Cooler will be presented at The Chocolate Factory Theater in Long Island City April 9-24, 2010. Dylan McCullough will direct. Actors are Crystall Finn, Havilah Brewster, Jocelyn Kuritsky and Michael Tisdale. Ben Kato will design lights and set.

This will be a co-production between The Chocolate Factory and my theater company, WunderKammerTheater. WunderkammerTheater is a sponsored artist of Fractured Atlas.

Gary Winter is a member of the OBIE award-winning theater company, 13P. About his play At Said, critic Helen Shaw (The NY Sun) wrote: "The sensation is like watching Harold Pinter, feeling our most trusted words turn into slippery bars of meaning in our hands."

Cooler is an abstract play about a group of people who live in a cooler under a mysterious but palpable oppressive force. Their language has been warped and the rules of their society have been confused, and they struggle to reconcile their desires and impulses with the chilling environment they find themselves in. The play operates in an almost dream-like state as the characters experiment with language, will, and the nature of oppression — both external and self-imposed.

In October of 2006 Cooler was developed at NYU's FirstLook@NewPlays program.

The Chocolate Factory has proven to be an invaluable theater for emerging and established artists. Besides dance, performance and multi-media artists, they have supported works by Mac Wellman, Ruth Margraff, Ken Urban and NTUSA. The Artistic Director, Brian Rogers, selects his season, and the Chocolate Factory offers the space, rehearsal time, publicity and front-of-house staff, at an estimated cost of $12,000. While this presents an exciting opportunity for me, Wunderkammer Theater still have to raise about $12,400 to pay the design team, director, actors, and for sets, props, and costumes.

We hope you can help us realize our goal and make this exciting New York premiere of Cooler happen. Please make out a check to Fractured Atlas, and write in the memo line, Donation to Cooler.

Please mail all checks to: Gary Winter 195 Willoughby Ave #402 Brooklyn NY 11205.

Or you may go the Fractured Atlas web site for Cooler at: https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/contribute/donate/2206


LEVELS OF SUPPORT

Iceberg: $1,800
Igloo: $1,000
Freezer: $500
Snow Cone $350
Snow Ball: $250
Shaved Ice: $100
Icicle: $50
Ice Cube: $20

Cooler is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Cooler may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.