SIPA/Short Works Festival & Erlangen outcomes

Kahlo/ Ono

It is 1954 and Frida Kahlo lies on her deathbed, preparing to be carried across town to attend her final art show. Meanwhile, in the present time, Yoko Ono ensures that the gallery is ready for her retrospective, making the finishing touches and preparing herself for an important night. This one act play examines the links between the lives of these two iconic artists, examining the overlap in their roles as women, mothers, lovers and political activists. Through episodic monologues, which span several events in their lives, Yoko and Frida explore their struggles and seek resolution. Ultimately, they find resilience and peace through a commitment to positivity, and together do not give up on love.  

Cast & Production Team

Frida Kahlo: Vanessa Caicedo-Cardona
Yoko Ono: Leilani Faser-Buchanan
The Outside World: Amy Collier

Writer: Amy Collier
Director: Celina Clarke
Stage Manager: Justine Orbovic
Set, Costume and Prop Designer: Annie Maheux
Sound Designer: Evan Stepanian

Note: This play contains direct quotations from Yoko Ono and Frida Kahlo.

Pig by Roger

Pig By Roger deals with connection and communication, as well as the primal state of early childhood. All Roger wants is a father. All Wilson wants is a son. Their problems are seemingly solved when Roger appears in Wilson's apartment and refuses to leave. They adopt each other - but it is a relationship born out of necessity, and both want something the other cannot provide. Ultimately, they must choose between their friendship, and the possibility of a life outside of their insular little world.

Cast & Production Team

Roger: Alex Lang
Wilson: Matt Barker
Amy: Leah Goldie

Playwright: Calla Wright
Director: Nic Turcotte
Assistant Director: Calla Wright
Set & Costume Designer: Michelle Lam
Sound Designer: Kevin Cogen
Stage Manager: DaVonne Onassis Bacchus

Road Kill

When childhood best friends John and Nolan re-unite at the funeral of John's estranged father they are blissfully unaware of the long dormant conflicts about to arise between them. As the two men set out to sprinkle the ashes of their childhood father figure, they are forced to address the events that tore their friendship apart. Road Kill is a comedy that examines the people and places that make us who we are and how we carry them with us our whole lives.

Cast & Production Team

John: Christian Jadah
Nolan: Brandon Wicke

Playwright & Director: Harper Duffy
Set, costume and props designer: Jordana Schafer
Stage Manager:  Allison Kelly

The Isolation Project

The Isolation Project is an expositional tale of two estranged women. A former elementary school teacher turned bartender (Cecelia Cutler) struggles to come to terms with a tumultuous relationship between a student from her past (Bridget Reeds) and their impact on each other. After Bridget reappears in Cutler's bar after a 15 year absence, Cutler observes Bridget's interactions with an overconfident bar patron (William Handle), leading her to revisit the traumatic events from her past that brought her to her current self.

Cast & Production Team

Cecelia Cutler: Katerina Keca
Bridget Reeds: Abigail Lieff
Dr. Jacqueline Jacobson/Twin #1: Michelle Rambharose
William Handle/Twin #2: Augustus Oicle
Randy "The Muscle Man" Milton (off-stage): Mike Carrozza

Director: Mike Carrozza
Set, costume and props designer: Iman Corbani
Stage Manager: Emma Hawes

Unseam'd from Nave to Chops

[...] Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles.
Infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. (5.1.63-64)

We are extending an opportunity to set aside the burden of your preconceptions and aid us in a much needed reassessment of our own communal worth - or lack thereof. We offer you the familiarity of a Jacobean text in the hope you will be sympathetic to a reinvisioning of the means by which we communicate. By exhibiting how even the best offers of language have severe limitations and by providing possible routes for improvement, we hope you might walk, run, hobble away, prepared to share the same challenge we provide you, with others. 

Artistic Collaborators

Devon Bate / Burcu Emeç / Luisa Filip / Cassia Giancola / Jillian Harris / Melina Hüttner /  Anthony Kennedy / Emanuel Knodt / Mareike König / Devon MacKinlay / Rigo Paula / Benjamin Rowles / Kathi Schaffer / Gabriel Schultz                

Stage Manager: Alex Goldma