Ellis Abigail Stump

Amish childhood best friends Sadie Smucker and Willa Stoltzfus share a run-down trailer, crystal meth addiction, and romantic tension thick as a milkshake. The teens have spent their Rumspringa together higher than Heaven, but today face their rite-of-passage choice: surrender their forbidden love, or flee Lancaster and be shunned forever. With 24 hours until the autumn baptism ceremony, six twisted interrelated sinners must come...clean. This ensemble-oriented dark comedy sheds electricity-powered light on the rural drug epidemic and navigation of repressed identity. BYOBonnet.

During a semester abroad at Delhi University, Sienna and Jensen, two obliviously privileged, insularly ultraliberal, queer NYC college students, discover Shaadi.com, a matchmaking app like Tinder but run by parents. To “help” their Indian-American friend James find love, they pose as his parents to arrange a marriage—and pay off their student loans with the dowry money. But when the eligible bachelorette Ridhi falls instead for Sienna, who’s pretending to be James’ mother, as meanwhile Ridhi’s mom reckons with her own stance on same-sex marriage in India, everyone is tripped and tied up by the Red Thread of Fate. Led by heart beneath the farce, as a sendup of both Hollywood and Bollywood rom com tropes, WHITE BITCHES IN DELHI traverses the white savior complex, internally and externally imposed stereotypes and assumptions, and true growth.

~100-110 min. [interactive biopic] Ageless androgynous artist Diane Arbus is on a quest to find and capture the universal human experience. Across a vignette series homaging her/their obsessive “box of 10 photographs” and blurred with childlike nostalgia, the voyeur known for exhibiting Coney Island “freaks'' falls from Upper West Side privilege through 1930s-60s bohemia, before developing into a sensational spectacle her/themself. Identity, inclusion, and meaning are pursued until, when sensing light imbalance, the colorless fairy leaps. From there, can viewers participate beyond our frames? Prose arranged from real quotes, burlesque cabaret, audience interaction, and confining walls (the fourth, and set) expose Arbus’s “terribly terrific” fantasies, seasons, and early end.

**July 26, 2021 marks 50 years** since Diane’s suicide. This piece focuses on playing with creativity and movement to process, not “fix,” mental illness or trauma (during eras of isolation, unemployment, and health concerns), perhaps providing a platform for timely conversation.

100-115 min. [multimedia millennial dramedy] After a melodramatic college breakup, writer Carrie leaves NYC for London to navigate the Kubler-Ross Model (DABDA), from Denial to Acceptance. An ensemble of initial strangers explore maturity, independence, mental health, & commitment both in Real Life and their imaginations – while maintaining pristine social media presence.

25-30min. Inspired by Czech playwright and political protester Vaclav Havel and his Vanek Plays, this three-part piece considers activism today. Released from jail, a femme-identifying version of Havel begins waitressing at a local bistro struggling to survive and adapt to contemporary consumers. There, she’s visited by petty, privileged pals.

20-40min. [choreopoem] A series of poetic vignettes told by various interconnected travelers. The individuals (and some spirits and saints) cross paths over time and cosmos, influence one another indirectly, and explore themes of success and burnout; love and family; and fate. Their parallels unite them and, ultimately, lead them all “home” - whatever that means.

(1-2 min) Over just 12 lines beginning and ending with the same question, a sober but silly woman hangs photos of strangers using a step stool held by her worried "fuck-buddy and roomie (NOT parent or Doctor)."He clings to the ladder's directions, and she casual lightness, until a Doctor calls, shaking their snapshot forever.
The 5min version then features the introduction of a possible "Step #3."

In a 1960s townhouse, with decor that's attempting to but would impress no one, young Maggie is setting up and struggling to figure out her prized possession, the brand new board game, The Game of Life. Meanwhile, her snobbish but equally poor grandmother Ethel, who's stuck watching the kid due to family circumstances, is trying to simultaneously stay drunk and successfully host a popular Tupperware party for the neighbourhood ladies, who'll never show. All factors of identity---socioeconomic class, gender, sexuality, race, religion---are discussed between the two, as in the background, a fuzzy TV reports the incoming Cuban Missile Crisis, threatening to blow up both women's progress. Quick! Throw on your plastic tiara (upturned Tupperware), and duck and cover!

