TRAD & DENTATA

TRAD is a theatrical tear-down of the modern phenomenon of trad—or traditional—wives and the associated Christian nationalist arsenal of beliefs, which also indulges our collective yearning for fantasies of escape. This trad wife is eternally rotund with her husband's seed: What could possibly shake the ripeness of her faith in this idyllic existence?!

POV: Your husband is on his way home from work. You've got seven buns on the counter and one more in the oven, all baked from scratch, waiting for him. The peaches are bursting on the branches of your homestead's orchard, while below ground, something is nearing completion. You hear capital H-I-M whisper through the prairie grasses a song that melts your obstinate will, beckoning you to enter a wonderland of reliance and submission.

TRAD is directed by Iris McCloughan (Sad Boys in Harpy Land, Lempicka) and was initially co-directed/devised with Meaghan Robichaud (MEOW!, Meaghan Robichaud is the Greatest Show on Earth). Written and performed by Hannah Mitchell.

"Mitchell does some absolutely wacky shit here… I howled… Praise be." -Staff Picks

"Mitchell's performance is laugh-out-loud funny…it's in these moments of audience interaction that Mitchell is at her funniest. Members of the audience are pulled onstage several times during TRAD, and each time is a treat. The writer/actor's physical and improv comedy skills are so polished." – Broad Street Review

DENTATA: New work from an award-winning idiot. Join Beth Anne (a woman!), a middle-aged beauty queen (almost!), who has spent her life shape shifting into what she thinks others want, only to realize she doesn't know herself at all.

She looks for her reflection in Medusa, the Sirens of The Odyssey, and the Weird Sisters of Macbeth. These misunderstood women (women!) pull her through the wreckage of her past, forcing her to confront the stories she's been told about what it means to be beautiful, desirable, good, and worthy.

In a wild, theatrical unraveling, Beth Anne is ripped open and reborn as something powerful, ferocious, and entirely her own.

Directed by Jess Lazar (Funny or Die, Hulu) and co-birthed by SITI Company's Lucy Smith. Written and starring award-winning Julia VanderVeen.

****.5 "A genuinely out-of-this-world, next-level performer… Miss this at your peril." -The Reviews Hub

"Hypnotic trembling rage with a wink. A war cry dressed in a clown's costume." – SceneMag UK

**** "VanderVeen is simply amazing." – EatMoreArtVegas

Shortlisted Cabaret Award Brighton

Hannah Mitchell is a performer, theater-maker, and educator whose work springs from the improvisational arts of clown and bouffon. She is a founding member of the experimental performance collective CHILD, whose creative output "so insistently defies human logic," (Helen Shaw, The New Yorker ), and her work has been featured in the New Yorker's year-end "The Best of…