This Winter Horse Trade and EXIT Theatre return to bring you a festival that is uncensored, unjuried and totally downtown.

Wed 2/25 10:30 PM Sat 2/28 4:00 PM Sun 3/01 7:00 PM Thu 3/05 9:00 PM Sat 3/07 10:00 PM	An absurdly slow day on the Jersey Turnpike takes a sudden turn when two toll booth attendants face impending doom barreling towards them... in the form of a truck filled with chickens. Audience Choice Awards www.myspace.com/InternationalBTC
	Milo waits for his dream woman. Jane waits for tomorrow. And neither seems to be coming. With their reality twisted like a bad, bad bottle of peppermint schnapps they struggle to salvage their broken dreams when suddenly they hear a-cluckin’… But what does it mean?

The BTC mission is to create and produce thought-provoking, entertaining and affordable theatre, as we believe theatre does not only belong to those who create it, but also those who love and enjoy it.  Our belief is that a play is never set and written in stone, but constantly evolving through active collaboration and audience participation.

The International Brain Transplant Committee was formed in the summer of 2007 by Sean Kenealy, Jeff Belanger and Amanda Sage Comerford, three alumni of the SUNY Purchase Dramatic Writing Conservatory.  Now a year and a half old, they have written and produced four productions appearing on the Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway stages.  NYC credits include: Plays I Wrote While Unemployed (Crowne Theater, Producer's Club); Dying's easy... (Director's Theatre); BTC One-Acts: A Reading; Working it Out (Red Room, FRIGID New York 2008) and What Cheer, Iowa (Riant Theatre, 2008 Strawberry Festival).   Strawberry Festival awards include: Best Director (Sean Kenealy), Best Actor (Zach Harvey) and a nomination for Best Play (Jeff Belanger, playwright).  In the 2008 FRIGID New York Festival, Working it Out was one of four productions, out of thirty in total, which had sold out performances.

 
Student shows include: Home and Away: An Evening of New Writing (Signature Theatre); Go, Plays, Go: An Evening of One-Acts, written and directed by Sean Kenealy and Jeff Belanger; and Through : A Reading of One-Acts, written and directed by Amanda Sage Comerford.  Student awards include: President's Award in Dramatic Writing (Jeff Belanger) and the Dean's Award for Dramatic Writing (Amanda Sage Comerford).

Cast and Crew

Helena Gleissner (Jane) has her BFA in theatre performance from Shorter College, Ga.  She has her Masters in theatre from Michigan State University.  Some of her favorite roles are Angie from Top Girls, Babette from Wiseacre Farm, and Inez in No Exit.  As well as acting, she has been directing in New York for almost three years and has had productions with 13th Street Rep, BTC Productions, and assisted directed with PetroLab Productions and the Irish Repertory Theatre.

Ian Temple (Milo) has been acting since first grade.  He is a recent graduate of SUNY Purchase's acting conservatory, class of '08 where he played Orlando in As You Like It, originated the role of Kev in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo and played Marvin Hudgens in Dark of the Moon in the SUNY Purchase PAC.  Ian has performed on 42nd Street at the John Houseman Theater in Library Play, and got his first chance to work with Jeff Belanger in his play Black Flies, performed at the Signature Theater.  In addition to stage work, Ian adores Film, and the feature-length thriller, Target, directed by Carlos Ferrer, will be coming to theaters this Summer, along with When The Dogs Cried Out, directed by Aaron Jackson.  Ian is so grateful to his friends and family, for their Herculean love and support, as well as the brilliant writers of this play.  Lastly, Ian would like to thank God (whatever his/her real name is) for the opportunity to pursue his dreams to the utmost.

The International Brain Transplant Committee has its origins with the creation of the "City of Camden Cranial Interest Group" (CCCIG) which formed on November 21st, 1877 in the wilds of Camden, NJ by world renowned brain surgeons: Dr. E.A Holstein, Dr. Perry Shanks and Dr. Gates M. Helms.  They were the foremost practitioners of cutting through people's skulls and touching all up in their brains.  They would perform these feats in alleyways and tar paper shacks in the woods.  They would meet regularly to discuss the finer points of their craft - like how much they disliked really wet brains (Dr. Helms and Holstein always made sure to point out that Dr. Shanks would usually bring this subject up, insisting wet brains to be tawdry.  "It shined like a worn out lady of the night" as he would put it, breathing heavily into a blood stained handkerchief soaked with ether). 
 
CCCIG remained virtually unknown until October 4th, 1885 when Dr. Holstein was approached with the request to see her "Brain Surgery" in action and was willing to exchange either cash or liquor for entry.  Holstein told Helm and Shanks at their next meeting and the three decided to open their procedures (now called Performances) to the public.  Thus, the earliest forms of theater were born.  People came in herds, more than willing to pay the at the time ridiculous entry fee of twenty dollars. 
 
As they grew in popularity, the three grew bored with simply sawing people's heads open and feeling their brains or scratching dirty limericks in the upside of their skulls.  They then made the decision that would forever shake the blossoming art scene to its core: they wanted to take OUT the brain and PUT it somewhere else.  So they changed their name to the now familiar International Brain Transplant Committee.  They began training legions of performers to assist, study and refine brain transplanting techniques. 
 
Unfortunately, Dr. Helms, Shanks and Holstein were all murdered by a bear one night.  They stopped transplanting brains because they were all dead after that. 
 
And that's why we have this company.  We're very sorry.