In Front of Your Eyes Festival 2026
Short Opening Pieces
BARBARA BRADY
My Dead Uncle’s Porn Collection
Opening for Pearl Louise
Fri. 8/14 at 7:00 pm
Sun. 8/16 at 2:30 pm
San Francisco Mainstage
Show Description: My Dead Uncle’s Porn Collection is a solo show about a strange relative, prone to inappropriate (to say the least) behaviors. From my perspective now (and largely from having written this show) I understand he had an undiagnosed, untreated mental illness. But as a kid, that’s not how it looks. The show depicts my best and worst childhood experiences with horror, humor and irony. It then jumps ahead to when I reluctantly become a caregiver for my perpetrator in his old age, and his proclivities still manifest themselves in unusual ways. After he dies, I have to clean out his house. I’m on a quest for anything that might explain why did what he did. I do come across his “collection,” but that’s not the strangest thing in I discover. My Dead Uncle’s Porn Collection explores heavy subjects with a light touch. It’s okay to laugh! Ultimately, it’s about the healing power of talking about toxic secrets.
Artist Biography: Following a career in business communication, intermingled with part-time professional singing and occasional performance art, Barbara Brady took David Ford’s “Creating and Performing Your Own Work” class at the Marsh Theater in San Francisco. That was in 2018.
Her first 20-minute piece grew into a solo show, “Father Daughter & Holy Toast,” about an aging, eccentric father and two anxious daughters competing for his affection. She performed excerpts at the Marsh Theater in San Francisco and Berkeley, including Monday Night Marsh and Tell It On Tuesday, and at Solo Sundays at Stage Werx in SF. She also performed the full show at Great Salt Lake, Cincinnati, Orlando and Rogue (Fresno CA) fringe festivals, earning laudatory reviews. “Impressive… this is a woman worth leaning in and listening to,” said the Orlando Weekly.
The death of a more sinister relative led to “My Dead Uncle’s Porn Collection,” also in collaboration with David Ford. The show premiered at the 2025 Tampa Fringe Festival and has been performed the 2025 Soaring Solos Stars Series in LA, the 2026 Rogue Performance Festival and the Ooley Theater 2026 Women’s Wit & Wisdom Festival in Sacramento. It has been praised as “nuanced and perceptive… brilliantly written.”
Nowadays, Barbara thinks of herself as a writer, aspiring performer and visual artist. She’s auntriarch of a sprawling, lively and tolerant extended family, who are kind enough to let her tell their stories on stage.
SHAYLA KERR-MUNSIE
A BART Train to Heaven
Opening for International Sex Club Party Girl
Fri. 8/14 at 7:30 pm
Sun. 8/16 at 7:00 pm
San Francisco Studio
Show Description: During the longest government shutdown in history, an educator at an education nonprofit in San Francisco fluctuates between moments of mania, chaos, and her childhood dreams while grappling with the threat of ICE agents in a society under collapse all while nurturing the imagination of San Francisco’s youth.
Artist Biography: Shayla Kerr is a queer Congolese Jamaican-American multidisciplinary writer and producer. Shayla was born and raised in Albany and Schenectady, NY in a diverse, working-class inner city community. She recently moved to the Bay Area in August of 2024 to serve as an AmeriCorps member in East Oakland managing a reading center at an elementary school. She is a storyteller specializing in curating narratives through poetry, personal essays, and plays that combat the erasure of vulnerable communities as well as preserve and work with memory. Shayla is currently an MFA candidate at Antioch University Los Angeles for Creative Nonfiction. She is a recipient of Independent Artist and Arts Education grants from the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy, NY and a member of the Association of Writers and Writers Programs. Her previous shows include Amaly: The Other Side of San Francisco performed at The Marsh San Francisco in 2025 and A BART Train to Heaven performed at The Marsh Berkeley and The Marsh San Francisco in June 2026. When she is not writing, Shayla enjoys dancing, attending community events in Oakland, or lounging by Lake Merritt.
PEARL ONG
Road Trip
Opening for Sherry Glaser
Fri. 8/21 at 7:00 pm
Sat. 8/22 at 4:00 pm
Berkeley Theatre
Show Description: In 1975, I dropped out of college and started a road trip to Taos NM. My boyfriend wanted to study with an artist there, and i decided to go with him. I was still a new immigrant, still very much a city girl from Hong Kong. This was my first road trip, first time camping, all so American. At the end of it, I ended up in San Francisco.
Artist Biography: I do autobiographical story telling pieces, all of which have a bit of humor in them. I have done short pieces at Stage Werx (now gone, formerly on Valencia St.), and at the Marsh. I have done my full length piece ‘Night Driver’ at the Marsh, and will return in July 2026.
