Kristen Cosby Premieres WHEN THE SKELETON DOES NOT STAND At Playground Solofest
New solo performance explores siblinghood, disability, and grief through embodied storytelling.
San Francisco–based writer and performer Kristen Cosby will premiere her solo performance WHEN THE SKELETON DOES NOT STAND at PlayGround SoloFest this January.
The work will be presented at SF Playground in Potrero Hill and examines siblinghood, disability, grief, and the cultural meaning of standing through memoir, spoken word, and physical performance.
When the Skeleton Does Not Stand traces Cosby’s lifelong relationship with her brother, beginning in early childhood when the two lived aboard a sailboat and were physically tethered together for safety, and continuing into adulthood after her brother sustains a catastrophic spinal cord injury that leaves him paralyzed. Moving between personal narrative and embodied performance, the piece asks what happens when one body can no longer stand—and what it means to be the one who still can.
Rather than following conventional narratives of recovery or resilience, the work focuses on aftermath, including rehabilitation hospitals, shifting family roles, and the complicated ethics of hope. Cosby interrogates cultural fixations on progress and miracles, examining when hope sustains and when it becomes a form of harm. As her brother’s body changes, she confronts her own relationship to movement, survivorship, and the responsibility of inhabiting a body that remains mobile.
Drawing on Cosby’s background in movement practice and literary storytelling, the piece uses restrained physicality as a central narrative tool. Movement functions as inquiry rather than ornament, investigating how bodies carry memory, loss, and care. The work situates personal experience within broader questions about disability, embodiment, and whose bodies are permitted freedom of movement.
When the Skeleton Does Not Stand will be performed on January 16, 2026 at 7:00 p.m., January 17 at 5:30 p.m., and January 18 at 4:00 p.m. The performance runs approximately 30 minutes and will take place at SF Playground in Potrero Hill, San Francisco.
Kristen Cosby is a freelance writer, editor, educator, and performer whose work has been supported by the Jan Michalski Foundation, the Corporation of Yaddo, the MacDowell Artist Colony, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her writing has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies and has received the Normal Prize in Nonfiction and a Pushcart Prize special mention. She has recently performed solo work at The Marsh Theater, StageWerx’s Solo Sundays, and as part of La Cocina’s Voices from the Kitchen, and will next appear at the Verdi Club for Bawdy Stories on January 23.
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