Travel 1920s Europe with a group of weary, aimless, and frequently inebriated American ex-patriates searching for identity, redemption, and diversion. Acclaimed New York ensemble Elevator Repair Service brings The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway’s first major novel, to the stage using only the novel's words to create a full theatrical production. Imbued with the ensemble’s trademark sound design, highly energized choreography, and live, re-imagined bullfighting, this classic of American literature is given the immediacy found only in live performance.

A stage littered with liquor bottles and cafe chairs seamlessly transforms itself from the bistros of Paris to the banks of the Irati River; a long bar table roars to life and charges a champion matador; an out of control dance party takes off during a night of nonstop revelry. As The Sun Also Rises (The Select) winds its way through France and Spain and lands in Pamplona where bullfighting and the fiesta rage in the streets, Hemingway's narrator carries the heavy burdens of a war injury and his inability to have the woman he loves; a woman whose amorous escapades he follows with bemused but painful fatalism.

"Elevator Repair Service has provided a magical opportunity: the chance to rediscover some of the thrill that came with encountering and gradually embracing one of the great achievements of Western literature for the first time."
Ben Brantley, The New York Times

In short: Hemingway hits the stage, booze, bullfighting, 1920s Europe, fiesta and siesta, leaving the war behind.

Elevator Repair Service’s (Gatz, Live Arts Festival, 2007) stage interpretations of classic American novels by F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and now Ernest Hemingway have garnered critical acclaim across the world.

Direction John Collins Text Ernest Hemingway Sound Matt Tierney and Ben Williams Set David Zinn Lighting Mark Barton Costumes David Zinn and Colleen Werthmann Dance & Movement Coach Katherine Profeta Stage Manager/Assistant Director Sarah Hughes Producer Ariana Smart Truman Production Manager B.D. White Company Manager Lindsay Hockaday Performers Frank Boyd, Mike Iveson, Vin Knight, Kate Scelsa, Kaneza Schaal, Pete Simpson, Susie Sokol, Lucy Taylor, Matt Tierney, Ben Williams

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John Collins (director) founded Elevator Repair Service (ERS) in 1991 at Nada with his first production, Mr. Antipyrine, Fire Extinguisher. In the 19 years since, he has directed or codirected all of the company's shows. From 1993 to 2006 he worked for The Wooster Group as a sound designer (two Drama Desk nominations and two Bessie Awards). As a lighting designer, he won a Bessie Award for his design of ERS' Room Tone. John is the recipient of a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama and Performance Art. John was born in North Carolina and raised in Vidalia, Georgia. He holds a BA in English and theater studies from Yale.

Sarah C. Hughes (assistant director/stage manager) joined ERS in 2007 and works full time for the company, managing the office and touring with Gatz, The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928), and The Sun Also Rises. She is a resident artist with Odyssey Productions and a founding member of Superhero Clubhouse theater collective. Off Broadway credits include ERS’s The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928), The Misanthrope, Dartmouth College Residency 2007 & 2008 (New York Theatre Workshop), Godot in New Orleans, and 365 Days/365 Plays (The Classical Theater of Harlem). Sarah is a graduate of Dartmouth College.

Ariana Smart Truman (producer) is a theater and event producer specializing in fundraisers for non-profits. She has worked with ERS as company manager since 2006, and full-time as producer since 2007. Other companies worked with include The Wooster Group, Radiohole, Collapsable Giraffe, Sibyl Kempson, Richard Maxwell, Yehuda Duenyas, HERE, Soho Rep, Science Project, Wax Factory, and Montclair State University’s Peak Performance. She cofounded The Wooster Group’s Summer Institute with Kate Valk, and continues to direct it. She recently appeared in New York City Players's Ads. She is on the board of Ugly Duckling Presse (uglyducklingpresse.org). Ariana grew up in San Francisco, is a graduate of Vassar College, and studied with Maggie Flanigan in New York.

