Devised and Directed by Olivia Facini
(Theaterlab, April 2025)
I’m staging a handful of Donald Barthelme’s subversive, hilarious, and absurdist short stories. (If you’d like to get a sample of one, try The School.) Though Barthelme has largely disappeared from the public consciousness, the humor, bite, and perceptive social observation of his prose have only deepened with time. Barthelme blends verbally acrobatic dialogue with carefully rendered social tableaux, surrealist settings, and intricate descriptive passages.
An ensemble of three actors will bring the piece to life, and the show will run at the Theaterlab Gallery from April 10-13, 2025. Stay tuned for more details!
Side note: Originally, I conceived of this piece as a one-man show that would feature David Greenspan, a talented actor/theater maker and icon of the downtown experimental theater scene. But, due to scheduling issues that arose out of a labor strike at another venue (drama!), we won’t be able to work together on the piece. I hope to work with him on another piece soon.