THE FONTWALA
by Shubhra Prakash
directed by Marcus Yi
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Shilpi, a young South Asian New Yorker travels to India, country of her birth to live and research the story of her uncle, the Fontwala. Fontwala is in love with the languages and scripts of his country. He created the Anglo Nagri Keyboard, one of the first of its kind that could type Indian scripts on the computer. Shilpi tells the story of his struggles and how his company shut down overnight as a western multinational stole his keyboard. A story of what remains when an artist becomes an entrepreneur, what remains of the aesthetic of a language digitized and what remains of a dream of returning of one’s homeland to live after 20 years in the west.
[Run time : 45 mins, adjusted for zoom. In English and subtitles for non-English parts. The poetry film clips at the top of the show are from Bob Holman and Steve Zeitlin’s film Khonsay, being used with their permission]
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Shubhra is an actor, writer and producer. Her recent work, Priya’s Mask a comic book was covered by NPR. At the start of the pandemic she became co-producer with Bay Area based Same Boat Theatre Collective for their zoom productions Earthquake and Terremoto that worked with artists from India, Brazil, UK, Mexico and US. In 2018, she co-wrote, produced, and acted in an original play The Music In My Blood about Indian classical music seen by over a thousand audience members in the New York City and Tri-State. She has co-founded the award-winning NYC-based Hypokrit Theatre Company. In Dec 2018, Shubhra traveled to India to develop her play Fontwala inspired by the life of Rajeev Prakash Khare, a font designer who created one of the first keyboards that typed Indian scripts on a computer.
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CLOUDS OF CROWS II
by Sha Sha Higby
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Sha Sha Higby sculptures are intricate and complex, inspired by her experiences in Asia and beyond. Her unique sculptures are made to move with her living body as the driving force. Meticulously crafted over the course of years, her sculptural costumes use a variety of mediums including the latest propss she has made over the last year. It is always different and her work is never linear. It’s very open, so people can interpret it differently.” Breathtaking and unlike anything you’ve seen before.Sha Sha will project her ltest movie drawings onto the white wings that you see on the video. Sha Sha will project her latest movie drawings onto white surfaces like you see on the video.
Run Time: 30 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Sha Sha Higby received a BS in art from Skidmore College and spent five years in Indonesia under a Fulbright Scholarship. She also studied for more than a year in Japan, and six months in India under an Indo-American Fellowship. She has received numerous awards and grants, including a NEA Fellowship in solo theater, the Zellerbach Family Fund, Japan US Friendship Commission (1995).
She has performed and exhibited internationally at the Festival International delle Marionnnette; Divaldo Korzo in Slovakia; the Festival of Sydney in Australia; Singapore Festival of the Arts; Hong Kong Fringe Festival; Tokyo National College of Art; the Tokyo Textile Institute: Puppet Theater Festival; and the Stara Zagora in Bulgaria. She has exhibited her work at the Portland Art Museum; Arizona State University; San Francisco Folk and Craft Art Museum in San Francisco; Honolulu Academy of Arts; University of Massachusetts at Amherst; Columbia College Inter-Arts Program in New York; San Francisco Asian Art Museum; The Glass Museum in Tacoma, Washington; and Baltimore College of Art.
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TEE VEE
by Stacey Andrade
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Tee-Vee is a story of my childhood through televisions throughout my life.
Run Time: 20 Minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Stacey Andrade has been a Bay Area performer since the 80’s. Stand-up, Plays, movies, radio. She is currently doing her one-woman show-Stacey Show. She is the author of two books- Tales, Tails And more Tales, Ha Ha a Go-Go-available on Amazon.
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OLDING
by Johanna Courtleigh
directed by Joshua Townsend
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Olding—four characters, four pieces, life—is a collection of original monologues exploring the various challenges of aging. Clairie reluctantly reflects on the last stages of her mother’s life and death at a grief group. Ranya shares about her life as a refugee and caregiver so that the people in the facility where she works will feel less threatened by her. Gloria resists her daughter’s desire to have her ‘interned’ in said facility. And Harry, a 93 year-old Jewish man, looks back on his life on Atonement Day.
Run time: 60 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Johanna Courtleigh is a licensed counselor, writer and performance artist in Portland, Oregon. She has performed her original monologues in various venues throughout the U.S. She presented her piece, Wild Bill, and her full one-woman show, Olding, for the Fertile Ground Festival of New Theater Works in 2019 and 2020. Her most recent show, Pledging Allegiance, which was developed with David Ford of the Marsh Theater, was presented at Fertile Ground in 2022. Her writing has been published in various anthologies including Sisters Singing, The New Story and Second Wind. Her book, Prayers For A New World, is available on Amazon.
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FAST FORWARD
by Mindy Pfeffer
directed by Peter Michael Marino
SHOW DESCRIPTION: With the help of her beloved father and a childhood bike, Mindy learns that she can do things she doesn’t “think” she can do. From the murkiness of the Hudson River to the hills of Lake Placid, Mindy enters the world of triathlon and gets more than she ever expected!
