After a successful run at the 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Allison is excited to stage the show in New York. Step Mama Drama! is based on true stories and personal experiences; stepmonsters and loving friends are included in this journey exploring the role of the stepmother. This new work looks at the many facets of being a stepparent or stepchild. Allison hopes that you will enjoy the joys and the dramas found in Step Mama Drama!
This solo show is collection of monologues and song that reflects on the sometimes stressful, fun, odd, and exhausting role of the stepmother. Allison shares many of her own ups, downs, and discoveries through her experience as well as other perspectives that she has gathered through interviews. This journey is sometimes humorous as well as troubling and this solo show works to strike a balance of the extremes found in the role of being a stepmom. If you are, a stepparent or a mature stepchild this show is must see for you at the 2019 United Solo!
Allison is an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama, and has performed in NYC at the East to Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the International Theatre Festival of Sibiu, Romania, Switzerland, and at ancient theatres in Greece.
TICKETS ($45 plus a $2.25 Theatre Restoration Charge) are available at the Theatre Row/Studio Theatre, 410 West 42nd Street (btw 9th & 10th Ave), NYC, NY 10036. Subways: A/C/E to 42nd Street. Tickets are available at the Theatre Row Box Office or at http://unitedsolo.org/us/2019-stepmamadrama/ or by calling Telecharge at 212-239-6200. Running time: 48 minutes.
Breakout Canadian playwright/actor, Melanie Teichroeb, brings her solo show to United Solo’s Tenth Anniversary season on October 31, 2019 at 7:30pm. Travel back to tenth century Sweden for a Norse RED Talk. Think TED Talks with a Viking twist. Viking warrior, Ingrid, worked hard to get where she is. But it’s lonely at the top. She’s looking for the courageous and honourable to join her. You know, folks who know how to have fun and don’t mind the notion of a little death. This warrior is battle hardened but cracks in her emotional armour reveal a struggle with forces beyond her control. Rage, Sexuality, equality, grief and trauma are addressed with humour and compassion. Modern women can learn from Ingrid.
SHIELD MAIDEN is a clarion call that empowers everyone, especially women, to find their inner warrior. It also invites men to be allies in the battle for equality. This fiery and funny feminist play is a response to #MeToo and #TimesUp. This play sells out festivals. Don’t miss out!
Finland Magician Robert Jägerhorn has been performing for the last two decades with notable performances at the legendary Magic Castle in Hollywood, Monday Night Magic in New York (off-Broadway), as well as performing his one-man show “Waiting for Hitchcock” in London, Stockholm, Edinburgh, Warsaw and New York. He is the recipient of numerous awards including The Magician of the Year (awarded by The Finnish Magic Circle) and Entertainer of the Year (awarded by The Finnish Artist Association). Robert has been a full-time professional magician since 1997 with more than 1000 corporate clients. He has a Master’s degree in Theatre and Drama from The Theatre Academy of Finland.
This is a one man´s stand-alone stand-up pop-up show with magic!
A one man´s WHAT?! Robert Jägerhorn is a magician who brings onto the stage an intimate and personal show full of surprises. Robert throws himself into situations where objects are not what they seem to be, things appear from nowhere and he changes from one character to another. The atmosphere is tense but free, funny but touching, true but unreal. What is this? Come along and try to figure out for yourself!
Written and performed by Robert Jägerhorn, directed by Markus Zink. Photo: Henrik Schütt.
Theatre Row/Studio Theatre, 410 West 42nd Street (btw9th & 10th Ave), NYC, NY 10036. Subways: A/C/E to 42nd Street. Tickets are of $45.00 and are available at the Theatre Row Box Office or at http://unitedsolo.org/us/2019-justforfun/- or by calling Telecharge at 212-239-6200. Running time: 45 minutes. Recommended for all audiences.
Don Carlos: Prince of Asturias Theatre Row | New York City | October 25th, 2019 | 7:30PM
The World Premiere of Don Carlos: Prince of Asturias, written and performed by Oscar Emmanuel Fabela, is headed the largest Solo Performance Festival in the world: The United Solo Festival in New York City, celebrating its 10th anniversary.
