"Angry Young Women in Low Rise Jeans with High Class Issues"

By Dawn Chiarelli

"Angry Women in Low Rise Jeans with High Class Issues" L to R: Jessica Durdock and Devon Pipars Photo: Anthony Ruiz

An excerpt of Matt Morillo's "Angry Young Women in Low Rise Jeans with High Class Issues" was performed at Theater for the New City as the midnight show on May 28, 2006 in the Lower East Side Festival of the Arts. Artistic director Crystal Field was so charmed by the humor of the play and the excellence of the ensemble that she invited playwright/director Matt Morillo to return with his cast for a full production at Theater for the New City in January, 2007. So the Kings and Desperate Men Players, who packed the Duo Theater for six weeks last season, will return to the East Village for a new engagement January 4 to February 11, 2007 to share the play with a wider audience.

In 2005, humorist Matt Morillo didn't think "Sex in the City" was funny enough. So he set out to write his own play about what makes foxy women tick, while avoiding the long shadow of "The Vagina Monologues" (which is too "ovarian" to inspire male writers). He began with a series of character studies based on simple listening, discovery and whatever flew into his head. Out came "Angry Young Women in Low-Rise Jeans with High-Class Issues," a light-to-serious look at the psychology of urban goddesses.

It's one thing to be beautiful by an act of God. It's another to be paying for it every day of your life. These girls are coffee-driven, sensitive, wired, misunderstood and fuming with awkward issues. The play parades a series of foxy, witty and anxious women who bear the expectations of the world like an itchy muffler. They are frustrated with the way of the world, the perceptions men have of them and their own reactions to it.

How, for example, do you resolve contradictions like dressing as a hooker and still being a feminist? So they go head to head with such issues as Electra complexes, bikini waxes, low rider jeans, their oversexed mothers, thongs, brazen teenagers, men's sexual fantasies, side effects of birth control drugs, mean teenagers on the subway, sympathy sex and the artistic integrity of penises and vaginas in independent films.

"Angry Young Women with Low Rise Jeans and High Class Issues" plays January 4 to February 11, 2007 at Theater for the New City (Cino Theater), 155 First Avenue (at E. 10th Street). Shows are Thursday through Saturday at 8:00 PM; Sundays at 3:00 PM. Tickets are $20 Thursday through Saturday; Sunday is "pay what you can. Box office is SMARTTIX (212) 868-4444; www.smarttix.com. For further information, visit www.kadm.com.