Run Time: 15 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Mindy Pfeffer is a playwright/solo performer/storyteller. Her plays have been produced in theaters up and down the East Coast. Her solo work has been seen in Fringe Festivals and in NYC. Her most recent solo play “There’s Iron in Your Future” was seen at the New York Road Runners RunCenter, Omega Institute, and at IRT Theater in NYC. Mindy is a founding member of Dolly Lana, an all-women online improvisation team. She works with NYC Kids Project using puppetry and storytelling to teach about social justice and inclusion in NYC schools. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and Actors Equity. She is also what is called an “adult onset athlete” – and she’s done over two dozen triathlons.
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THE MIND OF GOD
by Algiin Ford
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Childhood and cultural journey as it relates to the spiritual and psychological experiences.
Run Time: 15 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Film/Stage artist in the SF Bay Area for the past 30 years.
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EM-PATHETIC
by Phyllis Gordon
directed by Antonia Kasper
SHOW DESCRIPTION: An actress works as a Standardized Patient, playing people with ailments, roleplaying with medical students and teaching them how to express empathy. When she herself receives a serious diagnosis, she experiences little empathy from the medical system. As a real life patient, she finds herself teaching doctors and nurses lessons in empathy. But will they listen?
Run Time: 20 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Phyllis Gordon is an actress and writer who performs her own solo work. From “Painfully Funny” (PIT) to “Phyllis Diller Believes in Me” (Club Cafe) and now to “Em-Pathetic” (White Fire Theatre), her plays showcase her talents. Original characters, impressions, clever song parodies, and piano appear in everything she creates. She was nominated for Broadway World’s Best Actress Award for her work in Agatha Christie’s “The Hollow” (Cortland Rep). And she won a New England Actor Best Of (NEABO) Award. She has performed Standup, Improv, and Sketch Comedy in NYC and beyond.
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CHIL’! HOOD STORIES
by SevanKelee Boult
directed by Robyn Brooks
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Chile! Hood Stories, is a 60 minute multidisciplinary theatre production exploring safe sex, gender fluidity, sexuality politics, and cannabis. Watch Lucky 7 the poet, and Foxy Loxy retell some classic children’s tales with story lines that reflect a broad range of sexualities, genderqueer and cis gendered characters. Truth be told, fables were meant for adults all along!
Run Time: 45 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Sevan Kelee Lucky 7 Boult is an established Bay Area poet and performance artist. Hailing from East Palo Alto, California, and writing since childhood, A 2017 QCC Emerging Artist, her performances are said to be “amazing … thought provoking … and mesmerizing.” This multifaceted artist has graced such stages as Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, De Young Museum, and the Brava and Marsh Theaters in San Francisco, California. SevanKelee’s poem “Cucumber” has been seen on HBO Real Sex since 2000, and her poem “Listening to Pain” appears in the spring 2017 issue of Foglifter Journal.
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THE ROSENBERG / STRANGE FRUIT PROJECT
by John Jiler
SHOW DESCRIPTION: I’m playing a six year old boy–the youngest child of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed as communist spies in the 1950s. Remarkably, the man who adopted him was author of the song ‘Strange Fruit,’ seared into the American consciousness by Billie Holiday. I’ll also be player her, as well as WEB Dubois, who arranged the adoption, and a gallery of other vivid—even grotesque—figures who’ve led us up to the political and culture wars we’re still fighting….
Run Time: 60 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: John Jiler writes drama and prose. He won both the Richard Rodgers and the Kleban Librettists’ Award for AVENUE X, which played in New York at Playwrights’ Horizons and in fifty cities world-wide. He won a New Dramatists’ Weissberger Prize for his first full-length play SOUR SPRINGS. His work has been seen coast to coast, at the O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference, the Kennedy Center, Seattle Rep and places in between. His most recent book, Sleeping With The Mayor, was a New York Times’ “Notable Book Of The Year.” His first, Dark Wind, was called by the Village Voice “a classic.”
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THE HANDMAID’S DIANETICS
by Joyce Miller
directed by Glory Kadigan
music by Mike Handelman
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Ofhubbard is excommunicated from the Church of Scientology for attempting to prove that L. Ron Hubbard’s Chart of Human Evaluation inaccurately classifies gay people as traitors and liabilities who are low on the emotional tone scale, only to find that the gay radical activist she fell in love with is a spy hired by the Church. She realizes she is not gay after all, but merely experiencing past life gender confusion–for not only was she a man in her past life, she was Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
Run Time: 55 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Joyce Miller is a native Philadelphian of Amish descent based in New York. She was accepted to Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts in both Visual Arts and Drama, opting to study drama. She attended Settlement Music School on a piano scholarship while receiving her K-12 education at Gladwyne Montessori and Friends’ Central schools. At 17 she enrolled in NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, at the Atlantic Theater School. Many of her published satirical essays are darkly comedic romps through impossible situations or mindsets.