Set at the peak of the Spanish Inquisition, Don Carlos: Prince of Asturias takes us to 16th Century Madrid: a world led by misogynistic patriarchy in which the one-sided view of religion and state ruled the world with fear tactics in attempts to cleanse the population.
Don Carlos was future king of Spain after the most powerful king of Spain, King Phillip II, but his physical deformities and personality anomalies deemed him unfit to rule in a Patriotic and Puritan Spaniard’s eye. Among the deformities, were weak hands, a light step, outrageous temper, and sexual deviancy. Don Carlos was seen as different and therefore immoral, thus the Royal Court would stop at nothing to ensure that Don Carlos never ruled the mighty, clean, and pure kingdom of Spain. Even his father, King Phillip II, would go to extremes including marrying Carlos’ promised wife-to-be, Isabel of Valois. Will Don Carlos fight for his right to live, or succumb to erasure?
Don Carlos: Prince of Asturias will have its World Premiere on October 25th, 2019 at 7:30pm at Theatre Row / Studio Theatre, 410 W. 42nd St. New York, NY 10036. Subways A/C/E to 42nd St. Tickets are $40 and are available at http://www.unitedsolo.org/us/2019-doncarlos/ or by calling Ticketmaster at 212-239-6200. This production is Directed by Sylvia Cervantes Blush with Stage Management and Lighting Design by Rachel Zimmerman. instagram.com/doncarlosprinceofasturias/ | facebook.com/DonCarlosPOA | http://www.oscarfabela.com
Oscar Emmanuel Fabela (Writer/Performer) is a Mexican-American Actor and Writer raised in South Texas, and a proud Scholar of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts. A recent Graduate of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film & Television, and The British American Drama Academy at University of Oxford, he was awarded the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Golden Globes Acting Fellowship. After working with Francis Ford Coppola on his latest project Distant Vision, Oscar has served as an Actor and/or Writer for theater companies such as The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Anne Bogart’s SITI Company, A Noise Within Theater in Pasadena, and the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław, Poland.
Sylvia Cervantes Blush (Director) is a Mexican-American theater artist from Bell Gardens, CA and a first gen Master of Fine Arts, Director of Theater. Her artistic journey began as a dancer, doubled as an actor, and now uses those two passions to inform her creative visions as a director. With the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, she has directed a staged reading of The Refugee Hotel by Carmen Aguirre for the Latinx Play Project and was assistant director to Marcela Lorca on The Count of Monte Cristo. As a Mellon Fellow she served her residency during the 2014 Encuentro Festival at The Los Angeles Theatre Center. She was an assistant director and choreographer on El Largo Camino de Hoy/The Long Road Today: a play inspired by and for the residents of Santa Ana for South Coast Repertory. In 2017, she spearheaded the Latinx Theater Comunión at UCLA, a student run organization exploring the works by classical and contemporary Latinx writers. Directing credits include: Medea, Tanya Saracho’s Mala Hierba, Electricidad by Luis Alfaro, The Vagina Monologues, Cowboy Mouth, Bill’s Shorts One and Two, Grease and Once Upon A Mattress. Last summer she co-directed Women and Servants by Lope de Vega for LA Escena: Los Angeles Hispanic Classical Theater Festival. Sylvia is an Associate Member with the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment with Digging In Their Heels The Story of Women’s Suffrage Told In A Way You’ll Never Forget! October 17, 7:30 p.m. at Theatre Row
“I’ve always enjoyed Sally Perkins’ storytelling, but this year she outdid herself. I laughed. I clapped. I cheered. The audience gave her a standing ovation. Who thought the history of women’s suffrage could be so entertaining? This is a story with a twist.” – Indy Fringe Reviews
Sally’s energetic storytelling talent makes an old history lesson thoroughly enjoyable, funny, inspiring & relevant for today. A story ALL Americans need to hear!” — IN Sec. of State Connie Lawson
Celebrate the 19th Amendment with Sally Perkins’ one-woman show Digging In Their Heels: An Energized, Eye-Opening Story of Women’s Battle for the Vote on October 17, 2019, 7:30 p.m. as part of NYC’s 2019 United Solo Theatre Festival.
