Becca is infertile and desperately wants to be a mom. Estrogen and Lucky, two live puppets, serve as the chorus, wise fools, and comic relief. This tragic-comic play about motherhood, fate, and God gives an insider’s view of the art and science of sex without reproduction and reproduction without sex. Written by Lisa Grunberger; directed by Hamutal Posklinsky.
$20 / 90 minutes
Play written by Lisa Grunberger
Directed by Hamutal Posklinsky
Featuring: Claire Golden-Drake, Kellie Cooper, Marc C. Johnson
Original music by Gabe Miller.
Temple University Professor, award-winning poet, whose work has appeared in The New York Times, author of Yiddish Yoga: Ruthie’s Adventures in Love, Loss and the Lotus Position (Harper Collins Press), stages her new play, Almost Pregnant, about the crazy-making maze of motherhood and identity that assisted reproductive technologies has birthed. Infertility affects many millions of us: women and men, single, partnered, and married, straight, gay, and transgender, all over the world, from Illinois to Israel, who are desperate to become parents. In my 40’s, I had my Roy Lichtenstein cartoon moment: “Oops I forgot to have children!” After 10 IUIs, three miscarriages, one ectopic pregnancy, two IVFs, three infertility doctors in two states over four years, I gave birth to my daughter. During my infertility treatments, I vowed, as a writer, to find a new way to write about this experience. My show, Almost Pregnant, is what I gave birth to. In Almost Pregnant you will meet Becca, a 40 something woman who must creatively adapt to her condition of infertility. Joined by her alter egos, Estrogen and Lucky, two live puppets, who serve as the chorus, wise fools, and comic relief, the play is full of stories, tragic and funny, about motherhood, fate, the transmission of identity, nature vs. nurture and God. Almost Pregnant gives you an unexpurgated insider’s view of the art and science of, what’s been called, “sex without reproduction and reproduction without sex.”
Becca re-imagines her identity and how she adapts to her situation in a very Jewish, very human way, through humor, self-reflection, and soul-searching. From the Hebrew Bible to the present, “assisted reproduction” is, in truth, about much more than a technology of biological intervention. Through telling her story, Becca makes Midrash out of her life and, through the act of memory and storytelling itself, she is transformed from a genetic island to a bridge. Becca’s story is accompanied by improvised music performed live by a violinist muse-of-the moment who, so to speak, “pulls the strings”.
For interviews, more photos and to book performances contact:
Lisa Grunberger
lisarachelus@yahoo.com
646-369-2350
Tickets go on SALE AUGUST 1ST
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