The Exponential Festival presents the world premiere NECK DOWN by Nic Adams from January 9-12, 2025 at We Are Here Brooklyn Studios, 563 Johnson Ave Floor 2, Brooklyn, NY 11237. Tickets start at $12.51 and can be purchased at https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/rainbowsend.

Set in New York City the morning before an ancient coin auction, NECK DOWN is an aural hallucination on the American daydream and the heroism of broke artists. It’s the morning before an ancient coin auction in NYC and early-career artist Ciel is stuck working yet another menial temp assignment. An old money collector arrives early to inspect the legal tender upon which he plans to bid. So begins a daydream about lottery winnings, caskets, sex fantasies, delulus of grandeur, and Big Oil Banks. The physical characters onstage duet with the voices in their heads, mounting a tragicomic class stand-off and a toast to the relentless spirit of artists living on the brink of precarity.

NECK DOWN
We Are Here Brooklyn Studios
563 Johnson Ave Floor 2, Brooklyn, NY 11237

Performances
Thursday, January 9, 2025 at 8pm
Friday, January 10, 2025 at 8pm
Saturday, January 11, 2025 at 2pm & 8pm
Sunday, January 12, 2025 at 2pm

Artists
Written by Nic Adams
Directed by Marissa Joyce Stamps
Produced by Melissa Mickens
Lights by Andre Segar
Sound by Eden Segbefia
Sets by Ettie Pin
Costumes by Karen Boyer
Stage Managed by Sarah Samonte
Assistant Stage Managed by Deniz Demirkurt

Featuring
Alton Alburo, Angela Chew, Cristina Pitter*, Essence Lotus, Jack Dahill, and Riley Wood*

NECK DOWN is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

*Equity Member appearing with permission of Actors’ Equity Association without benefit of an Equity contract in this Off-Off Broadway production.

Nic Adams is a 2025 NYSCA grant recipient for NECK DOWN. He is an NYC-based educator, cultural organizer, and theatre-maker. MFA in playwriting, Brooklyn College (’23). Adams’ work has been presented at Judson Memorial Church, Joe’s Pub, The Bushwick Starr, JACK, and The Brick, among other venues, and by The BEAT Festival, The Performing Garage Presents, and The Exponential Festival, for which he’s served as the Producing Director since 2017. His poetry has been published online at B O D Y Literature, and his short play, Grief Leash, is represented by Tiny Scripted. nicadams.com @neckdown_play

Exponential is a month-long January festival dedicated to New York City-based emerging artists working in experimental performance. The participants in this multi-artist, multi-venue festival are committed to ecstatic creativity in the face of commercialism. Exponential is driven by inclusiveness and a diversity of artists, forms, and ideas coupled with utopian resource-sharing, mentoring and the championing of risky, rigorous work in eclectic fields. theexponentialfestival.org