If Susan B. Anthony and her pals had i-Phones, Twitter, and Uber drivers, maybe it wouldn’t have taken 72 years to win the vote. Maybe. Sally Perkins imagines the suffragists with modern technology as she takes her audiences through the 72-year journey in this interactive, hilarious, and poignant story, revealing the suffragists’ struggles, strategies, racism, and endurance. History told like you never heard it in school! Audiences across the country are raving. Appropriate for ages 15 and up. Running time: 60 minutes.
Dr. Sally Perkins is a professional storyteller, speaker, & professor. She travels the country speaking, training, and performing stories of all sorts: historical, wisdom, personal . . . even ghoulish. She’s been a featured performer at three Indy Fringe Festivals, the Indianapolis Spirit & Place Festival, the TN Haunting In The Hills festival, and the National Storytelling Network Conference. Digging In Their Heels was a top-selling show at the 2018 Indy Fringe Theatre Festival.
“Jeannette’s passion for suicide prevention is amazing; her drive and determination are unrelenting. The only way to stop suicide is to talk about suicide. We are happy and honored to continue to support her in our joint effort to bring suicide out of the shadows.” – Wendy Brant, President, Friends of the Crisis Center
Born to a nun and a monk in the small town of Alachua, Florida, Jeannette was always a standout kid…and also one who stood alone. Until she met her best friend Katie, who, tragically, at the age of 16, took her own life.
Blindsided is a raw personal journey filled with humor and insight that focuses on how Rizzi – at the age of 17 – sees her life dive into a tailspin after the suicide of her best friend. Rizzi struggles to find her spiritual and emotional compass, while facing off against her debilitating anxiety and depression. Thus, began Jeannette’s battle to sink or swim, or – in her case – live or die.
JEANNETTE RIZZI (writer/performer) found her calling in comedy at the age of 23, and moved to Los Angeles to pursue her dream. Inspired by the likes of Ellen DeGeneres, Whoopi Goldberg and yes, even Cher, Jeannette started hitting comedy stages in earnest, eventually finding success beyond LA. She snagged accolades at Florida’s Funniest Comedian competition, the Time Warner On Demand Comedy Contest, the Cleveland Comedy Festival, the Tickled Pink Comedy Contest, and more. Jeannette was also a featured comedian at the Laughing Devil Comedy Festival, and earned the honor of hosting the Ovarian Cancer Circle’s Happily Ever Laughter event. http://www.JeannetteRizzi.com, http://www.twitter.com/jeannetterizzi – http://www.facebook.com/blindsidedgainesville – http://www.instagram.com/jeannetterizzi
NEW YORK, NY—Award-winning actor Tim McDonough meditates on his life and ever-approaching death in his dead serious comedy about mortality, a bunch of different ways i’d like to die. The production makes its New York premiere at the United Solo Festival on Friday, Oct. 18 at 9 p.m.
McDonough takes audiences through various vividly imagined scenarios of his own demise, ranging from the comedically absurd to the deeply poignant. While the end of life is inevitable and inescapable for all mortals, this show provides a space in which audiences can wonder and grieve and laugh about the hard-to-grasp fact that one day they will no longer exist. The production, which is written, performed, directed and designed by McDonough, comes to New York following successful performances in Atlanta.
It is fitting that McDonough has chosen to rehearse his death on the stage. His career of performing, directing, and writing for the theater spans decades. “I’ve lived much the best part of my life onstage, in imaginary circumstances, dealing with fictional characters and events,” says McDonough. “I’ve realized that I’d much prefer to die in my imagination than in reality, and that’s one rationale for this performance.”
Performances take place at Theatre Row/Studio Theatre, 410 West 42nd Street (btw 9th & 10th Ave), NYC, NY
Subways: A/C/E to 42nd Street. Tickets are of $45.00 and are available at the Theatre Row Box Office or at http://unitedsolo.org/us/2019-abunch/ or by calling Telecharge at 212-239-6200. Running time: 90 mins.
Tim McDonough began his acting career in Boston’s small theaters, where he collaborated on the development of many new works. In 1980 he co-founded Theater Works, for which he performed, directed and wrote. In 1982 the Boston Theater Critics Circle named him Best Actor, and in 1983 he received a New England Theater Conference Citation for Career Contributions. Regional theater: American Repertory Theatre, Sacramento Theater Company,Shakespeare festivals in California and Idaho. Atlanta: Alliance Theatre, Theatre in the Square, Horizon Theatre, Theatre Gael, Theater Emory (Associate Artist). In 1998 Creative Loafing named him Critic’s Choice for Best Actor. He received the 2009 Suzi Bass Award for Outstanding eatured Actor; in 2010 he was nominated for Best Lead Actor. He taught acting at Emory University for 28 years and is the author of Acting Narrative Speeches: The Actor as Storyteller.
