FERTILE Comes To The Whitefire

After winning a Producers' Encore Award and earning a Best Solo Performance nomination at this year's Hollywood Fringe Festival, the hit show Fertile by star solo artist Heather Dowling is coming back for three special performances from Sept. 20-Oct. 18 at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks.

In Fertile, we meet Jenny, a woman with a plan...a plan to get pregnant. Everyone keeps telling her that time is running out; she just turned 35, after all. So, when those urine tests keep coming back negative, Jenny decides to take action and fix the problem. That's when she runs into real problems...and real questions about fertility and motherhood. As Jenny faces the world of "mom options" - egg freezing, in-vitro, adoption, and more - the conversation about the expectation of procreation really begins. In a sea of outside opinions from her friends, her doctors, a beloved neighbor, and even God, Jenny must ultimately look within to discover what motherhood means to her, what it means to be fertile.

The show's tremendous success and praise from both patrons and critics at Fringe called for Dowling to keep it going and look to where the show could go next.

"When I was invited to bring the show to the Whitefire Theatre by award-winning artistic director Bryan Rasmussen, I was excited because I love both the venue and his commitment to the development of solo theatre as an artistic expression," Dowling said. "Plus, because of the sold-out run, I had a long list of people who missed Fertile at Fringe and I wanted to get the show back on stage for them as soon as I could."

Fertile came from the successful two-year run and national tour of Dowling's debut solo show Unemployed. Finally., which premiered at the 2015 Hollywood Fringe, earning awards. Driven by the heartfelt audience response to her stories of struggle with fertility, Dowling decided to share her story more completely and interviewed dozens of women (and men, too) to discover, uncover and encourage a conversation about procreation as an empowered choice.

After the Whitefire performances, Dowling will also bring her show to the 4th Annual Binge Fringe Festival of Free Theatre at the Santa Monica Playhouse on Saturday, Nov. 2. She's also looking at another local run early next year, as well as the possibility of performing in the L.A. Women's Theatre Festival and potentially taking the show on the road.

For now, she's focusing on the Whitefire run, and says the success of the show so far has truly humbled her.

"This tells me that my desire to share a story that really connected with people, engaged people truly got fulfilled with Fertile," she said.

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