David Zinn's (set/costume design) credits with ERS include The Sun Also Rises, The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928) at New York Theatre Workshop. Broadway: costumes for Xanadu. Off Broadway: set for Chair at Theatre for a New Audience, set for Paradise Park at the Signature, sets and costumes for The Four of Us at Manhattan Theater Club. Other off-Broadway sets and/or costumes at New York Theatre Workshop, Second Stage, MTC, MCC, Atlantic, Theater For a New Audience, SALT, Target Margin (company member, Obie Award). Opera: sets and costumes for New York City Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago. Regional: ART, Yale Rep, Seattle Rep, Guthrie, Mark Taper Forum, Intiman, and many others.

Colleen Werthmann (costume designer) is a founding member of ERS and is also an actor and writer. Her ERS designs include The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928) , No Great Society, Gatz, Room Tone, Cab Legs, Shut Up I Tell You (I Said Shut Up I Tell You) , McGurk: A Cautionary Tale, Language Instruction, Spine Check, andMarx Brothers. She has also designed for Young Jean Lee and Julia Jarcho. As an actor, she has worked at The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, Yale Rep, McCarter, La Jolla Playhouse, Soho Rep, PS 122, and many other venues. Film and TV credits include Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Sopranos, Sex and the City, and The Pink Panther.

Mark Barton's (lighting designer) credits with ERS include Gatz and The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928) (Hewes Design Award nomination). Recent Off Broadway credits include Circle Mirror Transformation, The Shipment, Chair, and Paradise Park. He has worked with NYC companies including Elevator Repair Service, Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, Theater for a New Audience, Playwrights Horizons, New York Theater Workshop, Target Margin, Signature Theater, Salt Theater, P.S.122, New Georges, and Clubbed Thumb. Regional work includes productions at Yale Rep, Perseverance Theater, Berkeley Rep, LA Theater Center/Kirk Douglas Theater, Woolly Mammoth, A.R.T., Lookingglass Theater, Syracuse Stage, and Asolo Rep.

Dans Maree Sheehan (associate lighting designer) is originally from Australia but currently works as a lighting designer out of New York. Recent dance designs include work by Karole Armitage, Troy Powell, Kathleen Dyer, Dwight Rhoden & Johannes Wieland. Recent theater design credits include Alice the Magnet (dir. Pam McKinnon), Hedda Gabler (dir. Cigdem Onat), Le Bourgeois Avant Garde (dir. Emma Griffin), Mourn the Living Hector (dir. Shira Milikowsky), Never As Happy & Don Juan (dir. Javierantonio Gonzalez), Dead Letter Office & Scratch (dir. Meiyin Wang), Crime & Punishment (dir. Sheila Daniels), and Bed Bugs (Samuel Buggeln). She is currently touring with David Dorfman Dance and Elevator Repair Service and holds an MFA from NYU. www.danssheehan.com.

Ben Williams (sound designer/performer), a native of Culleoka, Tennessee, has worked for ERS as an actor, sound designer, technical director, and production manager since 2004. Credits with ERS include The Sun Also Rises,The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928) , No Great Society, and Gatz. Recent projects include Walse-Fantasie, a solo dance for Mikhail Baryshnikov (voice-over), American Treasure by Julia Jarcho for 13P (PM&TD), Chain City, a video installation by Elizabeth Diller for the Venice Biennale (voice-over) , and the Summer Institute at the Performing Garage (Sound, TD).

Matt Tierney (sound designer/performer) makes his debut as an ERS performer in The Sun Also Rises. His sound design credits with ERS include The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928) . Other recent sound designs include That Face (MTC), THIS (Playwrights Horizons), Blasted (Soho Rep), and Judgment Day (Bard SummerScape). He is an associate of Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company and The Wooster Group (Hamlet at The Public, the film There’s Still Time..Brother, Who’s You Dada? at MOMA, and The Emperor Jones). Other credits include several productions with Ridge Theater Company including The Death of Klinghoffer (BAM), Decasia and Jennie Richee (Obie award).