I am a Bridge Award, Eugene O’Neill Conference, Women’s
Works Short Play Lab 2 and Fresh Ground Pepper PlayGround Play Group
Finalist. I produced Florida’s first
festival dedicated to women’s performance called the New Seeds Festival. I hold an MS in Electrical Engineering and an
MFA in Playwriting and that is why I am creating a company that combines these
two fields. While they are seemingly
separate, they are really intertwined. I
love chocolate, which is not related to anything.
Tell us about your current project?
Our current project is called Life. The show explores the effects of Artificial
Intelligence on human life through physical devised movement. We look at three aspects: the effect of
runaway technology on humankind; the effect of social media and the brain-mind
interface on human identity; and the effect of machine biased algorithms on
prison sentences. 10C (our company) uses
science as the seed for our explorations.
It was formed for the purpose of investigating science through theater
through the use of movement. By
combining science and theatre we are exploring the questions of the 21st
century.
Where are you performing your show and why is it a good fit for your
production?
We are performing it at the Players Theater, a blackbox
theater that is great for movers to work in.
What’s next for you?
Our next show will be about Quantum Physics.
What is the name of the last show you saw?
Unmaking Toulouse Lautrec
Any advice for your peers?
Do what you love, it helps you weather the storms.
Show Info:
When: August 26&27th @ 7:30 pm
Where: Players Theatre, 115 MacDougal St., NY NY 10012
The Tank (Meghan Finn and Rosalind Grush,
Artistic Directors) will present their third annual Lady Fest, featuring new work by some of the most exciting lady-identified
artists out there, in celebration of womxnhood and the female voice, in all its
glory. Lady Fest 2019 will run August 6-28 in
both the 56-seat and 98-seat theaters at The Tank (312 West
36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues). Tickets ($0-$25) may
be purchased in advance at www.thetanknyc.org.
MAINSTAGE
Tornkid
Written by Katelynn
Kenney
August 8, 9 & 11 @
7pm, August 10 @ 3pm $20
Tornkid just wants to
belong: at school, at home, in their own skin. So what does Tornkid do? Tear
themselves in two. Tricky thing is, Tornkid’s other half runs away with their
voice, into a mythical land both achingly familiar and unfamiliar. This play by
Katelynn Kenney draws on the power of Southeast Asian and Pacific Indigenous
mythology to take the audience on an elemental journey to literally find
oneself. Under the direction of Cara Hinh and Donna Ibale, with puppetry
created by Jess Rassp, and masks created by Tara Cariaso, Tornkid promises
to be a feast for the senses and an exploration into a world rarely seen on the
American stage.
Dystopia
Created & Hosted by
Marcela Onyango, Directed by Michelle Francesca
Friday, August 9 @ 7pm
$12
Dystopia is a sketch show that creates dystopian
universes where our political, economic or social nightmares have come to
reality in order to get the audience wondering could this really happen here?
The host Marcela Onyango will interview activists at the end of the show to ask
them whether the dystopias depicted in the show are feasible and if there is
anything that can be done to stop them.
One Apple a Day
Written and performed by
Elise B.
Tuesday, August 13 @ 7pm
$7
You are invited to a
journey, somewhere in the Solar System, in a place with enough water for life,
enough life for apples, enough apples for a theatre show. Their names are
Adélaïde, Ricarda, Jeanne-Geneviève, and Professor I. They have happened into
this place, and they are trying to understand. They are colorful, shaky,
structured, hungry, poetic, inefficient, strong, on the edge… present. They
need you. To become alive.
Sam Shaber: Life, Death,
and Duran Duran
Co-Written and Directed
by Lynn Ferguson & Sam Shaber
August 13, 17 & 23 @
7pm, Saturday, August 24 @ 9:30pm
Life has three
guarantees: you’re born, you die, and if your name is Rio, you dance on the
sand. In this hour-long musical storytelling show, indie rocker and Moth
Mainstage storyteller Sam Shaber takes the audience on an emotional roller
coaster of laughter, tears, and catharsis, from her obsessive, starstruck
adolescence to the sobering losses of adulthood, to a triumphant realization
about the power of those we love.