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B-SIDE MAN
by Alonzo Lamont
SHOW DESCRIPTION: An African-American man reflects on growing up black but not angry, his life as a playwright, a short-lived exotic dancing experience, and his free-thinking liberal arts background. Ultimately it’s his transformation from “singular satellite” to married man that forces him to face the challenge of continuing to write, or abandoning his creative journey altogether. A personal tragedy is just one of the elements that declares individuality may not be the end-all, be-all it’s cracked up to be.
“B-Side Man” is a coming-of-age journey that explores what it means to grow up with views that run against the prevailing cultural, racial and artistic tides.
Run Time: 60 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: In 2019, Alonzo Lamont’s B-Side Man was included in the Atlanta Fringe Audio Festival. His works have been produced in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, New York, and Amsterdam.
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OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL DONUTS
by Jordan Beswick
performed by Amelia Campbell
Photo Credit: Karen Roddin
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Edna Howard, the donut lady of Hayward, California, shares her story of survival with a group of incarcerated teenage female offenders. How through perserverance, enormous creativity, a tremendous capacity for love, and God’s peculiar care, she escaped her would be destroyers, and found salvation in, of all things, donuts. Our lady of perpetual donuts devotes her life to defending, protecting and empowering the countless children in her care. “I always try to create a happy place for children because I never had it.” And she does. One love filled donut at a time.
Run Time: 60 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:
Jordan Beswick: Directing credits include productions in L.A., NYC, Paris, Berlin, Belgium and Brazil. His own plays have been performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (D.C.), Riverside Studios (London), Lucernaire (Paris), Manufacture des Abbesses (Paris), West Bank (NYC), West End Gate (NYC), Celebration Theatre (Hollywood). As Acting Instructor: Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute (New York), Studio VO/VF (Paris), Institut für Schauspiel Film und Fernsehberufe (Berlin), Manufacture des Abbesses (Paris), Actors Centre (London). As Actor: Jordan trained with Michael Moriarty, Mira Rostova, Stephen Strimpell, Sandy Dennis, and was a finalist for membership at the Actors Studio.
Amelia Campbell: Broadway: Our Country’s Good (Tony Nomination); A Small Family Business; Translations; The Herbal Bed; Waiting in the Wings; A Streetcar Named Desire. Off-Broadway: Coal Country(Public Theatre; The Cherry Lane); Taking Care of Baby (MTC); The Exonerated (Culture Project); The Misanthrope (NYTW); Tryst (The Promenade); Love, Janis
(Village Theater). Regional: A Midsummer Nights Dream; The Night of the Iguana; DesireUnder the Elms. Film: “Sender”; “Leaves of Grass” TV: “Law&Order; “The O.A.”; “Mindhunter”; “Bull”.
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THE PHOTOSHOOT
by Jackson Nogahl
SHOW DESCRIPTION: What happens when a ten-year cancer patient’s diagnostic numbers rise slightly, and he needs to get scans? His imagination decides that he’s no longer a patient, but a model going for a photoshoot. He’s a cool cat with a killer body. But in the process, something inside of him that gets exposed
Run Time: 15 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: On Valentine’s Day, 2011, Jackson Nogahl started a long-term relationship with a new partner: prostate cancer. The experience has been comic gold, and he’s been documenting it in solo performances and a memoir titled War and Pee. Jackson has stayed faithful to his partner, in sickness and in health, through a decade of needle jabs, finger pokes, surgical cuts, radioactivity, and drugs labeled, “Women who may be pregnant should not handle without gloves.” Jackson has performed at Story Lab Chicago, Do Not Submit, and on the MarshStream’s Solo Arts Heal series.
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AMADEUS NEVER GIVES ME THE BLUES
by Amy Bouchard
directed by Mark Kenward
SHOW DESCRIPTION: As an up-and-coming opera singer, Amy is torn between equal desires for career and family. She meets and falls in love with Luis just as her career is taking off, forcing her to make choices in situations she doesn’t know how to handle. Her Nana, who is sick in the hospital, gave up her career as a professional jazz singer to marry a Navy pilot during WW2. When things go wrong with Luis and the instability of a performer’s life hits home, the outmoded choice her grandmother made starts making sense.