JUDITH LINZER
Do I have to hate you in order to love me, or should I just hate everyone?
Opening for Lauren Mayer
Fri. 8/21 at 7:30 pm
Sun. 8/23 at 4:00 pm
Berkeley Cabaret
Show Description: I start with my mother “talking” to me (with her Yiddish accent) when I was a child, telling me all about Christian anti-Semitism and I develop “us and them thinking” and then I “flip” it by showing my gradual discovery that “we Jews” are oppressing Palestinians. I “go” from being the “victim” to realizing that I’m also “the perpetrator”. I am incredulous that Jews who’ve been so persecuted can “turn around” and oppress others. I also include my having been isolated and ridiculed as a child and deciding at a young age that when I grew up, I was going to “help people”. Joyful felt it was important for me to show that part of my early life experience so it would make sense to an audience as to why I was so focused on the topic of suffering and my sense of urgency about it. The longer piece (not this one) will delve much more into the Palestinians’ suffering at the hands of “us Jews” (with scenes expressing my encounters with Palestinians and Jews) and my difficulty in discussing this with other Jews. The shorter piece does include that but not as much (but gets the point across).
Artist Biography: I did 18 short shows with Martha Rynberg at SPW – Solo Performance Workshop between 2016-2023. Martha stopped teaching and Steve Budd recommended Joyful Raven. I took a class with Joyful in January 2025 right after returning from 4 months as an activist in Israel/Palestine, having spent considerable time in the West Bank visiting/supporting Palestinians and witnessing the oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank. For the past few months, I have been part of a group with Joyful at the helm, helping us develop full length shows. I did shows on many topics such as aging, loneliness, doing things that scare me – like being a child custody professional (my career was being a clinical psychologist), working on my health (my experience at the Pritikin clinic), shopping, racism, Christian anti-Semitism. In the past four years I have done several shows about learning about the plight of the Palestinians and realizing that I had been “brainwashed” as a Jew to “not know” about it. People say that I’m funny and that they learn about “the situation” in a balanced and nuanced way when I perform and that it “makes them think and feel”. I have a way of taking “heavy” material and making it funny/palatable. I first started performing at age 63 and now I am 74. I performed this shorter piece at the Berkeley Marsh in December 2025. It was longer than 15 minutes so I would have to cut out several minutes for this show. Joyful is a wonderful teacher/coach and my work with her has improved my performing. I have a video of that December 2025 show.
ERIN-KATE WHITCOMB
Five Doors
Opening for Candace Johnson
Fri. 8/28 at 7:00 pm
Sun. 8/30 at 2:30 pm
Berkeley Theater
Show Description: The loudest voices in America belong to the fewest people. These five women never shouted, never marched, never commented, but they have plenty to say…if only someone asked. One woman shares all of their stories.
Artist Biography: Erin-Kate has been acting professionally for 30 years and has won Bay Area Critics Circle, Dean Goodman Choice and other awards for acting and playwriting. As a playwright, she was commissioned by Theatre Rhinoceros to write and perform her play “Route 80: Cars, Cows and Caffeine”, which won critical acclaim for her as a writer and multi-character actor. She has performed with 42nd Street Moon, Berkeley Rep, TheatreWorks, Theatre Rhinoceros, Oasis SF and other Bay Area theatres. Erin-Kate performed in the US/Canadian tour with Dame Edna in “Dame Edna: My First, Last Tour” as Dame Edna’s disappointing daughter Valmai, and in the star-studded San Francisco revival of “Ruthless: The Musical”. Erin-Kate has supplied her voice for hundreds of radio and industrial jobs, and has appeared in TV and film for the past 35 years. Erin-Kate is a proud member and former Board Member of Northern California’s SAG-AFTRA, where she continues to serve both as an advisor, and on various committees. She is also a member of AEA (Actors Equity Association) and AGVA (American Guild of Variety Artists). EK is a fourth generation San Franciscan, and had raised her sons, the fifth generation, in San Francisco with her wife, Michele.
CHRISTINA AANESTAD
Experiences of a Jailed Woman
Opening for Robyn DeGuzman
Fri. 8/28 at 7:30 pm
Sun. 8/30 at 4:00 pm
Berkeley Cabaret
Show Description: Christina Aanestad shares her trials and tribulations that led to early incarceration and lessons learned in overcoming hardships.
