Mildred's Umbrella Presents CARNIVAL 'ROUND THE CENTRAL FIGURE, Now thru 11/23

Mildred's Umbrella Theatre Company presents the Houston premiere of Carnival 'Round the Central Figure by Diana Amsterdam, November 8-23, 2013 with a preview and after party tonight, November 7.

When Kate visits the death bed of a close friend, she is taken on a wild theatrical ride, as she is forced to acknowledge that no matter how much denial, positive thinking or prayer people practice to avoid death, the existential fears that every human being holds about the end of life will result in the same end...death.

Diana Amsterdam has been commissioned by the BBC, Manhattan Class Company, Shake-a-Leg Foundation, and Stanley Brechner. She received a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts and won 1st Place in the BBC Radio Play Contest; and selection for HBO's Play to Screen Series. Her plays Fast Girls plus Sex and Death: An Evening of One-Acts are published by Samuel French. Her plays Beautiful Clear-Eyed Woman and Iken's Perversion by Playscripts. Diana's plays had full productions at the Atlantic Second Stage, Abingdon Theatre, the American Stage Company, Cucaracha and Image Quilt Theatre. Her radio plays are broadcast in Germany and Britain. She maintains an active practice as script coach, script doctor and dramaturg.; and she is Director of Writer Programs at Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU). In 2011, her play/extravanganza Carnival Round the Central Figure was produced by Kori Rushton's IRT Theatre in New York City, directed by Atlantic Theater Company founding member Karen Kohlhaas, where it garnered a laudatory review in the New York Times.