Run Time: 35 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Amy Bouchard has performed with numerous opera and theatre companies. She found David Ford’s class at The Marsh in the fall of 2020 and won a 2021 TITAN Award from Theatre Bay Area to support the development of her first full-length solo show. Recent theatre credits include Jack’s Mother/Cinderella’s Mother/Granny (Into the Woods) with Berkeley Playhouse, Claudia (Nine) and Lead (Sondheim on Sondheim) with San Jose Playhouse, and Mrs. Anderssen (A Little Night Music) with Lamplighters Music Theatre. Amy has performed lead and supporting roles with Opera Santa Barbara, West Bay Opera, and Livermore Valley Opera among others. www.amybouchard.net
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REMNANTS
by Henry ‘Hank’ Greenspan
SHOW DESCRIPTION: A stark, minimalist trajectory of seven monologues (4F, 3M) currently presented as a one-person performance by the author. The play reflects what is now fifty years of deepening conversation between the playwright and a small group of Holocaust survivors. REMNANTS is not “survivor testimony.” Rather, it recreates moments from long acquaintance in which survivors struck on an image or anecdote—often to their own surprise–which seemed to “nail it.” The dramatic action is the process of retelling itself: survivors’ finding such images, their strategic deployment, and the relationship that each survivor works to establish with the audience.
Run Time: 45 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Henry “Hank” Greenspan is a playwright, psychologist, and oral historian, emeritus at the University of Michigan. His plays have been produced for NPR and staged at more than 300 venues worldwide. He is the author of On Listening to Holocaust Survivors: Beyond Testimony, Reflections: Auschwitz, Memory, and A Life Recreated, and a dozen award-winning plays, including “REMNANTS,” “Death / Play, or the Mad Jester of the Warsaw Ghetto,” “Done is Done,” and “Boxes.” His essays have appeared in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Tablet, Forward, Boston Globe, and Detroit Free Press. He is a lifetime member of the Dramatists Guild.
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BACK IN THE DAY
by Abdul Kenyatta
directed by Charlie Varon
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Abdul Kenyatta is a storyteller who performs on National Public Radio- Snap Judgment and numerous stages around the country. He has won numerous Bay Area storytelling competitions including the Berkeley Moth. He appears regularly at the Marsh Theaters in Berkeley and San Francisco with excerpts from his two one-person shows- BACK IN THE DAY and CONFESSIONS OF AN ANGERY AFRICAN IN AMERICA. In the San Francisco Bay Area, he has performed as an actor, poet and jazz and blues vocalist. He appeared in the independent film “SMOKED” which was filmed almost entirely in Oakland. He is a novelist- FIVE THOUSAND URGENTLY POINTLESS DISTRACTIONS. He is a veteran of numerous National Poetry Slams.
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DOG PEOPLE
by Mark McGoldrick
directed by David Ford
SHOW DESCRIPTION: You know when you’re a newly paralyzed young man and your dog yanks you out of your wheelchair and you’re stuck on the ground alone at night waiting to be rescued but there’s no one’s around but your dog — your dog who caused the whole problem in the first place — but really it’s your own dang fault, and it’s getting cold out here and still no one’s coming by, and it looks like you have some time there to ponder things, sitting in the dirt, like how your parents have always been there to rescue your sorry ass?
Run Time: 30 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Mark McGoldrick has presented two acclaimed full-length shows at The Marsh (The Golden Hammer, 2005, and reprised in 2016; and Countercoup, 2007, and reprised in 2021 in a 4-part version live on Zoom). Mark retired in 2021 from the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office where he represented poor people in the criminal courts for 27 years. In 2022, he assumed part time duties as a co-director at the Formerly Incarcerated People’s Performance Project (F.I.P.P.P.). Mark’s stories often concern the world of indigent criminal defense and disability. He broke his neck in the early 1980s and uses a wheelchair.
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INCOGNEGRO
by Maija DiGiorgio
SHOW DESCRIPTION: IncogNegro is a comedy tour de force. The “ethnically ambiguous” Maija DiGiorgio, tackles the complexities of a racialized America as experienced by a half African American/half Sicilian woman.It’s an honest look at managing race in and around life’s relationships with one undeniable truth bomb after another. The battle lines are drawn and Maija walks them like comedy tightropes, with a plethora of diverse characters. Maija is funny and raw while ripping away the pretense that any of this racial rhetoric makes a lick of sense.
Constantly being mistaken for white and not looking how she is “supposed to look”, Maija sometimes encounters friction in black and white audiences alike. Strategically crafting her humor, sometimes in the moment, Maija successfully reaches across cultures, often opening the eyes and ears of even her toughest critics. Incognegro is the first comedy special to truthfully speak to all sides of the racial divide without alienating any one side.
In this deeply personal and socially charged special, she lightheartedly dissects the very real, daily repercussions of racism, while showing how race and anti-blackness weave throughout all of our lives. Incognegro is an unapologetic and hilarious social commentary combining Maija’s comedy and musical prowess to explain the complexities of racial diversity
during this pivotal time in history. This is a time when coalitions of black people, people of color, and white allies can create a whole new world.
Run Time: 60 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Maija DiGiorgio is a comedian who in her first year, taped five national TV appearances. Her hour special for Comedy Dynamics Maija! Maija! Maija! from the Tribeca Festival is due out soon. Her Dry Bar Special “Maija Pinion” airing on Amazon Prime and AppleTV has three segments reaching six million views on the web. She was featured at the Here theater in SOHO and her one woman show IncogNegro is being developed into a special. Maija’s comedy hilariously examines what it means to be a mixed race, multicultural woman tackling dating, family, and daily observations, in a dialect for any culture.