Artist Biography: Christina Aanestad is a journalist, media maker, and the Evening News Anchor at KPFA radio in Berkeley, CA. Her work has also appeared inter/nationally on Deutsche Welle, National Native News, and NPR. She joined FIPPP Formerly Incarcerated People’s Performance Project in 2025, where she continues to learn the art of stand up performance. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, her coming-of-age struggles include foster care, homelessness and incarceration. Christina has appeared at the SF Fringe Festival, the Marsh in Berkeley, and FIPPP Fest at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. She is the host of the 9 series FIPPP radio show and podcast aired on KPFA, and is featured in an anthology about mental health and punk rock, “You’re Crazy: Volume 3”. In 2025 she was awarded the Upsurge Caffie M. Greene Community Building Award, for her work as a journalist in “fighting and overcoming difficulties to inform community.”
MOLLY ROSE-WILLIAMS
Professional Dancer
Opening for Elizabeth DuVal
Sat. 8/15 at 4:00 pm
Sun. 8/16 at 5:30 pm
San Francisco Mainstage
Show Description: This is a humorous short piece looking at how we make sense of and talk about our work as artists. What does it mean to be a “Dancer”? How do I respond when people ask me “what kind of dance do you do”? The piece blends movement, physical comedy, and storytelling to explore the slippery, mysterious, and often absurd ways we find to translate our relationship to our creative impulses and labor. It also touches on the more existential question at the heart of many of these fumbling conversations: What AM I doing? And why?
Artist Biography: Molly is a queer, white, able-bodied performer, writer, audio producer, and educator. Their work melds dance, circus, theater, and physical comedy to explore the ways collective imagination substantiates, and the transformative and healing potentials of storytelling.
They have shared their performance and teaching in the US, Mexico, Canada, and Europe, in festivals and venues such as the State of Play Festival in San Francisco (USA), the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (USA), the Cannonball Festival in Philadelphia (USA), the Collapsible Hole in New York City (USA), Vancouver Fringe Festival (Canada), 4×4 Nights in Tijuana (Mexico), La Roseraie and Tic Tac Art Centre in Brussels (Belgium), among many others. Their performance work has been lauded by critics for its “distinctive alchemy of humor and pathos“ (San Francisco Chronicle), and described as “simply enchanting” (Jen Norris Reviews Dance) and “delightful in a way that stops time” (Life As A Modern Dancer). They have also been honored with awards from Theatre Bay Area (‘Outstanding Special Production’), the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards (‘Outstanding Achievement in Music/Sound/Text’), and 4×4 TJ Nights International Choreography Competition (semi-finalist).
As an audio producer, Molly works as Head of Story Development with national medical storytelling organization, The Nocturnists. Their work as lead producer of the documentary series Shame in Medicine: The Lost Forest and Post-Roe America won consecutive Anthem Awards and was nominated for a Webby in Best Limited-Series & Specials.
They also regularly write for national dance blog, Life As A Modern Dancer, and develop food-based curriculum for non-traditional classrooms in collaboration with organizations such as The Edible Schoolyard and The Center for Ecoliteracy.
Molly holds a BA summa cum laude in Geography and Environmental Studies from Middlebury College.
JORDAN MORGAN
RIP Modernity
Opening for Janet Thornburg
Sat. 8/15 at 5:30 pm
Sun. 8/16 at 4:00 pm
San Francisco Studio
Show Description: Solo performance with character driven inner-dialogue that playfully explores the origins, complexities and absurdities of modern life.
Artist Biography: I am new to performance art. I have taken two workshop sessions with David Ford and with my most recent performance on May 11, 2026.
ELIZABETH ZITRIN
The Second Wave
Opening for Abbey Glover
Sat. 8/15 at 8:30 pm
Sun. 8/16 at 1:00 pm
San Francisco Studio
Show Description: Fifty years ago, women couldn’t spend money with a husband or father – a warning.
Artist Biography: I’ve been a lawyer, an international human rights advocate, a community supporter, but before all that I was a performer. Coming full circle now, bringing my politics and personal history into my performance.
IPELENG KGOSITSILE
The First 72
Opening for Catherine Debon
Sat. 8/22 at 7:00 pm
Sun. 8/23 at 5:30 pm
Berkeley Theater
Show Description: The 15-minute piece I’d perform is an excerpt from The First 72, a coming of rage story of complicated family love set in NYC in April 1994 during my mother & apartheid’s final days. Its major theme: the complications of revolutionaries showing up as parents.
Artist Biography: Ipeleng Kgositsile is a Black woman writer, comic & auntieprenuer.
Born and raised in New York City during South Africa’s apartheid period, her artistic expression pays homage to the internationally acclaimed, hilariously satirical, and unapologetically African plays about contemporary life in South Africa staged at the Lincoln Center Theatre in NYC during the 1970s and featured in the WOZA AFRIKA Festival in the fall of 1986.
