The Wayne Theatre presents a one-day-only production of Survival, starring acclaimed actress and composer Elizabeth Fuller, on Sunday, Aug. 5, at 7 p.m., at the Shenandoah Valley Art Center.
Tickets are $12 for this special performance.
Survival features Fuller as two halves of herself. As Lou, she’s been down the road and back, 77 years of surviving everything, from having been born Sherilee (“Parents make a lotta mistakes: do I look like a Sherilee?”) to dealing with a high-maintenance friend (“She’s tried suicide three times and survived all three-never was good with practical stuff.”).
Lou’s weathered, sinewy humor, and her baggy pants, barn jacket and knit cap would blend right into the local farmers’ market.
As the daily news trumpets disaster – “Annihilation Awareness Day,” “International Apocalypse Week” – Lou calls for rescue to her Inner Clown, Bozo, a red-nosed perpetual optimist. (“We don’t just sit there and say, ‘What’ll I do, what’ll I do?’ We gird up our loins and take a deep breath and rev up our engines and do something stupid.”)
Fuller has played more than 2,500 performances throughout the U.S. with Milwaukee’s Theatre X and The Independent Eye, as well as guest appearances with Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, Pittsburgh’s City Theatre, Jean Cocteau Repertory, Theater of the First Amendment, Shotgun Players and others.
She has created over 50 theatre scores, was twice recipient of Philadelphia’s Barrymore Award for theatre music, and was composer and co-host for 94 episodes of the public radio series “Hitchhiking Off the Map.”