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JEAN SMITH
by Kieran Carroll
performed by Ananda Bena-Weber
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Jean Smith follows the story of a woman in her late 50s who is falling through the cracks of society. A gambling addict still grieving the death of her son, she falls into homelessness before finding hope through an unexpected source.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: For the Fest, Ananda Bena-Weber will perform a 20-minute excerpt of this new work by Australian playwright Kieran Carroll. Carroll’s numerous plays have been performed in Australia, America, and England. His solo work, The Youthful Adventures of Damon Dukirk was performed at the 2020 MarshStream International Solo Fest
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MANAGING MILLENNIALS
by Amy Segal
SHOW DESCRIPTION: A Gen Xer, who was doing just fine within the societal norms and expectations of her generation, is left wondering – when the millennials come of age – if she was born too soon.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Amy Segal works in finance by day but by night finds herself drawn to storytelling shows on the Lower East Side. She once won $200 in one-dollar bills at a One Up! storytelling competition and started wondering how many more wins she’d need before she can quit her job. She is a regular at MothSlams, has studied with Seth Barrish at The Barrow Group in New York and has been featured on The Story Collider podcast. One day, she hopes to introduce herself at cocktail parties as a writer.
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JANE TO JAYA: HOW TO BE YOUR OWN GURU
by Jenna Robino
directed by Safiya Songhal
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Watch world renown spiritual teacher and viral singing sensation, Jaya, on tour promoting her most recent book, “From Jane to Jaya: How to access your inner Guru.”
Run time: 10 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Jenna Robino has been called an enigma, chameleon, rainbow hurricane, and sparkle bomb by close friends and colleagues. She’s a Jill of many trades, and obsessed with turning shit into gold. Add alchemist to the list above! For the past five years she’s been building a solid career in voiceover and commercials with hosting, film and stand-up/sketch comedy peppered in the mix. Before moving to NYC, eight lives/years ago, she worked and thrived as a karma yogi living at Kripalu Yoga & Health Center in Massachusetts, acquiring many self-regulating skills, enough to ditch her therapist from March 2020 till now. She’s equal parts excited, thankful and terrified to perform an original developing comedic work and celebration for what’s been thirty-seven fruitful years on earth. Connect and find out more about this bundle of ebullience, at jennarobino.com or @jennarobino here on IG.
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OUT OF THE MORMON CLOSET
by Randall Huskinson
SHOW DESCRIPTION: How do you navigate life as a young, gay, Mormon boy? Reading scriptures and praying don’t help! But never kissing a girl, and eventually (gasp) standing your ground with your parents can help…even if that means Mom practically crucifies you on the spot where Jesus supposedly already took care of that.
Run Time: 26 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Randall Huskinson’s life has been endlessly tangled up with theatre, straight and gay (er… musicals). After a lifetime as an insatiable audience member, actor, tech, director, theatre board member—all while working as a freelance writer, I now combine my professional writing skills with my love of this divine art form. With a lifetime of inspiration from impossibly impossible scenarios—shall we start with my childhood as a gay Mormon potato farmer?—I’m now a performer and playwright. I write life as I hear it in my head, tackling issues I sense society is percolating on. I’m curious. www.CuriousModernPlays.com.
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MAN CAVE: A ONE-MAN SCI-FI CLIMATE CHANGE TRAGICOMEDY
by Tim Mooney
SHOW DESCRIPTION: What if you were the last man on earth, but weren’t SURE if you were the last man on earth? What message would you send out to your imagined fellow “last men?” And how long would you wait for a reply? Hanging by a thread, at the tail end of climate change, the last man broadcasts his existential warning to whatever Klingons, Vulcans or Tralfamadorians might still be out there listening, trying to explain how NOT to do what we did!
Run Time: 55 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Over seventeen years of touring, one-man plays such as Molière than Thou, Lot o’ Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Histories, Breakneck Hamlet and Breakneck Julius Caesar have won a whole new generation of students over to classical theatre! Tim’s new rhyming versions of Molière’s plays have been published by Playscripts, and Stage Rights, and his acting textbook, Acting at the Speed of Life along with The Big Book of Moliere Monologues are being used by high schools and colleges.
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A SIMPLE ASK
by Beth McLaughlin
directed by David Ford & Club Solo
SHOW DESCRIPTION: What do you say when you wake up in the dark? “A Simple Ask” is a ten minute meditation/exploration of clarity and confusion.
Run Time: 10 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Beth McLaughlin is a San Francisco-based writer and performer whose work has been seen at the Frigid, Rogue, Boulder, Vancouver and San Francisco Fringe Festivals, as well as at StageWerx, the Marsh and Tell It On Tuesday. Her previous full-length solo pieces are Here to See the World, The Readiness is All and Cocky, and she is currently working on a fourth, Silenced.