Almost Maimed
Written by Rebecca Kane,
Directed by Taylor Thomson
Tuesday, August 13 @
9:30pm $5
In this gory parody,
audiences experience modern love presented in ways they’ve never seen before,
with body parts they’ve never expected they would see on stage. Between scenes
featuring the most literal unhealthy attachments you’ve ever seen, those
struggling with love will never feel more related to than they will sitting in
the front row of Almost Maimed— and they might also feel a
splatter or two.
The Plague
Written by Rachel Carnes
Wednesday, August 14 @
7pm & Thursday, August 15 @ 9:30pm $15
A sly send-up of
‘self-actualized’ culture disguises much darker themes in this hilarious play
for five women, set in a small-town dance studio. With zombies.
Mindful Fruit
Written by Kalli
Siringas
Wednesday, August 14 @
9:30pm $12
A meditation on the
healing powers of subtropical fruit.
Sylacauga, Alabama
Written by Annie Levy
Friday, August 16 @ 7pm
& Saturday, August 17 @ 3pm $10
Sylacauga, AL: On
November 30th, 1954, Ann Hodges, a rural woman from an insulated world, is
napping on her couch. Suddenly, something crashes through her roof and
hits her just below her stomach: A meteorite. This moment of impact makes Ann
the only person to ever be struck by a meteorite and live to tell the tale. The
virtually unknown story of what happened to Ann Hodges and her meteorite (the
media circus, the legal battles for ownership, the costs of sudden and unwanted
fame) are explored in this contemporary take on a local, global and celestial
tragedy of improbable cataclysms and their sudden insignificance.
Party Animal
Written & Performed
by Becca Baberaggi, Directed by Michael Newman
Friday, August 16 @
9:30pm $5
Mental illnesses lie to
you and make you believe things that aren’t real but for Becca, it’s just made
her REALLY bad at parties. Come join her as she tells some of her favorite
stories about how parties are bad, why parties are bad, and how she was
probably the reason why.
You, Me, I, We
Book, Music and Lyrics
by Jessica Wu
Saturday, August 17 @
7pm $5 (Pre-sale only)
YOU, ME, I, WE is an exploration of the crazy and chaotic
way our minds work – the voices that direct our everyday actions, the ones that
knock us down with harsh thoughts and lift us back up with a song. It’s Hedwig
and the Angry Inch meets Pixar’s Inside Out with a
touch of Twyla Tharp Dance Theatre. Take a journey inside the
beautifully turbulent mind of Yu-Mei Wei.
Cooking with Kathryn
Created by Kate Owens,
Directed by Deby Xiadani
Saturday, August 17 @
9:30pm $12
COOKING WITH KATHRYN, an award-winning dark comedy, comes to
LADYFEST! Kate Owens plays a down home, liquored-up southern belle as she
stumbles her way to her own birthday party with more wine in her veins than
Jesus!
Runaway Princess: A
Hopeful Tale of Heroin, Hooking, and Happiness
Written & Performed
by Mary Goggin
Sunday, August 18 &
Saturday, August 24 @ 4:30 $20
One woman’s dark comic
journey to the other side of the overpass. Mary Goggin shares stories of sex,
drugs, and Irish Catholicism, laced with characters based on her experiences as
a former professional call girl. As a massive reaction to sexual repression,
Mary takes us from the Irish famine to ’70s pimps to joy!
The Valkyries
Written by Jessica Owens
August 18, 19 & 20 @
7:30pm $15
In The
Valkyries the tenuous strands of connection between three women in an
all-female doomsday cult start to unravel—revealing how women deal with trauma,
what lengths they are willing to go to, what traumas they’re willing to inflict
on others, and what portion of their own autonomy they are willing to give up,
to feel they’ve regained some semblance of power.
GRANDMOTHERF**ER
Written by Pat Candaras
Monday, August 19 @ 7pm
$12
Pat Candaras is a
writer, stand-up comic and storyteller. Survivor of children, their mates and
grandchildren. Oh! And, cancer.
