Verna Gillis to Bring 'TALES FROM GERIASSIC PARK' to United Solo, 10/5-23

This past June Verna Gillis turned 72...and this fall, the writer & performer will offer three performances of her laugh-out-loud solo show TALES FROM GERIASSIC PARK - On the Verge of Extinction as a part of the United Solo Theatre Festival (10/5 at 6pm) and the She-Devil Comedy Festival (10/22 at 7:30pm & 10/23 at 7pm). The production had a five-performance run this summer as a part of the NY International Fringe Festival and features direction from Eva Tenuto (founder of The Women's Experimental Theater Group, now Director of TMI Project).

Verna Gillis has been performing "sit down comedy" standing up since 2010 when she won a Slam where the subject was Coming of Age. She changed it to Coming of Aging and was on her way and in TALES FROM GERIASSIC PARK Gillis offers a very funny and poignant look at this time of life. Her topics include family, relationships, addiction, peeing, aging, cancer, and scones as she takes audiences on a journey into "Older!"

Gillis assures audiences that she is "still sconed after all these years -- Sixty is the new sixty. Seventy is the new seventy."

She has also performed at the Woodstock Comedy Festival, the Metropolitan Room, the Lyceum, the Bearsville Theater, and other upstate venues, and in 2013 published her book I JUST WANT TO BE INVITED - I Promise Not To Come (Life as One-Liners).

Gillis also started SOUNDSCAPE in 1979, the first multi-cultural performance space in New York and has managed the careers of such great artists as Yomo Toro, Youssou Ndour, Salif Keita, Carlinhos Brown, and has most recently been collaborating with jazz legend Roswell Rudd. A Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology, Verna did field work in the Caribbean, Latin America, West Africa and Asia and more than 28 records have been released of her recorded material and is available on Smithsonian/ Folkways. She's also taught at Brooklyn College and Carnegie Mellon.

TALES FROM GERIASSIC PARK - On the Verge of Extinction will get a performance on October 5 at 6pm at Theatre Row - The Studio Theatre (410 West 42nd Street) as part of the United Solo Theatre Festival. Tickets are $19.25 and can be purchased online at www.Telecharge.com or by phone at 212-239-6200.