Posts tagged Susannah Anderson

Kittens in a Cage tells Junie’s story, a good girl gone bad, sent to the pen by a buncha rats. From the knife fights in the showers to riots in the prison mess hall, Junie has to toughen up fast. Lucky for Junie, she’s got Vickie. A tough love story about bad broads that can’t get no breaks.

Junie, a juvenile delinquent with a heart of gold, gets thrown into a prison cell with hardened arsonist Vickie.  But as they team up against the predations of prison queen bee Jeanine and her cannibalistic sidekick Barbara, not to mention the deranged scientific schemes of the Prison Matron, Junie finds her heart swelling up over Vickie.  Does Vickie feel the same?  Will Jeanine take vengeance in the shower?  What’s up with those rumors of strange furry babies in the Matron’s secret laboratory?

Kittens in a Cage features an all female cast of Annex favorites, original songs by Rick Miller performed on the ukulele by Francesca Mondelli, and Kelleen Conway Blanchard’s unique voice. Kittens in a Cage is a love story, a story of breaks both good and bad, a story of survival, and an agonizingly funny portrayal of women behind bars.

Kittens in a Cage is directed by Bret Fetzer. Blanchard and Fetzer previously teamed up on Small Town (produced by Annex Theatre in 2007) and Hearts are Monsters (produced by Macha Monkey Productions in 2010).

“‘Kittens in a Cage’ is a f***ing riot. ‘Kittens’ takes on women’s-prison B movies and pulp novels with biting wit—no worries about offending anyone—and a gorgeous splatter of comically short prison uniforms (top buttons undone), smeared red lipstick, bright blue eye shadow, bouffant hairdos, and crazy accents…. This wicked, uproarious show features an all-female cast—not impossibly rare, but not common enough. Bosoms heave, brains leak out of heads, and women make out. Blanchard seems fully aware and in control while she wades into the muck of exploitation entertainment, with a wink and a nod (and a shiv) to its complicated history of empowerment.” –The Stranger

“In a nutshell: Kittens in a Cage is a funny, witty, naughty romp through chicks in prison films, with a spicy dash of horror and all overlaid with a delicious lesbionic sauce of camp and heaving bosoms.” –Seattle Gay Scene

“So what’s not to love about a play starring 7 local powerhouse actresses and written by an equally strong local, female playwright?! Given the dearth of substantive roles for women in theatre and film, it is great to see a show like ‘Kittens in a Cage’ infused with so much estrogen and feminine prowess…. The entire cast does a great job, and it is obvious that they are having a lot of fun in their respective roles; and when I saw the show on opening night, it was obvious that the audience had just as much fun watching them.” — Drama in the Hood

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Kelleen Conway Blanchard was the subject of a recent SLOG post.

Reviews of past Bret Fetzer / Kelleen Conway Blanchard collaborations:

Hearts are Monsters
“Hearts Are Monsters, a loose riff on Hamlet, fills the small stage at
Rendezvous with the gallows humor and elegant garishness of a 1970s
exploitation film…Monsters has a style that hovers somewhere between
John Waters, Daniel Waters (Heathers), and Jack Hill (Switchblade
Sisters, Foxy Brown), but Kelleen Conway Blanchard’s world-premiere
script bristles with dense, dirty intelligence, and the jokes come
thick and fast…The cast, directed by Bret Fetzer, never plays the
script for camp, but delivers the craziest lines with a dead-ahead
seriousness that makes the comedy that much sharper.” – The Stranger

Small Town
“[Small Town] is snappy and quick-paced; Fetzer, who has an obvious
knack for comedy, keeps things flowing nicely, and he seems to work
well with actors, drawing from each a solid performance. The staging
is exceptional, especially considering the tight space of CHAC’s
downstairs venue; for instance, by virtue of a ratty couch that flips
back on hinges, Stu Lionel’s underground abattoir is revealed. It’s a
nice touch, as is the split-second conversion of that same couch into
a mammoth dining table. Also noteworthy are the wonderful musical
interludes that punctuate the action: Bud’s uproariously heartfelt
crooning of the Scorpions’ “No One Like You,” or the final number, an
astonishing bluegrass version of Outkast’s hit “Hey Now,” with the
whole cast chanting the chorus in a flat-footed monotone. These
moments stand out not only for their expert execution but also for
their refreshing sense of levity—of good-hearted fun and comic warmth,
for lack of better terms.” –The Seattle Weekly

written by Scot Augustson, directed by Bret Fetzer
LATE NIGHT: Jan 29 – Feb 12, 2010, Fri-Sat at 11 pm
(no show Friday, Feb 6)
$10 gen / $5 stu

A gang war twixt nuns and priests!

Episode 2 of Annex’s smash-hit Penguins, about a gang war between nuns and priests in the Catholic church that rocks the dioceses!

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SPECIAL THANKS

Lynn Jepson, Jen Moon, Deb Skorstad and the UW Costume Shop, Seattle Children’s Theatre, and Theater Schmeater.

written by Bret Fetzer & Juliet Waller Pruzan
directed by Rachel Katz Carey
with songs by Rick Miller
Jan. 16 – Feb. 14, 2009

When 8 year old Kirsty Vanderkamp finds a hidden world in the nooks and crannies of her house — dust bunny farmers under the bed, a burlesque show in the butter compartment, a tabloid published in the china cabinet — she also finds herself caught up the wake of Aura Rotter, an ambitious social climber working her way up the rungs of society, and the lovelorn Iota Potts, a farmboy who risks everything that ever mattered to him to win Aura’s heart. Kirsty travels from the depths of the drains to the heights of the lighting fixture as she tries to make sense of this miniature world — and her own.

