SOLO FEST showcases stories, performers, and artists who are not typically seen on stages in Washington County — people and experiences that have either been ignored, silenced, or dismissed. With SOLO FEST, we celebrate the diversity of the people who live here in our community, and we honor their stories through the vehicle of solo performance. This year’s festival features the following shows:
None of the Above by Jennifer Lanier
None of the Above is a solo comedy about the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and coming out with Diana Ross. There is no fourth wall and the audience participates while Lanier becomes several characters — including her six-year-old self, her Daddy the Colonel, and her Austrian psychiatrist. Lanier was named one of the “Funniest Lesbians in America” by CURVE Magazine and None of the Above is why.
Sea/Sick by Lawrence Siulagi
Sea/Sick represents the story of native cultures uprooted from their ancestral home from the paradise lust of dominant cultures. In this one-act play, a female teen and her mother are driven from their Hawaiian home as a result of the island’s rising cost of living. Much like the rising waters due to global warming, island natives are slowly driven out of their own place by high rents and low wages. It is a story of becoming an outcast; of being a brown female cast into a predominantly white, conservative city.
Not My Revolution by Elizabeth Huffman
A formerly wealthy Syrian art dealer gets caught up by a series of circumstances that spin out of control that ultimately lead her to take refuge in a filthy rat infested squat in Istanbul. During the night she has an unusual encounter with another woman whose life has also been destroyed by revolution, Marie Antoinette, herself imprisoned in a rat infested cell a few hours away from her execution. What does this dreamlike encounter mean for the Syrian woman and how will it affect what she does next?
The Importance of Being Frank by Rusty Tennant
It is perhaps one of the greatest acts of deception in all of recorded history. Fuse Theatre Ensemble Artistic Director, Rusty Tennant unravels a lifetime of studying Shakespeare into a battle between our collective history and the lies we agree to in order to create or erase said history. Weaving stories from his past with what we know (and don’t know) about the greatest playwright of all time, Tennant takes you on a fast-paced journey that will leave you questioning what you thought you knew about the Bard and, quite possibly, yourself.
None of the Above and Sea/Sick will be performed on Thursday and Saturday evenings; Not My Revolution and The Importance of Being Frank will be performed on Friday evening and Sunday afternoon. Talk-back discussions will follow the performances on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.