Ipeleng’s first full-length play, a work-in-progress entitled, “The First 72,” has been staged and performed in bits-and-pieces at The Marsh in Berkeley, San Francisco, and even via Zoom, since 2018.
While the 1976 Soweto Uprisings in South Africa—the cornerstone of the play’s narrative, coupled with growing up the child of a Black South African exile father and raised by a Black American mother, might not seem like likely sources for comedy, they are foundational influences for Ipeleng’s mischievously dark sense of humor.
The trajectory of her artistic journey took a turn towards comedy in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd Uprisings. In response, she pursued studies with joke-writing experts and comedians, including Judy Carter, Jerry Corley, and Dean Lewis. She has also honed her craft through taking classes in improv, foundational acting, and sketch-writing at institutions like All Out Comedy Theatre, BATS Improv, Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, and Studio A.C.T. Ipeleng’s wit and talent has graced the stages of over a dozen open-mic events at venues throughout the Bay Area like the Alameda Comedy Club, Artichoke Basille’s Pizza, Club OMG, and Penelope. She has performed professionally as a comic at New Faces of Comedy at the Fireside Lounge in Alameda, also for the staff of The Wolf, the Wood Tavern and Southie at the restaurant group’s annual holiday party in April 2022.
Ipeleng resides in Oakland, CA, home to the maternal side of her family since the early 1940s.
IRMA HERRERA
The ICEmen Cometh (an excerpt)
Opening for Yvonne Martinez
Sat. 8/29 at 5:30 pm
Sun. 8/30 at 1:00 pm
Berkeley Cabaret
Show Description: Your rights are next. This one-woman show exposes how the Trump REgime’s war on immigrants is a war on all of us — as ICE terrorizes our communities, no one is safe.
Artist Biography: Irma Herrera is a writer, solo performer, and former civil rights lawyer. Her play, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? which had a five-month run at The Marsh (SF and Berkeley) explores what it means to be American by weaving personal stories, humor, and historical events. The ICEmen Cometh (in development) examines how EVERYONE’s rights are at risk, not just immigrants who are the targets of the cruel and brutal actions of the Trump Regime. An excerpt of Class Migrant de Aqui y de Allá (also in development) was featured as a short in the IFOYE Festival in 2024.
DAISY CRANE
Modern Moral Mania
Opening for Holly Shaw
Sat. 8/29 at 7:00 pm
Sun. 8/30 at 5:30 pm
Berkeley Theater
Show Description: Daisy Crane graduated with a Master’s in Peace and Justice in May of 2020. Bright-eyed and full of wonder, she entered a burning, shelter-in-place world with no jobs, barely any coral reefs, and an onslaught of social upheaval that hasn’t stopped. Now that she’s bid farewell to her 20s, turned 30, and found the ground beneath her feet, she’s got a lot to say.
Artist Biography: Daisy Crane was born and raised in Columbia, Missouri and now lives in Berkeley, California. She holds a BFA in Visual Arts, a BA in Peace and Conflict Studies, and a MA in Peace and Justice. Since graduating, she has continued an enthralling journey of exploring the connections between peacebuilding and the arts. Daisy is a professional oil painter, a performer, and currently works for Jewish Studio Project, a national nonprofit that builds creative capacity across the Jewish community. Daisy’s performances were born in Joyful Raven’s courses two years ago. She has been bringing her most recent solo show to venues around the Bay Area since November, 2025.
SILVI ALCIVAR
snow white and la bruja negra
Opening for Theresa Donahoe
Thurs. 8/13 at 7:00 pm
Sat. 8/15 at 2:30 pm
San Francisco Studio
Show Description: a snow white tale akin to the disney version, complete with a bruja for a mother, seven little men following me around, a dash of humor, and the brother’s grimm. this is the story of a life literally touched by animal magic and what happens when being beaten in oakland gives wing to a strength and life-altering spiritual understanding about surviving childhood violence i never would have otherwise had. it’s a portal into what exists when life and death straddle the threshold of ineffable magic and being profoundly human.
Artist Biography: since 2008, silvi alcivar, aka the poetry store, has written and sold an estimated 100k poems for twice as many people. her poetry lives in the moment two strangers meet over her red royal typewriter—the anonymity an invitation to speak, the typewriter keys a willing listener. she’s worked in places as recognizable as google, as intimate as a funeral, as private as signed an NDA can’t say. her work has appeared in solo and group exhibitions, including The De Young, SOMArts Cultural Center, KQED, The California Report, and Madrone. silvi is also a teacher, visiting speaker, poetic storyboarder, collaborator with fire practitioners, and creator of interactive audience performances. presence is her main medium. she loves bunny shelter volunteering, meditation, hiking, and calling SF home. though storytelling’s her newest art form, she’s performed at the berkeley marsh and the zero to fierce festival.
