Association, Texas Boys Choir, Texas Non-Profit Theatre Association, Texas Educational Theatre Association, Wesley Community Center and others.

This production is being presented through HERE’s Dream Music Puppetry Program and through HERE’s Supported Artist Program, which provides artists with subsidized space and equipment, as well as technical and administrative support.  Since 1993, the OBIE-winning HERE Arts Center has been a premier arts organization in NYC and a leader in the field of new, cross-disciplinary performance work. Under leadership of Founding Artistic Director Kristin Marting and Producing Director Kim Whitener, HERE has served over 12,100 emerging to mid-career artists developing work that does not fit a conventional programming agenda. Work presented at HERE has garnered 13 OBIE awards, an OBIE grant for artistic achievement, three Drama Desk nominations, two Berrilla Kerr Awards, three NY Innovative Theatre Awards, an Edwin Booth Award and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. HERE proudly supports artists at all stages in their careers through full productions, artist residency programs, festivals and subsidized performance and rehearsal space. Work at HERE is curated based on the strength and uniqueness of the artist’s vision. HERE’s Artist Residency Program (HARP) and the Dream Music Puppetry Program provides commissions, development support and full productions for up to 20 artists over one-to-three years. In 2005, with the support of the FJC, a foundation of donor advised funds, Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the City of New York, HERE Arts Center purchased its long-time home as part of a five-year “Secure HERE’s Future” campaign. With full-scale renovations to the space concluding last June, thanks to generous support from the City of New York, HERE is poised to continue and expand its role as a downtown haven for the finest emerging art. Offering a comfortable, eclectic setting for artists and audiences alike, HERE features a new and improved café/gallery and two state-of-the-art performance spaces.

For tickets and information, call 212 352-3101 or connect to HYPERLINK "http://www.here.org" www.here.org

TEXT EXCERPT TRIO MOLEMO!

“Somehow I recall you nestling a doll
A million years ago before today
No one knows for sure why life’s so insecure
It comes and goes so fast, so slow, it seems
The way we are tonight makes everything all right
All righty then, begin the pas de trois
As the music plays and the candles blaze
May we dance our days away with loving port de bras
Forever lovingly loving
Forever lovingly forgiving
Forever lovingly lusty till we arrive old and crusty
At the end of an old dirt road.”

- Lyrics by Johnny Simons

P.O. Box 136758 • Fort Worth, TX • 76136
1950 Silver Creek Rd. • Fort Worth, TX • 76108
W: 817.246.9775 F: 817.246-5651 • Web: www.hippocket.org • e-mail: hpt@hippocket.org