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WONDERFUL WONDERFUL COPENHAGEN
by Ginger Parnes
directed by Corey Rosen
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Young and in love, Ginger travels to Europe to be with Arne, the Swedish boyfriend she meets while working in the fashion industry in Miami. When she arrives in London, en route to Stockholm, she excitedly calls him on the phone. Arne delivers the alarming news to her that he has “changed his mind.” Heartbroken, she needs to regroup and decides to travel to Copenhagen where she ends up staying, working and finding a new self.
Run Time: 20 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Unlike many people, Ginger WOULD rather speak in public than die. Prior to our Covid pandemic, Ginger was member of Berkeley Broadway Singers, appeared several times as a storyteller at the Marsh, and came in second at The Moth Story Slam. During our sheltering in place, we were all fortunate to have Zoom to showcase our talents. Aside from streamed storytelling, Ginger has added standup comedy to her credits. A favorite moment of 2021: she appeared in person once more for “Tell It On Tuesdays” at The Marsh, Berkeley.
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RUNAWAY PRINCESS: A HOPEFUL TALE OF HEROIN, HOOKING, AND HAPPINESS
by Mary Goggin
directed by Dan Ruth
SHOW DESCRIPTION: “Once upon a time, there was a Princess born to a King and Queen who were banished from their island, forced to flee to America in a coffin ship.” Thus begins the tale of the Runaway Princess… in which Mary Goggin shares a true story, laced with wicked humor and much pathos, of her Irish Catholic upbringing, drug addiction and prostitution, and the multitude of characters she encountered along the way to ultimately finding joy.
Run Time: 60 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Mary Goggin AEA-DG-SAG/AFTRA NY actor 30 years. Stage roles “Ella O’Neill” in Ann Hansen’s “Road to Babylon,” Broadway Bound Festival. Directed by Cyndy Marion numerous Tennessee Williams works: Cavalier for Malady, Clothes for A Summer Hotel and A Perfect Analysis Given by a Parrot. Mary appeared in PB & J for the NY Fringe Festival and Born to be Blue, a winner in the Samuel French. TV roles include spots in Broad City, Law and Order, Guiding Light, The Grind (Amazon). Favorite film roles include Little Children, MAD? The Trouble with Bliss, Gasoline, Bronx Paradise. Winner Best Actress, Freeway Film Festival for “Reservations”, film by Jeanine Flynn. Cum laude grad, Marymount Manhattan College.
Support the artist! Click on Mary’s MISF Tip Jar here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36078/store/donations/46937
BAGGAGE FROM BAG-DAD
by Valerie David
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Baggage from BaghDAD tells the true story of Valerie David’s father and his family fleeing Iraq in 1941 from religious persecution during Baghdad’s 1941 “Farhud” pogrom—and how their survival and building a new home in America shaped who Valerie is today—a father’s perseverance and will to survive shaped his daughter’s future. And how they each learned to embrace and accept their differences. Her family’s struggles to immigrate to a new land transcends their harrowing past, so that love and importance of family triumph. Her father’s journey mirrors our current climate of intolerance of race, religion, and sexual orientation.
Run Time: 20 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Valerie David proudly participated in the MarshStream 2020 Fest with her inspiring, award-winning solo show The Pink Hulk, her journey as a 3-time cancer survivor where she found humor and superhero inner strength to conquer cancer and empower others. The Pink Hulk is a true testament to never give up hope! A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and JMU, Valerie has been featured on TV, publications and podcasts, including NBC, CBS, and FOX. Valerie is a published writer, editor, singer, producer, and improviser. She’s also a proud member of the Solo Arts Heal collective and Broadway Hearts.
Support the artist! Click on Valerie’s MISF Tip Jar here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36078/store/donations/46950
OPEN-FACED
by Stacey Winn
directed by David Ford
SHOW DESCRIPTION: When my father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, we moved to Sacramento to take care of him. This play explores my experiences as part of the “sandwich generation,” those whose caretaking responsibilities include members of the generation before them (usually their parents) and the one after usually their children). I thought it would be deep talks over coffee every morning. It definitely wasn’t that.
Run Time: 20 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: In addition to appearances as an actor with Killing My Lobster and the SF Olympians Festival, some of Stacey’s favorite roles include Poopay in Communicating Doors, Lucy in You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, Fred in Once Upon a Mattress, Roxie in Chicago (The Play), Mariane in Tartuffe, and Alice in You Can’t Take it With You. Her plays and poetry have also appeared in the SF Olympians Festival, the ShortLived play competition, and in Vinyl Poetry and Prose.
Support the artist! Click on Stacey’s MISF Tip Jar here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36078/store/donations/46957
EXPOSING MARGARET MEAD
by Lynne Kaufman
performed by Nancy Madden
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Margaret Mead, the world’s foremost anthropologist, iws accused of misrepresenting the Samoan culture as sexually permissive. As she sumons her rebuttal, we discover how amazingly progressive her life and views are on sexism and racism.
