AC Wilcoxen

Our age of digital matchmaking – of swiping left and right on apps – and unprecedented growth in service industries denigrates the “worth” of some bodies more than others: femme and feminized bodies, fat bodies, and disabled bodies, among them. This intertextual surreal play follows two women in their 30s, Front of House and Back of House, as they try to make sense of their lives as service industry workers in a restaurant that only serves marshmallows while also contemplating their romantic histories in and around this digital era. Rejecting the traditional play structure, this story journeys into the psyche of our main characters, meandering back and forth between externalized inner-monologues and dialogue while incorporating dance, comedy, literary adaptation, and experimental theater to provide a one-of-a-kind performance experience. This play invites us to question our own compliance in turning ourselves into products for consumption and asks us to consider if love can really “fix” us, or if it’s the ways we date and relate to one another that needs fixing.

For many, the Midwest is nothing more than the flyover states, or a place where culture goes to die. When you come from a mostly blue-collar family in the rural Midwest, what you inherit from your family are stories – the story of Grandma stealing a car, or how Mom came up with that recipe for bread pudding when we only had three ingredients in the kitchen. But what does it mean to inherit stories from a place the rest of the country regards as “the flyover?” This one(ish) woman show invites the audience to join Vernice, a struggling author, in a view from the middle as she rummages through her Midwestern histories in an attempt to re-story the stories of her flyover inheritance, in an attempt to re-ignite her writing career, while also exploring the question of whose stories are “worth” telling.

Ted and Gina try to figure out a sentence.

Dennis and Vernice, a married couple of many years, try to remember the lyrics of a song while doing the basics of life together. At first, this song seems nonsensical to Vernice, but as time goes on and they debate the meaning of lyrics, it's not so clear who's right and who's wrong. Exploring themes of memory, co-construction of reality in long-term relationships, and aging, this play displays the mundanity, hilarity, and absurdity of sharing a life with someone.

Tiffany's mother is in for a huge surprise when she catches her young daughter stealing bubble-gum and tries to lecture her about such behavior.

Charlie brings their partner from the city, Meridian, home to meet their very rural, very Midwestern mom for the first time, as they both negotiate how much of their queer and non-binary identities to reveal. Grappling with the rural-urban divide, one of the biggest chasms in our society, A Mother’s Intuition displays how people from seemingly opposite worlds can still connect when they’re willing to meet each other where they are and offer each other a bit of grace.

Charlotte recounts her first brush with romance at the dance designed to keep kids off drugs.