The Custom Made Theatre Co. and EXIT Theatre Present Workshop Production of YOU'LL NOT FEEL THE DROWNING

April is here and we're ready to share You'll Not Feel the Drowning, a new play by Marissa Skudlarek in a workshop production directed by Gabriel A. Ross, with our friends who are hungry for original works. You'll Not Feel the Drowning is the first play to be workshopped by The Custom Made Theatre Co. as part of their Undiscovered Works new play development program, a project in collaboration with EXIT Theatre with the aim of creating more direct avenues from page to stage.

Inspired by an award-winning New Yorker article about the likelihood of a cataclysmic tsunami striking the Pacific Northwest coast, You'll Not Feel the Drowning is an intimate story of three people who make their lives in a tsunami zone. Greg, a post-doctoral researcher in seismology, comes to a small town on the Oregon coast to do scientific research but encounters unexpected resistance from its citizenry. Susan is the mayor, a formidable woman who is aware of the tsunami risk but has done nothing to mitigate it. Laura, Susan's daughter, is caught in the middle between Greg and Susan, between bravery and fear. In determining how to respond to the tsunami threat, all three learn that some of their beliefs are well founded, and some are built on shaky ground. "I had already wanted to write about the part of the world where I'm from," says playwright Marissa Skudlarek. "Well, technically I grew up in the Portland suburbs but I wanted to write about Oregon's wilder parts, its beauty, the somewhat masochistic love I feel for wet, grey places. Oregon can make you a romantic. I thought about Schulz's article, and the twisted sea chanteys of Portland-based band The Decemberists, and the bleak cold grandeur of the Pacific. It was the idea of the tsunami that stuck with me, more than the earthquake itself. I've always found drowning a particularly scary way to go; yet at the same time, mightn't there be something oddly poetic about it?" This workshop production is the culmination of a year-long development process at The Custom Made Theatre Co. Sharing this brand new play with audiences in a bare bones but evocative presentation, featuring a team of actors and minimal design, Skudlarek and her collaborators will use this workshop as an opportunity to build blueprints for the 'building' to come as You'll Not Feel the Drowning continues on its path towards production.

In support of the play's development, two performances will include the opportunity for audiences to share verbal feedback and responses in conversations led by dramaturg Allie Moss and program director Stuart Bousel. Every performance will also give the audience a chance to provide written feedback. April 13 - April 22, 2017
featuring talkbacks with the playwright on April 14 and April 21

Be Part of the Process: Reserve Your Tickets Today!

Meet the Playwright

Marissa Skudlarek (Playwright) thanks Custom Made and EXIT Theatre for the opportunity to further develop You'll Not Feel the Drowning in this workshop production. This script was originally commissioned by the San Francisco Olympians Festival, an organization for which Skudlarek has written frequently. Her other Olympians Festival plays include the full-length Pleiades (produced by No Nude Men Productions in August 2014, to critical acclaim); the screenplay Aphrodite, or the Love Goddess; and the shorter plays Teucer, Laodike, The Dryad of Suburbia, and Macaria, or The Good Life. Skudlarek's other full-length plays include Juana, or The Greater Glory (which received a staged reading at the Loud and Unladylike Festival in 2016), Deus ex Machina (Young Playwrights Festival National Competition winner in 2006), Marginalia, and The Rose of Youth (Marilyn Swartz Seven Award and production at Vassar College production in 2008; staged reading at the EXIT Theatre in 2013). Her shorter plays and translations have been produced by PianoFight Productions, San Francisco Theater Pub, Un-Scripted Theatre, Wily West Productions, and the San Francisco One-Minute Play Festival. Skudlarek is an occasional contributor to American Theatre's website and, from 2012 to 2016, she wrote a twice-monthly column for the San Francisco Theater Pub blog. She grew up outside of Portland, studied Drama and French at Vassar College, and has lived in San Francisco since 2008.

EXIT Theatre has been presenting indie theatre since 1983 and operates five storefront performance spaces in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. With a focused mission, the EXIT provides opportunities for artists to create and showcase their work and develop their audiences. In addition to housing the productions of 100 independent theatre companies each year, the EXIT is single-handedly responsible for the annual San Francisco Fringe Festival, the largest grass roots theatre festival in the Bay Area.