Run Time: 60 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES:
Lynne Kaufman is the author of two dozen plays produced nationally. Her play “Who Killed Sylvia Plath” won last year’s full-length play award at The Marsh International Solo Festival. Her other awards include “Best Play in San Francisco”, “Best Play in Califonia”, “NEA/Kennedy New Play Award”, “Neil Simon Comedy Award”, and “William Inge Festival Award”.
Nancy Madden plays Margaret Mead. Most recently, she has appeared in “Training Wheels” at the RAVE Theatre Festival in New York. In San Francisco she has appeared in “Disruption” at ZBelow and at numerous other Bay Area Theatres. She appeared and served as Associate Producer or the film “Generations” which has played over a dozen film festivals worldwide.
Support the artists! Click on the show’s MISF Tip Jar here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36078/store/donations/46927
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’
by Roberta D-Alois
SHOW DESCRIPTION: After her boyfriend dumps her for being “too understanding” of his cross-dressing impulses, Roberta falls in with a cult who believes that no one is “awake.” This solo performance is Part 2 of “California Dreamin,'” Roberta’s story of how she came to California from the East Coast and who she met there. Part 1 was previewed at last year’s International Festival.
Run Time: 18 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Roberta D’Alois is a playwright, teaching artist, social justice activist and Artistic Director of Jump! Theatre, whose mission is to present theater based on authentic stories of mental illness. Most recently, she was chosen once again to participate in the Valdez Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Alaska. She has a B.A. with honors in Theatre Arts from Brandeis and an M.F.A in Playwriting from San Francisco State.
As a solo performer her work has been produced in many venues throughout the Bay Area and elsewhere. Her short and full length plays have been read or produced as part of the national One Minute Play Festival, as well as in several Bay Area and Washington State venues. Roberta is also a published poet and fiction writer. As an artist-activist, Roberta was chosen as one of the 2016-17 Fellows at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where she worked with 30 other artists and change makers.
Support the artist! Click on Roberta’s MISF Tip Jar here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36078/store/donations/46940
BACK TO SHANTEL
by Drew Larimore
performed by Dan Shaked
directed by Flory Kadigan
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Randy T hits the big time when he becomes a YouTube sensation with millions of hits. Climbing up fame’s ladder as the nation’s next great white rapper proves to be more difficult than expected when the love of his life, who is also his muse, turns out to be something he hadn’t anticipated. Life imitates art imitating life in GETTING BACK SHANTEL – where gender, race and fish sticks find themselves surprisingly intertwined.
Run Time: 25 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Produced in the U.S. and internationally, Drew is originally from the South with a focus on crafting strong, fallible, and complex female protagonists in seemingly unreal circumstances. His work has been highlighted in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Theatrius, This Week in New York, TheatreMania, Australian Stage, Aussie Theatre, and Theatre in the Now. His play, SMITHTOWN, starring Michael Urie, Constance Shulman, Ann Harada and Colby Lewis was adapted for the screen and premiered digitally in 2021 through the Studios of Key West. Drew made his Off-Broadway debut with OUT OF ICELAND, which starred Lea Delaria, at Walker Space in early 2012. His play, THE ANNIVERSARY, is published in Vintage Press’ anthology of new work. He has been a semi-finalist at the O’Neill Theatre Conference, The Lark Playwrights’ Week, the Heidman Award, P73 Playwriting Fellowship and a writing residency at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland.
Support the artists! Click on the show’s MISF Tip Jar here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36078/store/donations/46951
THE UNMASKED MAN
by Tain Leonard Peck
SHOW DESCRIPTION: The Unmasked Man is a story about despair and disintegration in the face of overwhelming desperation. Set during the COVID-19 pandemic, the play takes a satirical look at the resource shortages that have occurred throughout the pandemic, acting within an emotional framework of exaggerated pathos. The narrator expounds on his own travails throughout the shortages, his own suffering and trauma, as he finds himself unable to maintain a steady supply of surgical masks. He descends further and further into the depths of madness as he attempts and fails to find workable alternatives for his beloved, and coveted, surgical masks.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Tain Leonard-Peck is a writer, actor, monologist, and model. He paints and composes music, and is a competitive sailor, skier, and fencer. His work has been published in literary journals, including Another Chicago Journal; TAEM; Sleet Magazine; The Elevation Review; Idle Ink; Crack The Spine Magazine; Molecule; Multiplicity Magazine; Czykmate; and others. He won #ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence, won the first place Poetry Fellowship to the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and won Honorable Mention for the Creators of Literary Justice Award, by IHRAF, the largest human rights art festival in the world.
Support the artist! Click on Tain’s MISF Tip Jar here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36078/store/donations/46960
WINNER!
by M.J. Kang
SHOW DESCRIPTION: M.J. Kang is Korean. Koreans are winners. South Korea is nothing but dirt after the Korean War and in less than thirty years later, we”re hosting the summer Olympics. We don’t deal with our emotions, we just move on by working hard and not getting therapy. Even during the pandemic, M.J. tries to continue being a winner.
