Austrian Stage Presents The American Premiere of CANNED MEAT 

Austrian Stage presented the US and English-language premiere of Canned Meat, a staged reading of this funny, touching Austrian drama. The performance featured Tony Award Nominee Xanthe Elbrick, alongside Teresa Avia Lim, William DeMeritt and Vince Nappo.

The one-hour long performance was followed by a talk with rising Austrian playwright Ferdinand Schmalz, who flew to New York for the occasion, along with director Guy Ben-Aharon, co-founder of Austrian Stage.

Austrian Stage is an initiative by the Austrian Cultural Forum New York to introduce Austrian contemporary theatre to American audiences, co-founded by Guy Ben-Aharon and Austrian diplomat Christian Ebner.

Canned Meat Fascinated by car accidents, four people collide into one another at a gas station: Rolf, an insurance agent, searching for the reason behind the suspicious, increasing number of crashes; Beate, the owner of the station; Jane, a former movie star whose beauty has been ruined in an accident; and a truck driver who warns us of the dangerous road ahead.

Ferdinand Schmalz (Playwright)
Born 1985 in Graz, Ferdinand lives and works in Vienna. Winner of the Retzhofer Drama Prize 2013 with "considering the butter", and "Theater Heute" - Newcomer of the Year 2014. Three times nominee for the Mülheimer Dramatik Prize. Winner of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize 2017 and the Ludwig-Mülheims-Prize 2018. His rewrite of Hugo von Hofmannsthals „everyman", "jedermann (stirbt)", premiered 2018 at the Burgtheater in Vienna.

Neil Blackadder (Translator)
Neil's translations of plays by authors including Lukas Bärfuss and Ewald Palmetshofer have been staged in London, New York, and Chicago, and frequently presented in staged readings, including at the ACFNY.

Guy Ben-Aharon (Director)
Guy Ben-Aharon is a stage director and cultural entrepreneur committed to international voices. Through his work at Israeli Stage, the Goethe-Institut, the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, and beyond, Guy has directed and presented over 50 plays in translation since 2010, garnering features in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and numerous press outlets. A 2013 Theaterreffen Fellow in Berlin, Germany, and a 2015 AdR Fellow at the University of Cambridge, UK, Guy is a proud Emerson College alum.

Xanthe Elbrick* (Jane)
Broadway: Coram Boy (Tony Award, Drama Desk Nom, Theatre World Award Winner) Off-Broadway: Candida (Drama Desk Award), Beebo Brinker Chronicles, Peter And The Starcatcher (original workshop cast). Sith Inquisitor: STAR WARS The Old Republic, Body Of Lies (dir. Ridley Scott), Igraine The Brave (Peoples Choice Award). Trained at Royal Academy Of Dramatic Art, Actors Studio MFA.

William DeMeritt* (Rolf)
Off-Broadway: The Death of The Last Black Man... (Signature Theatre), Mom, How Did You Meet the Beatles? (Public Theatre), Edward II (Playwrights Horizons), Liz Swados' Violence Project (LaMaMa Etc.). Regional: Shakespeare In Love (U.S. premiere, OSF), We, the Invisibles (Humana Festival), Sense & Sensibility (Dallas Theatre Center), King John (Shakespeare Theater of NJ), Romeo & Juliet (Yale Rep), Amsterdam Fringe, N.P.C. at the O'Neill Theater Center, NY Fringe, NY Stage & Film Festival, UCB Theater. Film/TV: The Outs, Person of Interest, Law & Order:SVU, The Lennon Report, & HBO's The Normal Heart. Official voice of The New Yorker on the AUDM app. Creator of the award-winning one man show, Origin Story. BFA Marymount Manhattan College, MFA Yale School of Drama.

Vince Nappo* (Truck Driver)
Selected theatre: The Broadway National tour of Million Dollar Quartet, playing Sam Phillips and Off-Broadway's The Merchant Of Venice and The Jew Of Malta, with Theatre For A New Audience. The Merchant of Venice transferred to the Royal Shakespeare Company and played in their Complete Works Festival in 2006-2007. Selected TV: Jack Ryan, The Last Tycoon, I'm Dying Up Here, NCIS, Reign, Shades Of Blue, Castle, Red Widow, and Controversy.vincenappo.com

Teresa Avia Lim* (Beate)
Last seen on Broadway as Judy Chen in Ayad Akhatar´s JUNK at Lincoln Center. Other works: Shakespeare in the Park´s all female production of Taming of the Shrew, NAATCO´S Awake and Sing and Macbeth with the Mobile Shakespeare Unit at The Public Theatre. Her TV/Film credits include a role on this season of Ray Donovan, The Schopenhauer Cure, Blue Bloods, Limitless, Unforgettable, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Dispatched, Take Me With You and Monster. Teresa is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and an inaugural Recipient of the Jerome L. Green Foundation Scholarship.