Believe Me
Written by Flynn Osman,
Directed by Tessa Welsch
Tuesday, August 20 &
Wednesday, August 21 @ 7pm, $10 Students/$15 General
At 2am in a muggy
laundromat, the Miller sisters find themselves alone besides the erratic
muffles of a baby monitor. As the humidity rises, and the muffles become
louder, Betty and Faith’s patience grows thin, spiraling them into ultimate
sibling rivalry.
The Mess
Tuesday, August 20 @
9:30pm $7
With Jesse Roth,
Directed by Kathleen Kennedy
The Mess with Jesse Roth is a solo variety show,
the likes of which have never been seen before. It’s like that metaphor,
“throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks” but with
comedy.
FEMPIRE
Created by SMASHWORKS
DANCE
Wednesday, August 21
& Friday, August 23 @ 7pm $20
Smashworks Dance
presents a work-in-progress excerpt from FEMPIRE — a utopian
world run by unharnessed and uninhibited women. An evening length performance
of episodic dances, FEMPIREintroduces various women characters of
strength and uncensored expressions of truth, playfully pushing against gender
normative stereotypes through feminist camp. Featuring choreography by Ashley
McQueen in collaboration with Smashworks Dance, and introducing newest
performer Hope Salas in collaboration with Justin Cimino, FEMPIRE fuses
dance performance with prop-driven physical theatre to present a culmination of
our current feminist fight — loud, uncensored, and unafraid.
Bedtime Plays
Thursday, August 22 @
9:30 $10
Everything We Need To
Talk About Before We Talk About Sex
Written by Tatiana
Kouguell-Hoell
Sara wants to, she
really does, but if only she could say what she’s thinking out loud. Everything
We Need To Talk About Before We Talk About Sex asks the question: what
do you have to overcome within yourself to be intimate with another person?
Teeth written by Ciara Ni Chuirc
Aaron wants Colleen to
tell him what she wants – but talking about it is the opposite of what she
wants. Teeth is a darkly comedic play about the difficulties
we encounter in talking about sex, and women’s anxieties about asking for what
they want in the bedroom.
Bury Me in My Leggings
Written by Scarlet Grace
McCarthy, Directed by Margaret Baughman
Thursday, August 22 @
4pm $15
It’s June 2007. Paris
Hilton is in jail and the iPhone launches in just a few days. At the mall,
employees at an upscale athleisure store find out what happens when your work
bestie turns out to be a total murderer.
Not a Pipeline Problem:
5, 10-minute plays written and directed by badass womxn
Created by Erin Reynolds
Thursday, August 22 @
4pm $10
Not a Pipeline Problem:
5, 10-minute plays written and directed by badass womxn is a celebration of femme creative power.
Join these five playwrights for an afternoon of questioning… “What’s really
the problem? Cause girl, it ain’t us”.
Untitled Show about OCD
Created by Olivia Levine
Thursday, August 22 @
7pm $18
Olivia Levine’s untitled
one woman show explores her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and the ways in
which it has engaged specifically with her sexuality and relationships over the
course of her life. Combining elements of standup comedy, movement, character
work, audience interaction and more, Olivia asks herself and her audience to
come face to face with her obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors,
regardless of how uncomfortable and personal a task that can sometimes
be.
femfilm
Produced by Francesca
Pazniokas
Thursday, August 22 @
7pm $15
An evening of short
films by female-identifying forces of nature. Showcasing work by emerging
NYC-based filmmakers, these short films are written, directed, and staring all
women.
#MomVlogLyfe
Co-Created by Michael
Murray and Tanya Chattman
Saturday, August 24 @
9:30pm $15
Rachael Murray, Tanya
Chattman, and Naked Theatre Company present #MomVlogLyfe, a deep
dive down the YouTube rabbit hole of mom vloggers. Follow a gaggle of mom
vloggers in their quest to organize their households and entertain their
adoring fans. The Mom Vlogger is a new kind of Mom: She brings home the bacon,
fries it up in a pan, and then gets 100,000 viewers to watch that bacon fry.
Between checking off items on her endless to-do list and creating high-quality
content, she keeps all the plates spinning in style. It’s hard out here for a
mom, so she might as well monetize, right? Grocery hauls, unboxings, collabs,
sponsored content, and parenting too: This is #MomVlogLyfe.
