Pinky Swear Productions Announces
2016–17 Season: “Survivors”
Pinky Swear Productions is proud to announce a thrilling season of murder, mayhem, and melancholy, with source material that spans 600 years, and performing in Washington, DC, and New York. All of our shows this season examine what it means to survive—whether it’s surviving a crime, a family tragedy, or the ruinous effects of public infamy.
This July, we’re back at the Capital Fringe Festival with the Bluegrass murder ballad cabaret, Over Her Dead Body. Join the cast and crew of a traveling Bluegrass variety show as they record a special night of traditional murder ballads for the radio. Things quickly start to go awry as uninvited guests—the murdered women featured in the songs—begin to reveal the other side of these sadistic stories. Simultaneously rowdy and reverential, no one makes it out of this show without a little blood on their hands.
In August, we’re taking the critically acclaimed show from our 2013 season, Bleed by Renee Calarco, to the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. A story about love, loss, and resilience, Bleed follows Marla and her husband, Dez, who escape her sister’s wedding reception and end up on an abandoned playground. There, they continue the delicate games they’ve been playing for 19 years in an effort to deal with the grief at the heart of their marriage.
Finally, in January, we’ll be bringing the epic rock opera, Lizzie, to DC audiences. Award-winning musical theatre actor and director Rick Hammerly will direct this epic, hard-driving, rock opera about Lizzie Borden, whose parents’ murder became one of the most infamous crimes in American history.
As always, the company is dedicated to carving out new spaces for women’s stories on the stage, and to creating more opportunities for female artists in every aspect of the creative process.
Pinky Swear Productions Returns to Capital Fringe with a Cabaret that Celebrates and Complicates Beloved Bluegrass Murder Ballads
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Do you love to happily hum along to homicidal harmonies?
If so, join Pinky Swear Productions as we dive deeper into popular melodies of murder and mayhem in our new original musical, Over Her Dead Body: A Bluegrass Benediction. Simultaneously rowdy and reverential, the show features a raucous group of talented local performers interpreting classics like Banks of the Ohio, Long Black Veil, Twa Sisters, and Barbara Allen—all backed by DC area-based, women-fronted Bluegrass band, Dead Men’s Hollow.
Join the cast and crew of a traveling Bluegrass variety show as they record a special night of traditional murder ballads for the radio. Things quickly start to go awry as uninvited guests—of the spectral variety—begin to reveal the other side of these sadistic stories: the victims’. Will they—or you—be able make it out without a little bit of blood on their hands?
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| Featuring: | Written by John Bavoso with Seth Alcorn, Karen Lange, Kenny Neal, and Brittany Alyse Willis
Directed by Ryan Maxwell Featuring James Finley, Karen Lange, Rebecca Phillips, Rebecca Speas, Brittany Alyse Willis, and Dead Men’s Hollow
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| Where: | Trinidad Theatre at the Logan Fringe Arts Space
1358 Florida Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20002 |
| When:
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Saturday, July 9 @ 6:45 p.m.
Friday, July 15 @ 11:00 p.m. Saturday, July 16 @ 10:45 p.m. Tuesday, July 19 @ 6:30 p.m. Saturday, July 23 @ 3:30 p.m. Special performance at NextStop Theater on July 17 @ 7 p.m.
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| Tickets |
Where capitalfringe.org or by calling 866-811-4111. |
BLEED by Renee Calarco at the
Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival
Renee Calarco’s short play, which Pinky Swear produced in our 2013 Unclear Family Repertory, is one of 30 plays (out of 1,400 submissions) in the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. The top six plays will be published by Samuel French. We’re bringing the original cast back to show New York audiences what a DC playwright can do.
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Marla—an escapee from her sister’s wedding reception—just wants some peace and quiet. Dez—her husband—just wants Marla. When Dez finds Marla on an abandoned playground, they play the delicate games they’ve been playing for 19 years… and ultimately face the hard truths of their lives.
BLEED is a story about love, loss, and resilience.
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| Featuring: | Karen Lange and Francisco Reinoso
Directed by Ally Currin
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| Where: | Classic Stage Company
136 E 13th St New York, NY 10003 |
| When:
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August 9 – 14, 2016
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| Tickets & Passes: | http://www.oobfestival.com/ or email [email protected] |
| Pinky Swear Press Contact
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Karen Lange, 703.943.7656, [email protected]
Or tweet @PinkySwearProd |
LIZZIE Is Coming To Slay You in January
When you were a child, you may have jumped rope to the macabre rhyme “Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks, when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.” Well, the creators of LIZZIE—Tim Maner, Alan Stevens Hewitt and Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer—amped up the volume of that rhyme and turned it into an epic, hard-driving, rock opera. Pinky Swear is the first company in DC snag this explosive musical about one of the most sensational stories in American history. We’re thrilled to announce that Rick Hammerly will be directing the show. We know he’ll totally kill it.
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In 1892, on a sweltering August day in a small New England town, a well-to-do elderly man and his second wife were brutally murdered with an axe in broad daylight. Lizzie Borden, their youngest daughter, was the primary suspect. She was arrested and tried, but, with no witnesses to the hideous crime, she was acquitted. The murders remain unsolved to this day.
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| Featuring: | Allyson Harkey, Karen Lange, and Toni Rae Salmi
Directed by Rick Hammerly
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| Where: | Anacostia Playhouse
2020 Shannon Pl SE Washington, DC 20020 Washington, DC 20020 |
| When:
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January 12 – February 5, 2017
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| Tickets & Passes: | http://www.pinkyswear-productions.com |
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| Pinky Swear Press Contact
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Karen Lange, 703.943.7656, [email protected]
Or tweet @PinkySwearProd |
About Pinky Swear
Pinky Swear’s Mission is to produce modern plays with well-crafted, believable, engaging women’s roles where people talk to each other and things happen. Our productions are a little funny, a little dark, and a lot entertaining.
Our goals are to:
- Build a company in which local theatre artists can make a living in our community.
- Raise the profile of women’s voices in theatre by hiring women artists and technicians whenever possible.
- Enable artists to experiment with new avenues of expression.
About Capital Fringe
Capital Fringe is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded in 2005 with the purpose of connecting exploratory artists with adventurous audiences by creating outlets and spaces for creative, cutting-edge, and contemporary performance in the District. Capital Fringe’s vital programs ensure the growth and continued health of the local and regional performing arts community by helping artists become independent producers while stimulating the vibrant cultural landscape in our city.
As a non-profit business Capital Fringe is made possible by: Reva and David Logan Foundation, Nora Roberts Foundation, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, The City Fund, Dallas Morse Coors Foundation, Prince Charitable Trust, Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, Share Fund of the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region, MARPAT Foundation, DC Public Library Foundation, PNC Bank, Fringe Board of Directors and Fringe individual donors and members.
http://www.pinkyswear-productions.com
Company member iMusical | Vox Pop
Improvisation & Musical Improvisation Teacher, Washington Improv Theater, Studio Theater
