Writing, Acting, and Directing in the 2015 Olympians Festival

2015 is my fifth year participating in the San Francisco Olympians Festival as a writer, but it is the first year I will be acting and directing for the festival as well!

We're advertising it with this Lisa Frank poster
because it's just too perfect.

On Wednesday, November 18, I am acting in the staged reading of Delphin: Christian Teen Dolphin-Sex Beach Party by Anthony Miller (directed by Colin Johnson). If you've ever wanted to hear me talk in a ridiculously thick French accent about having sex with a dolphin, THIS MAY BE YOUR ONLY CHANCE. The show is goofy as hell yet surprisingly sweet, and everyone in it is hilarious. And, I mean, I've always half-jokingly said that my goal in life is to be an intense French woman -- and now, thanks to the magic of theater, I get to do that for forty-five minutes. It's just that the thing I'm really intense about is dolphin-fucking.

"Tethys" poster specially drawn for the
Olympians Festival by Brett Grunig. I love
how dark and grim and rainy it is. I can
almost feel the cold seawater on my skin.

Then on Friday, November 20, I am directing a staged reading of my own Tethys, or You'll Not Feel the Drowning. It's a one-act play that draws upon my love for my home state of Oregon, its tenacious pioneer spirit and its beautifully bleak winter weather; as well as the terror that all Oregonians felt when they read that New Yorker article this summer about the possibility of a great Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. I've got a great cast -- Janice Wright as the formidable mayor of a small coastal town, Alan Coyne as a seismologist with bad news, and Kendra Webb as the schoolteacher who is caught between them -- and while my direction is pretty minimalist, I'm still learning a lot from the experience of directing my own work.

Both Delphin and Tethys are one-act plays, so they'll be paired with another one-act show in order to make a full evening of theater. I should also note that neither of these plays requires any prior knowledge of Greek mythology to enjoy! They explore some of the themes associated with the dolphin god Delphin and the deep sea goddess Tethys, but they don't actually re-tell a specific myth.

The Olympians Festival staged readings are at 8 PM at the EXIT Theatre (156 Eddy St, San Francisco). Tickets $12 online or $10 at the door.