Birth. Sparkle. Death.

Overview

Hannah is a rising star. Hannah has a rare brain disorder. Hannah is disabled. A stand up/cabaret/video installation mash-up diving down the kaleidoscopic, surrealist rabbit hole of the stages grief that come with the life altering diagnosis. Filled with trippy, defective medications, bloody brain surgeries, and know-nothing doctors. She is left unlatched and alone inside of the one thing that is broken: her own mind. With each original song, new feelings will be born and will die, just like her. From the enfeebled brains of the creators of the camp Fringe hit Close Your Legs, Honey!

Cannonball, produced by Almanac Dance Circus Theatre, is the first and largest independent festival hub of the Philadelphia Fringe that presents risk-taking independent artists in back-to-back performances next to delicious lounge spaces, fostering creative collisions and community conversation.

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About the Artist

Hannah Parke (She/Her - Creator/Cast) is a catalytic and rambunctious actor, singer, cabaret artist, and playwright. She loves full-bodied and multi-sensory storytelling and is bold, energetic, and specific in her approach. She co-created "Close Your Legs, Honey" which was seen in the Fringe Festival in 2018 and spoke on the darkness and humor of child pageantry, based on my own life growing up in Tennessee. Her work is often described as dark comedy and shows how we often use humor to escape. Her current work explores her diagnosis with Epilepsy and how having an invisible disability is limiting, ridiculously lonely, and one of the most hilarious things that has ever happened to her. She likes to push boundaries, ask hard questions, and find the funny in the worst of places. Hannah was on the National Tour of "The Lightning Thief" and has performed at many regional theatres in Philadelphia.  

Shamus McCarty (He/Him- Director, Co-ProducerShamus (he/him/his)-Shamus is a Queer theatre maker who recently finished his MFA in Directing at Boston University and serves as Guest Artistic Director for Philadelphia’s Shakespeare in Clark Park. Recent credits: Playwrights’ Center (J.C. Pankratz’s Little Kingdom), Boston Playwrights Theatre (Jay Eddy’s Alligator-A-Phobia in 3D! and Pankratz’s Eat Your Young), PlayPenn (Kevin Esmond’s Vintage Illustrations of the Devil), Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Festival (Eddy’s Big Red Button), National Puppetry Conference at the O’Neill Theater Center. His original musical, Close Your Legs, Honey, co-created with Hannah Parke, premiered at PHIT Comedy and later produced by Bootless Stageworks. For BU: Once, Murder Ballad, Machinal, Assistance, Shakespeare’s R & J & Grounded. Upcoming: Two Gentlemen of Verona the musical (Shakespeare in Clark Park), Hannah Parke's Birth. Sparkle. Death. (Cannonball Festival) & Jay Eddy's Driving in Circles

Credits