No Place
Written & Directed
by Andrea Ang, Created by Square One Collective
Sunday, August 25 @ 2pm
& 7pm $10
Three people play a
game… in 2075. In a world where physical existence seems imminently
impossible, a political exile, a former radical and a climate refugee go in
search of the promised land; a virtual utopia. Alliances are made and broken as
personal visions cross and collide in a social experiment that begins to chip
away at individual identities. No Place examines the relationships
between citizenship, nationhood and personhood and asks What happens to a
person when they undertake an extreme journey of migration?
The Surrogate
Written by Rachel Main
Sunday, August 25 @ 2pm
The Surrogate is an all-female-identified play about a
woman, Sophia, who wants a baby but can’t have one and the younger woman, Cece,
who is going to carry it for her – for a price. As Sophia slowly becomes a
surrogate Mother-figure to Cece herself, the blooming of this unexpected bond
comes crashing down when there is a complication in the pregnancy, and Sophia
has to make a choice that could cost her not only Cece’s trust, but her
marriage to her wife, Kit. The play is a meditation on the commercial value
placed on the bodies of low-income and marginalized women in our society. It is
also an exploration of biological impulses in the LGBTQ+ community and, at its
core, a grieving play about four women who are waiting for a baby that may
never arrive.
Quartet
Featuring Be by
Anaïs Maviel and Late Duck by Megan Schubert
Sunday, August 25 @
4:30pm $20
Anaïs Maviel, Megan
Schubert, Gelsey Bell and Yoon Sun Choi perform vocal quartets Be and Late
Duck written by Anaïs Maviel and Megan Schubert
I Love Avocado Toast
Written by Catherine
Weingarten, Directed by Emily Penick
Sunday, August 25 @
4:30pm $5
When Cassie joins the
all-female exclusive social club, The Hive, she’s ready for her boring female
life to become way more glam and important! But in this new ultra-hip feminist
co-working space-things soon start to get weird! In this satirical new play by
Catherine Weingarten, get ready to dive into the world of avocado toast
obsession, feminine bonding and so many women-led startups! The play is
inspired by Catherine’s real-life experience of joining an all-female exclusive
social club in NYC and being bad at it.
Maudie, the Mortician
A Live Performance of a
New TV Pilot by Ashley Jacobson, Directed by Aliza Shane
Monday, August 26 @ 7pm
$15
After feeling
unappreciated at her job at Elsa’s Beauty Salon, Maudie Stevens resolves to
finally find a job worthy of her unique talents and point of view. Encouraged
by her loud and loving Irish Catholic family in New Jersey, Maudie sets her
sights on the big city. But when it’s made clear that there just isn’t a space
for someone like her in the elite world of New York City’s cosmetologists, Maudie
decides to take the job offered by her funeral director brother as the
assistant to his new (handsome) mortician, styling the dead bodies for their
viewings.
devour.
Written & Performed
by Taji Senior, Directed by Matrex Kilgore
Tuesday, August 27 @ 7pm
$15
devour. is a theatrical contemplation of the ways
in which desire and desirability are further complicated by blackness. What
does it mean to long for love while inhabiting a body you’ve taught to fear and
hate? At its core, devour. is a synthesis of lived
experiences, literature, academic research and activist movements that spans
centuries and continents, from the study of the iconography of black bodies in
nineteenth-century European art, such as Edwin Long’s The Babylonian
Marriage Market and Édouard Manet’s Olympia to the
contemplative examination of black womanhood in the poetry of June Jordan,
Lucille Clifton and Pat Parker. devour., deeply excavates facets of the
Black American female experience and returns to the surface through movement,
poetry, myth and theatrical magic.
With Your Little Claws
Written by Iliria Osum,
Performed by Sarah Means
Tuesday, August 27 &
Wednesday, August 28 @ 7pm $25
A reimagining of
Nabokov’s Lolita as a dark comedienne in charge of her own
surreal narrative as an adult. Calling herself Dolly, she “resurrects” herself
on stage, examines her life with skepticism and gallows humor, and works to
puncture her documented legacy.
