Unproduceable: Featuring "A History of Freaks" by Katie May

Celebrating the Bay Area’s best playwrights by reading their most impossible plays.

Featuring “A History of Freaks” 

by Katie May

Directed by Claire Rice

Saturday, November 17, 8PM

Exit Theatre

$10 Online Advance – $15 at the door

Featuring Performances by Jess Thomas, Jessica Rudholm, Meg Trowbridge, Sam Bertken, Meghan Chambers, Clay Newman, Stephanie Fields, Katie Whitcraft, Mark Weddle, Charles Lewis III, and Colin Johnson

With special musical guests CLAPTRAP!

UNPRODUCEABLE is a reading series where Awesome Theatre brings to the stage the best Bay Area playwrights and their most unproduceable plays. What makes a play UNPRODUCEABLE? Could it be too many characters? Does it have a live elephant crash through a wall? Do scorpions fall from the rafters in slow motion? Ultimately the story of what makes a play UNPRODUCEABLE is the story of what it means to be a playwright working in the modern theatre. Spend an evening in conversation with a celebrated Bay Area playwright and a hear a play that might not be coming to a stage near you but you’ll wish it was.

UNPRODUCEABLE brings Katie May’s “A History of Freaks” to the EXIT Theatre main stage. May’s entertaining dark comedy circus play tells the story of the Stromboli brothers traveling circus and sideshow, the last vestige of the golden age of traveling shows, is trying to survive in a modern era where screens have replaced live entertainment, and the photo-shopped freak is more appealing than the real thing. We’ll talk with Katie May about the joys of creating commissioned work for a university setting (no character limits!) and the pitfalls of transitioning those shows to other stages (too many characters!) We’ll also hear the play itself performed by great local bay area actors along with some fantastic musical guests. Join Awesome Theatre for an evening of UNPRODUCEABLE new work that will leave you hungry for more.

Katie May’s full length plays include Abominable (PlayGround/Symmetry Theatre Company, San Francisco; The Lark Playwrights Conference, NYC; commissioned by SF PlayGround), Manic Pixie Dream Girl (fringeNYC, A.C.T. Costume Shop, San Francisco, commissioned by SF PlayGround), Black Sheep Gospel (Great Plains Theater Conference), A History of Freaks (Finalist David Mark Cohen Award in Playwriting), and Secrets of Gardenias (Piper Center New Play Development Fellowship). Her short play Rapunzel’s Etymology of Zero (Best of Playground Festival, Short + Sweet Sydney) was published in the Best of PlayGround Anthology, 2011, and was subsequently made into an animated short film that screened in festivals both nationally and internationally. May has been a member of the San Francisco PlayGround Writers Pool since 2008, and a PlayGround Playwright in Residence since 2014. Her work has received productions in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Arizona, Idaho, and Sydney, Australia. May is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Virginia Piper Writing Center, National University of Singapore, Women in Film LA, and a two-time SF PlayGround E-merging Writers Award winner. She holds an MFA from Arizona State University

WITH SPECIAL MUSICAL GUESTS CLAPTRAP!!!!
Claptrap is the brainchild of Meg Trowbridge (Killing my Lobster, The Ballroom Improv, Pint Sized Plays, SF Olympians Festival, etc) and Eric Rubin (Killing my Lobster, Speechless Live, SF Sketchfest, etc). Their original comedic songs blend genres (hip hop, country, German Aria, etc) and touch on historic and topical themes fed by Meg's classically trained voice and Eric's elastic physicality. They were recent winners of the Battle of the Comedy Bands SF and have performed from their debut comedy album Heart of Snarkness throughout the Bay Area from Redwood City to Sacramento. 

For more information and tickets go to awesometheatre.org