If You Start a Fire
[Be Prepared to Burn]

A Play in Two Acts
by Kevin Kautzman
1F / 1M +1?
© 2011

IF YOU START A FIRE
[BE PREPARED TO BURN]
 NYC Premiere
@ Mondays Dark
New York, NY
 September: 3rd – 30th

Synopsis

An Internet sex comedy for the Recession Generation!  Lucy and Chris are typical American twenty-somethings struggling to survive the Great Recession with their dignity intact.  They hate their jobs like most everybody else, but they need the insurance, and at least they have each other.  Right?  When Chris loses his job, he convinces Lucy they should launch a boutique sex website and sell the idea of her as an all-American girl next door, somehow both pure and hedonistic at the same time…

Reviews

A Comedy that Raises Serious Questions – A sexy romp through Kautzman’s clever banter and thought-provoking comedy… If You Start a Fire… explores issues unique to the 21st Century, with themes as old as the Greek story of Pandora’s Box… Ultimately, If You Start a Fire is a clever look at an intriguing question: what becomes of intimacy in a world where human relationships are increasingly defined in the virtual, digital space?
-  Patty Nolan, Detroit Examiner

Kautzman’s text is magnificent as he submerges these two characters robbed of forethought into a trajectory of pure discovery… Salacious, curious, and certainly a multimedia spectacle, this cutting-edge, boundary-pushing comedy is poised to win viewers on the strength of its online and offline connections both.
- Carolyn Hayes, RogueCritic.com

Production History

IF YOU START A FIRE [BE PREPARED TO BURN] was originally presented by the New Theatre Project on February 17, 2012 under the artistic direction of Keith Paul Medalis and directed by Natividad Salgado with designs by Janine Woods Thoma. The cast was as follows:

CHRIS/CHRIXXX……………… Peter Giessl
LUCY/LUXXX………………… Elise Randall
BIG_BEN (Voice)……………. Keith Paul Medalis
TOMMYKNOCKER (Voice)……….. Andrew Sandoval

Development

> IF YOU START A FIRE [BE PREPARED TO BURN] was written with the support of a 2009-10 Jerome Fellowship from the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis.

AV

[1] The New Theatre Project Trailer: Hers
[2] The New Theatre Project Trailer: His

  Online Excerpt: Spring 2012 Edition of the Inciting Incident
10 Page Excerpt
Request IF YOU START A FIRE [BE PREPARED TO BURN]

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