Tell Me What I Want
Written by Gina
Stevensen
Wednesday, August 28 @
7pm $15
When a middle school
health teacher gets fired after talking about masturbation with her students,
she creates a sex ed class for the repressed women of her town. Part play, part
interactive experience, TELL ME WHAT I WANT creates a space to
address the shame surrounding women’s bodies.
DEVELOPMENTAL READINGS
Already Late
Enough
Written by Kristin Renn
Parker
Sunday, August 18 @ 1pm
FREE
Join us for a reading
of Already Late Enough-a brand new play by Kristin Renn
Parker- Already Late Enough is a magical realism play about, a
woman searching for the last thing she’s left in her childhood home, a Great
Grandmother Clock, unused organic tampons, aggressive Thank You Notes, and
literal monsters at Christmas. It rawly explores the questions: can you
actually sever yourself completely from your family? What’s the cost of leaving
your family behind? What’s the cost of staying? And what makes a family
anyway?
Startup
Written by Larissa
Krusei
Friday, August 23 @ 4pm
$5
Beth and Eva haven’t
been in the professional world long but they already know that corporate life
isn’t for them. When their crowdfunding campaign successfully reaches their
financing goal, their dream of starting their own company becomes a reality.
Gathering some of their other lady friends, they jump into the more
unconventional life of running a startup, but they quickly discover that there
is a steep learning curve to running your own business.
Cameron of Bergen Street
Created by Jordan Coats
Saturday, August 24 @
2pm $5
There’s only one thing
Cameron wants more than to break into the New York comedy scene, and that’s to
win the heart of her newly-resurfaced, childhood friend Roxanne. But when
Roxanne recruits Cameron’s help to catch the eye of Midwestern, comedy newby
(and boy!) Christian, Cam suddenly finds herself the orchestrator of their romance.
Set in the 1990s, this rom/com retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac explores
gender & sexuality, artistic integrity, and what it really means to fall in
love. Jordan Coats is honored to join LadyFest with this reading-style
production of her new play.
Dance Moms
Written by Ying Ying Li
Saturday, August 24 @
2:30pm FREE
Dance Moms is about a group of suburban moms who are
in the same dance class. They love to dance and take it very seriously… maybe
too seriously.
Gusher!
Written by Jan
Rosenberg, Directed by Jessica O’Hara-Baker
Sunday, August 25 @ 7pm
FREE
A storm of biblical proportions,
and a woman who won’t stop bleeding. GUSHER! is an
unapologetic play about what happens when women are allowed to be messy.
How we love / f*ck
Written by Lillian
Isabella
Monday, August 26 @ 7pm
FREE
How We Love/F*ck, a new play from powerhouse actor/writer
Lillian Isabella, is a sex-positive theatre piece in response to the #MeToo
movement where she looks to celebrate female sexuality, and how fun sex can be.
The play is inspired by documentary-style interviews with a tribe of 28 diverse
female-identifying individuals, ranging from 25 to 89 years old. Through candid
monologues created from the interviews, Lillian begins to discover her own
sexual agency, the healing power of ecstatic experience, and the importance of sharing
this new understanding with the world.
The Tank is a non-profit arts
presenter and producer. Our mission is to remove economic barriers from the
creation of new work for artists launching their careers and experimenting
within their art form, and to do so in an environment that is inclusive
and accessible. We serve over 2,000 artists every year in over 800
performances, and work across all disciplines, including theater, comedy,
dance, film, music, puppetry, and storytelling. The heart of our services is
providing free performance space in our two-stage theater complex Manhattan,
and we also offer a suite of other services such as free rehearsal space,
promotional support, artist fees, and much more. We support work at all phases
of development, from readings and residencies to fully-produced world
premieres. We keep ticket prices affordable and view our work as democratic,
opening up both the creation and attendance of the arts to all.
Recent Tank-produced work includes Drama Desk-nominated productions Ada/Ava (2016), youarenowhere (2016), The
Paper Hat Game (2017), the ephemera trilogy (2017),
and The Hunger Artist (2018), as well as New York
Times Critics’ Picks The Offending Gesture by Mac
Wellman, directed by Meghan Finn (2016) and Red Emma & The Mad
Monk by Alexis Roblan, directed by Katie Lindsay (2018). www.thetanknyc.org