Run Time: 25 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: M.J. Kang (The Winner), she/her, is a playwright, actor, director, storyteller, and improvisor based in Los Angeles and Montreal. She’s recently been commissioned by Portland Playhouse, Shotgun Players, and AFO Solo Shorts and her plays will be produced by Shakespeare in Action, Workman Arts and Enrichment Works this season. She continues to be part of the Playwrights Group at Company of Angels (second year), The Barrow Group’s Restorative Stories with Seth Barrish (second year,) and is part of the Writer’s Pool at Playground-LA. She’s had her plays produced at Son of Semele, Pan Asian Rep, Theater Passe Muraille, Tarragon Theater, Factory Theater, Blyth Festival Theater and others, as well as been playwright in residence at Nightwood Theater and Theater Passe Muraille. She’s nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play and has received other awards, fellowships, and nominations. She has won 5 Moth slams as well as many other story slams. Her narration work on Scholastic’s The Girl From The Sea was recently awarded a SOVAS Award for “Audiobook Narration – Teens – Best Voiceover” and she played Kwan Won-Ji on CBS’ Seal Team. As an actor, she’s appeared in film, television, and acted on stages across the US, Canada, and London, England.
Support the artist! Click on MJ’s MISF Tip Jar here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36078/store/donations/46955
OUT OF THE WOODS
by Hannah Meyer
directed by Maggie Monahan
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Girl goes into forest. Girl meets wolf. Girl becomes woman. That’s the story of Little Red Riding Hood, but what exactly happens in those woods? Out of the Woods explores a bewildering power of sexual awakenings on and offstage during a legendary musical theatre camp production of Sondheim’s Into the Woods Jr. in Mormon Idaho. Out of the Woods unravels the real life impact of cautionary tales from Idaho in the early 2000s to now and asks the eternal question: how does one have a relationship with men when a part of their brain thinks that they might be murdered and eventually dug up by a racoon?
Run Time: 30 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:
Hannah Meyer is a playwright and freelance writer based in New York. She was last seen at The Marsh in July 2021. She is a 2021 recipient of the Alexa Rose Grant. Her work is published in PULP Magazine, Points In Case, Alma, The Baram House, and elsewhere.
Website link: https://hannahreneemeyer.wixsite.com/website
Support the artist! Click on Hannah’s MISF Tip Jar here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36078/store/donations/46948
CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING MEN
by Alex Adams
directed by Diana Lauren Jones
SHOW DESCRIPTION: What happens when people confess? Many people are truly sorry for what they have done. But not these three men. A patient happily returns to his psychiatrist in for fraud, while a neurologist plans to get back at his stockbroker patient by performing a forced lobotomy. And finally, after one too many shots of Comfort and Joy, a priest confesses to his radio audience why he cannot accept the Pope’s offer to become a bishop. Written and performed by Alex Adams. Developed and directed by the actress, Diana Lauren Jones (2020 Marsh Solo Stream).
Run Time: 13 minutes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: 2020 MarshSoloStream participant, Alex Adams, created the character of Father Boyle on Manhattan Neighborhood Television. Friday nights at 8pm, he’d hear confessions live on the air from a confession booth. The character appeared on the comedy show, Magenta Blue. So, it was natural for him to include this character in confessions of Well-Meaning Men.
Alex’s one act play, The Lady and the Lawyer, has its live premier at two different theaters at the same time as Confessions will be streaming at The Marsh…talk about embarrassment of riches. During the pandemic, he was fortunate to have his one act play In, Out, and Done published by Smith and Kraus. His play is the first in Smith/Kraus’ anthology, “Laughter is the Best Medicine.”
Support the artist! Click on Alex’s MISF Tip Jar here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36078/store/donations/46958
MEETING ALEXA
performed by Ron Jones, Ruth Kirschner, and Jason Martine
directed by Charlie Varon & David Ford
SHOW DESCRIPTION: Meeting Alexa is a graphic story about an old man and his walking conversation with artificial inteligence. Meeting Alexa is a story about God, Happiness , and death. This story is accompanied by a video trail of black and white photography and historic archives from The Marsh. Be prepared for the unexpected: Nude modeling, a special Olympic basketball team , Elvis, The Hollocaust!
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Ron Jones is a San Francisco writer living with his family and a peaceful garden on Stanyan street. His books Acorn People, The team that never lost a game, and The Wave have been produced as award winning TV and feature film. Novelization of his wave story by Todd Strasser is required reading in Israel and Germany and currently performed internationally. His live performance work at The Marsh stems from membership in David Fords Club Solo and zoom classes with Charlie Varon. for more information see www.ronjoneswriter.com and www.thewavehome.com
Support the artist! Click on Ron’s MISF Tip Jar here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36078/store/donations/46935
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