B. D. White (production manager) has also worked for Manhattan Class Company on Some Girl(s) , Frozen, Fat Pig, Runt of the Litter, A Letter from Ethel Kennedy, The Mercy Seat, Scattergood, Intrigue With Faye, Bright Ideas, The Distance From Here, What of the Night, Colder Than Here, Nixon’s Nixon, and The Wooden Breeks. He has also toured with Jam on the Groove, the Hip-Hop dance Musical, The Core Ensemble, and the Elevator Repair Service's production of Gatz.

Frank Boyd (performer) is an actor, writer, and director based in Seattle, Washington. With ERS, Frank has toured this past year with Gatz. As a company member of the TEAM, Frank performed in Particularly In the Heartland (PS122, BAC, Bristol Old Vic) and was a co-creator of Architecting (Public Theater, Barbican, Traverse). Frank wrote and played the lead in the independent film B.U.S.T. (Special Jury Prize, 2010 Dallas International Film Festival) and directed the upcoming film Claim Your Prize. Frank studied drama at New York University.

Mike Iveson (performer) started performing with ERS in 2006 and has appeared in ERS's The Sun Also Rises, The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928), and Gatz. Other recent activities include playing piano in Richard Maxwell's Ode to the Man Who Kneels (Performing Garage, NY, European tours), dancing in Sarah Michelson's Dover Beach (Chapter Arts, Cardiff, Wales), performing with Sibyl Kempson in Crime or Emergency (Soho Rep and PS 122, NY and in So Much To Go Crazy (Fusebox Festival, Austin, TX), and writing the music for Kate Ryan's play DOT (Ohio Theatre, NY).

Vin Knight's (performer) credits with ERS include The Sun Also Rises, The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928) , No Great Society, and Gatz. Other credits include The Temperamentals (Barrow Group), The Butcherhouse Chronicles (SPF 2006), Go-Go Kitty, GO! (Fringe 2005, Outstanding Play), Ted Kaczynski Killed People With Bombs (SPF 2005), over two dozen productions with adobe theatre company, performances at Clubbed Thumb, Andhow!, Hourglass Group, Soho Rep, HERE, and New Georgesand Theatreworks/USA. He is a graduate of Yale University.

Kate Scelsa (performer) has been a member of ERS since 2002. Since then she has appeared with the company in NYC and on tour as seven-year-old Caddy in The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928) and as Lucille in Gatz. Regional credits include Kick the Can by Jim Lehrer, Macbeth, Waiting for Godot, and Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson at Luna Stage in Montclair, New Jersey. Kate recently finished writing her first novel for teen readers.

Kaneza Schaal (performer) joined ERS in 2007 on The Sound and The Fury (April Seventh, 1928). She is the Arts in Education manager for The Wooster Group and performs in the company's new production, Vieux Carré. Schaal received the 2009 Princess Grace George C. Wolf Award to apprentice with Kate Valk. Recently she appeared in Bellona: Destroyer of Cities directed by Jay Scheib at The Kitchen and performed at The Whitney Biennial with Lars Jan. Raised in Northern California, she earned her BA from Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

Pete Simpson (performer) debuted with ERS in their European tour of The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928). For over a decade, Pete has performed with critically acclaimed experimental companies and directors such as Richard Maxwell, The Wooster Group, Richard Foreman, and Young Jean Lee. He has also performed and directed for the Blue Man Group since the mid 90s. He continues collaborations with theater and video artists and companies such as Big Dance Theater, Rainpan 43, Aaron Landsman, Matt Schneck and Alix Pearlstein. He recently completed a guest artist/professorship at his alma mater, performing the title role in Hamlet. Film and TV credits include Law and Order, Conan O'Brien, Morning Glory, and Stefan. He holds an MFA from the National Theater Conservatory.

Susie Sokol (performer) is a second grade teacher at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn where she has taught for fourteen years. Susie began performing with ERS in 1992. Since then, she has appeared in all ERS productions. She has also worked with theater artists Katherine Profeta and Sibyl Kempson.

Lucy Taylor (performer) was born in England, grew up in Australia, and moved to New York and joined ERS in 2005. She is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts (acting) and the Australian National University (art history with honors). With ERS she has performed in Gatz and The Sun Also Rises. In Australia, Lucy has worked with Company B Belvoir, Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, and Malthouse Theatre. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and son.