15-25min. [*real interview quotes* / docu-theatre / dark comedy] A young media influencer, Peridot, awakes in outerspace with only her objective and sardonic AI as company, after taking health and wellness routines to extremes. To help Peridot process her funeral rites and death’s impact, the AI explains through a framework of “one last post,” in a lucid, reverse chronological timeline also illustrating the onset of Peridot’s disorder. The duo reveals an increasingly toxic, suffocating dynamic until Peridot starts connecting constellations, sending new messages into the void, and plotting a return mission - utilizing her weaknesses and AI's strengths. **Script incorporates real interview quotes by recoverers of harmful relationships with food.**

10-15min. At Zoom prom, a juxtaposing duo (a couple? open to interpretation) of “ironic” campaigners for King and Queen - their stereotypes: bright-eyed baby and broody bad boy - slip away from the confirmative self-timer TikToking masses into an intimate Breakout Room in which, with their parents alc (win!), they embrace “Blackout Doom.” While drowning hopes and toasting fears, they riff on and dance around topics of vulnerability, duality, and promise in relation to gender, politics, violence, and power, all within an allegorical high school ruled by the electoral collage - or uh, student council - until surprising results and true motives are revealed.

10-15min. ["stand-up" shower monologue] Through silhouette shadow puppets and stand-up comedy performed from the shower, a hiding place literally steaming with intergenerational PTSD, Abigail "confesses" to Grandmother what she does and doesn't consider "sin." They revisit Election Night 2016, Poland during WWII, and quieter shared life moments to cleanse, see self-compassion, and step out naked, new, and beautifully messy.

5-10min. [choreopoem / interactive workshop] The firm but tender Adler Tree, then joyful but fickle maiden Ostara, devoted but too charitable Danu, and liberated, eccentric crone Sheela-na-Gig gift us their wisdoms related to spring fertility. Harmonizing darkness and light, the "triad of transformation" flows like streams - or leaps like rabbits - into a Goddess Box Craft Fest. Excerpt:
“To flourish we must forgive
Winter's regrets, our deep damaged roots
Entwine with offer and acceptance 
To plant purpose, seasons new.
…
Onwards with hope and dreams of rebirth,
Past wisdoms braided with vigor,
Faith in our intentions, intuition, and Earth.
…
So there ye have it, dancing crones!
From our old folklore, fresh feeling pours.
Take the wheel. Open your garden here.
What will stir, blossom, and bloom from yours?”

90min. [*interview quotes* / docu-theatre, with narrative] College freshman Elaine finds herself in the ER after frat formal. From the sexual assault forensics Q&A unfold surreal flashbacks and imaginary characters embodying her existential wonder around identity and purpose. Plots braid together as Elaine battles a lifetime of indecision, supported by rediscovered childhood friends. 

90-100min. [*inspired by interviews / docu-theatre] Ema’s just a normal high school senior… trapped in a perpetual prom week time-loop cycling through stereotypical John Hughes cliches, before befriending liberating, confident, indie wallflower Genevieve. They share the same taste in music and, far more darkly - in the “Real World,” unbeknownst to comatose Ema - cases of nearly fatal eating disorders, OCD, and suicidal ideation. The woman behind it all? Ema’s overbearing mother, sitting beside her daughter’s hospital bed fixating on everything she could have done. But when Genevieve shows up there in Real Life to wake her unconscious lover, who observes through an out-of-body experience, all three wind up confronting and introspecting. Now in both realms, all these bleeding hearts must go to stupid overrated prom for themselves, as their truest selves, so they can ultimately dance together. Time After Time. 

6 performers each play one Coma Land adolescent and one hospital adult, crossing into each other’s thoughts and lives. In total, it runs ~100 minutes and features one original song and a few parodied covers, DIRECT QUOTES from self-conducted interviews with hospitalised survivors of disordered eating, and audience interaction in the last scene.