REVIEWS

“Blind Spot wends its way into your imagination… I found Blind Spot something of a revelation: I saw new life and new civilizations, and boldly went where no man had gone before. Way cool.” — Seattle Weekly

“The play reinvents the house in a childlike way as a rich, surprising place and satirizes all kind of adults, from the poor devout to the filthy rich.” — The Stranger

The cast of Blind Spot

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BUILD CREW

Chris Bell, Daniel Christensen, Chris Comte, Meghan Darling, John DeShazo, Ciara Griffin, Allie Hankins, Sandy Kopriva, Todd Kopriva, Jem Lewis, Gary Menendez, David Roby, Matt Shannon, Suja Hart, David Otten, and Kristina Volkman

SPECIAL THANKS

14/48, Wendy and Marc Barrington, Ruth Baugh, David Baum, Lyssa Browne, Nicholas Carey, Stanley and Arlene Cohen, Chris Comte, John DeShazo, Eglantine, Ilene Fins, Anne Fitzgerald, Ted Ford, Susan Freccia, the Katz Foundation, Nebunele Theatre, Alan Pruzan, Brandon Simmons, Crispin Spaeth, Roy Stanton, Alia Swersky, Theater Schmeater, theater simple (Llysa Holland and Andrew Litzky), Sulo Turner

written by Mike Daisey | directed by Christopher Comte
October 17 – November 15, 2008

This first play by acclaimed monologuist Mike Daisey (21 Dog Years, Monopoly!, How Theater Failed America) weaves a vision of the brutal history of the Soviet space program with an unbelievable premise: a dead cosmonaut is called back down to Earth on a radio wave when Americans in a remote Arctic base hear the beating of his dying heart. A dark and hilarious fairy tale set against the Cold War, it asks what we risk in the struggle between will and humanity, and what it means to love beyond death itself.

Playwright Mike Daisey has been called “the master storyteller” and “one of the finest solo performers of his generation” by the New York Times for his groundbreaking monologues which weave together autobiography, gonzo journalism, and unscripted performance to tell hilarious and heartbreaking stories that cut to the bone, exposing secret histories and unexpected connections.

His monologues, fourteen and counting, include the controversial How Theater Failed America, the six-hour epic Great Men of Genius, the unrepeatable series All Stories Are Fiction, and the international sensation 21 Dog Years. Over the past decade he has performed his unique extemporaneous monologues at venues such as the Public Theater, American Repertory Theatre, the Spoleto Festival, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Cherry Lane Theatre, Yale Repertory Theater, the Noorderzon Festival, the T:BA Festival, Performance Space 122, and many more.

He’s been a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman, a commentator for PRI’s Studio 360 and NPR’s Day To Day, a contributor to WIRED, Slate and Salon, a web contributor to Vanity Fair and Radar Magazine, and his work has been heard on the BBC, NPR, and the National Lampoon Comedy Hour. His first film, Layover, is being distributed by Lars von Trier’s company Zentropa, and he stars in the Lawrence Krauser feature Horrible Child. His first book, 21 Dog Years: A Cubedweller’s Tale, was published by the Free Press and he is working on a second book, Great Men of Genius, adapted from his monologues about genius and megalomania in the lives of Bertolt Brecht, P.T. Barnum, Nikola Tesla, and L. Ron Hubbard.

He has been the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, two Seattle Times Footlight Awards, and a MacDowell Fellowship. He lives in New York City with his director and collaborator, Jean-Michele Gregory. The Moon Is A Dead World is his first play.

REVIEWS

“[Playwright Mike] Daisey has a rich, restless imagination…. Moon is a small, sweet pleasure.” – The Stranger

“Director Christopher Comte has put together an entertaining production worthy of the script.” – Seattle Weekly

“Fascinating…. Annex’s production is an amazing display…. Crisp direction, great set design, and excellent sound support create a great reality for this unreal play. The four actors are all excellent. … This is one of the best efforts Annex Theatre has produced, and that’s saying a lot.” – Seattle Gay News

“If a new play of this caliber opened in Seattle every few weeks, we could stop going to see Hollywood crap or caring about how Christian Slater blows up Russians on the TV.” – Seattlest.com

Preview in the Seattle P-I: Full-length ‘The Moon Is A Dead World’ is a new phase for solo performer Mike Daisey

Interview on Seattlest.com: A Dialog with Newly-Minted Playwright Mike Daisey

The cast of The Moon Is A Dead World

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AFTRA Seattle Local, Cicada Bridal, Ron Darling, John DeShazo, A.J. Epstein, The Ethereal Mutt, Ltd., David Gassner, Teri Lazzara, Theater Schmeater, Frederick Vegas.

Annex Theatre wishes to acknowledge the generous contributions of 4Culture, The Flintridge Foundation, Microsoft Corporation, The Seattle Foundation, The Boeing Company, ActiveMac, and the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs for their support of this production.