Westchester Native Ryan Mallon Returns for World Premiere of Play

Pleasantville, NY– Mount Kisco-born, Carmel-bred, longtime Yorktown Heights resident Ryan Mallon is returning to both the county and the stage where his career in theatre began when he performs the role of Rudy from November 2 – 18 in the world premiere of Senescence, a compelling new play by Axial’s founder, Howard Meyer. Mallon met Rachel Jones and Meyer nearly 20 years ago in his young teens through the Howard Meyer Acting Program, the first acting school he’d ever enrolled in. Three years later, the company made its move to Pleasantville. Axial is celebrating its 20th anniversary in Westchester this year.

“Something clicked,” says Mallon. “I knew after just a few classes that I was committed to acting and that Howard was the person who would lead me on the journey.” Over the years, Ryan added playwriting and producing to his credits.
In his early 20s, Mallon joined the Axial Ensemble Company where he had parts in several Axial plays including Meyer’s Angel Beastand Welcome, this is a Neighborhood Watch Community, and The Rest of Your Lifeby Megan Mostyn-Brown in 2013. He also penned short plays that appeared at Axial including one in a festival he mounted in collaboration with Linda Giuliano, a playwright who is now Axial’s co-artistic director together with Catherine Banks. He moved to Queens in 2014 and launched a production company called Antiphon that has produced readings of original plays at Off Broadway stages in Manhattan.
When the opportunity arose to take on a truly challenging role in Meyer’s latest piece, Senescence, Mallon leaped at the chance.
“Mallon is one of Axial’s legacy actors,” says Meyer. “I’ve seen him do wonderful work in rehearsal and it’s a very special experience to watch someone interpret your words, someone who’s done it at various times for over 20 years.”
Senescencetells the story of Rudy and Natalia, a couple since their teens, and their lifelong friend Geo who were born in the refinery town of Linden, NJ, a place known for the plumes of smoke that can be seen as you drive near it, especially on a windy day when a storm is brewing. The three, now 30, never left. Many of their parents died way too soon.
The play turns around the arrival of a mysterious drifter who calls himself ‘J’ which coincides with the coming of Hurricane Sandy. J tries to persuade the refinery bosses to make dramatic changes in their production and dumping practices, changes he tried to get a refinery in Texas to make after his own father died after working there for years – a result of the same toxins that J is convinced killed the parents of Rudy, Natalia and Geo. J’s frustration only mounts as he is forced to accept that nothing will happen if he can’t break through the layer of denial engulfing the threesome. In time, signs and signals start moving the friends and the town towards a series of harrowing and unwelcome realizations.
Award-winning filmmaker/director James Fauvell is directing.
Senescence will run Friday, November 2, 9 and 16 and Saturday, November 3, 10, and 17 at 8 p.m; Saturday matinees at 3 p.m.; and Sunday matinees at 4 p.m., November 4, 11 and 18. Tickets are $27.50 general audiences; $22.50 for seniors and students. Axial Theatre is located on the campus of St. John’s Episcopal Church, 8 Sunnyside Ave., Pleasantville, NY. Visit www.axialtheatre.org for tickets and information.
Meyer’s most recent original work, Paint Made Flesh, recently completed a run at The Cell in Manhattan; it was a semi-finalist at the 2015 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and PlayPenn and selected by The Last Frontier Theatre Conference.
New York City-based filmmaker and frequent downtown theater director James Fauvell regularly works with Tony and Emmy-nominated director Scott Ellis and is a member of the 2017 Lincoln Center Directors Lab.