ELLEN THOMPSON
My Father’s Daughter
Opening for Natacha Ruck
Thurs. 8/20 at 7:00 pm
Sun. 8/23 at 2:30 pm
Berkeley Theatre
Artist Biography: Ellen Torres Thompson (she/they) graduated from Cal in 2021 shortly after their dad died during “dead week” (you can guess who she got her sense of humor from). As an undergrad, Ellen directed the Speech team and acted with BareStage Productions as well as The Golden, UC Berkeley’s feminist theater company.
DARA KOSBERG
Homecoming
Opening for Joyful Raven
Thurs. 8/27 at 7:00 pm
Sat. 8/29 at 4:00 pm
Berkeley Theatre
Show Description: Dara’s 15 minute piece is an excerpt of “Homecoming”, her solo show that was recently nominated for the Comedic Theatre Award and StageCrafts’ Freeway Circuit Award at the 2026 Hollywood Fringe Festival.
A dark comedy, “Homecoming” begins when Dara is studying art in Australia when she gets that call— her mom is dying, and she has to come home. Suddenly, their already difficult mother/daughter relationship becomes a lot more complicated. How do you make amends with a dead mom?
What follows is a winding journey through the awkward, painful, unexpectedly hilarious process of finding yourself again after loss. Directed by David Ford, Artist-in- Residence at The Marsh.
Artist Biography: Dara Kosberg is a storyteller, comedian, and writer. She debuted her solo storytelling show “Homecoming” to sold-out shows in NYC, LA, Atlanta and Chicago. She’s a Moth StorySlam winner and has performed at San Francisco’s Punch Line Comedy Club and Brooklyn’s Union Hall. As part of the Reimagine End of Life arts festival in SF and NYC, she’s produced and performed in comedy shows about grief and loss that demonstrate the healing power of humor.
KATIE MACKS
A New Kind Of Evangelism
Opening for Hannah Gould
Thurs. 8/27 at 7:30 pm
Sat. 8/29 at 2:30 pm
Berkeley Cabaret
Show Description: This is a story of Katie’s reclamation. After childhood sexual abuse, and feeling like an outsider, she found herself fighting for justice as an activist for others. Later in life, Katie unexpectedly found the missing link, that led her to her holy embodied sovereignty, bringing justice home to herself with the understanding that justice is an inside job.
Can she overcome being disconnected from her body as a crusader for justice?
Artist Biography: Katie is an activist, life coach and storyteller devoted to justice. She has been working throughout her life to dismantle oppressive systems that marginalize and divide. Through coaching, she brings justice home into the relationship we have with ourselves. Through storytelling, she practices activism as medicine, using narrative to restore connection and collective healing.
STACEY WINN
Terroir
Opening for Sara Felder
Wed. 8/12 at 7:00 pm
Sat. 8/15 at 7:00 pm
San Francisco Mainstage
Show Description: It’s hard to make friends when you’re in the Lord’s Army! Terroir is inspired by my experiences growing up within fundamentalist Christianity, where I learned that demons were real and it was my job to save the world. And not have sex, obviously.
Artist Biography:I performed excerpts from Terroir both in the 2024 IFOYE Festival as well as at a workshop with Placer Rep, and my earlier solo work, Sandwiched, was presented as part of the Marsh International Solo Fest in 2022. Some of my favorite roles include: Abigail in The Crucible, Fred in Once Upon a Mattress, Poopay in Communicating Doors, Alice in You Can’t Take it With You, and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. I’ve also done a whole bunch of improv and sketch comedy.
MICHELLE MOGHTADER
Saffron Confessions
Opening for Dev Cuny
Wed. 8/19 at 7:00 pm
Sat. 8/22 at 1:00 pm
Berkeley Theatre
Show Description: Saffron Confessions is a one-woman comedy about an Iranian-American who’s never been to Iran, the family who survived it and the questionable idea of going back to find out who she is.
Set a mehmooni, an Iranian house party, where she will never leave hungry, but will leave judged. As family and friends gather, everyone has an opinion. She must navigate the voices of an image-obsessed mother, a patriotic father, an exiled general clinging to vanished glory and a grandmother with no filter. It’s a show about heritage, hunger, and wanting the one thing your whole family ran from.
Artist Biography: Michelle Moghtader is a writer and performer based in San Francisco. She’s a former journalist who once covered Iran and the Middle East. Her work is character-driven, and interested in the politics of family, which she explores by becoming everyone in hers.