The Marsh San Francisco Adds Free Showings Brian Copeland's THE WAITING PERIOD

Due to ongoing support from a GoFundMe campaign and generous corporate contributions from Summit Bank and Galvan and Associates in San Leandro, The Marsh San Francisco has added freeperformances of award-winning playwright and actor Brian Copeland’s The Waiting Period on select dates in August and September 2023. This deeply moving and surprisingly funny work outlines Copeland’s own struggles with depression and suicidal thought, and is presented at no cost to remove all barriers for those who may be struggling with depression themselves. Featuring humorous, poignant, and riveting insights, The Waiting Period will be presented August 20 & 27 and September 10 & 17, 2023, with performances at 12:00pm Sundays at The Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia St., San Francisco. Thanks to the support of generous donors, general admission tickets are FREE. Supporters may donate $50/$100 for reserved seats, funds which make it possible for others to see the show at no cost. To order free or reserved seats tickets, the public may visit themarsh.org.

 

To support this groundbreaking piece, one can also donate to the GoFundMe site. “This play saves lives,” said Copeland, “Many who have seen it tell me they suddenly recognized their own symptoms or those of a loved one, in time to intervene before they committed the ultimate harm to themselves and devastated their families.” For more information about the ongoing fundraising campaign or to help The Marsh meet its $80,000 goal with a tax-deductible donation, please visit gofundme.com/f/xs47d-help-us-help-people-with-depression.  

 

This captivating drama provides an unrelenting look at a key turning point in Copeland’s life—the mandatory ten-day waiting period before he could lay his hands on the newly purchased gun with which he planned to take his own life. Laced with surprisingly funny moments that serve as a buffer against the grim reality of his intentions, Copeland hopes this very personal, and ultimately redemptive, story will reach people who struggle with depression—often called the last stigmatized disease—as well as their families and loved ones. As critic Sam Hurwitt put it in The Idiolect: “It’s a play I’d strongly recommend to anyone who is now or has ever been depressed or who knows someone in that situation. But honestly, it’s such a strong piece that I’d recommend it just as heartily to anyone who’s ever been human.”  

 

The Waiting Period opened in 2012 to overwhelming critical and audience response, and has been lauded by survivors and co-survivors of depression. The show won a Theatre Bay Area (TBA) Award for Outstanding Production of a Solo Play in 2015. Copeland launched this series of free performances to provide an opportunity to reach those who need to see the show, but have been unable to due to the price of admission. A number of people struggling with suicidal thoughts have told Copeland that seeing his piece has literally saved their lives. 

 

ABOUT BRIAN COPELAND

Brian Copeland (Writer/Performer) has been in show business since he first stepped on the comedy stage at age 18. Soon, he was headlining clubs and concerts across the country and opening for such artists as Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, Ringo Starr, and Aretha Franklin, in venues from The Universal Amphitheater to Constitution Hall in Washington DC. Copeland then branched off into television, appearing on comedy programs on NBC, A&E and MTV. He spent five years as co-host of San Francisco FOX affiliate KTVU breakfast program Mornings on 2 and two years hosting San Francisco ABC affiliate KGO’s Emmy Award winning afternoon talk show 7Live. His first network special, Now Brian Copeland, premiered on NBC after Saturday Night Live for West Coast audiences in January 2015. In 1995, KGO Radio premiered The Brian Copeland Show. With his unique blend of humor and riveting talk, the program was the most listened to program in its time slot, reaching more than 100,000 listeners. Copeland’s other theatrical works include Not a Genuine Black Man, the longest-running one man show in San Francisco history; The Scion, a taken-from-the-headlines tale of privilege, murder, and sausage; the critically-acclaimed Christmas classic, The Jewelry Box; The Great American Sh*t Show, a collaboration with Charlie Varon featuring monologues on life in the Age of Trump; and his newest work GRANDMA & ME: An Ode to Single Parents, which examines the issues of single parenting and asks what it truly means to be a father.

 

ABOUT David Ford

David Ford has been collaborating on new and unusual theatre for three decades, and has been associated with The Marsh for most of that time. The San Francisco press has variously called him “the solo performer maven,” “the monologue maestro,” “the dean of solo performance,” and “the solo performer’s best friend.” A week rarely goes by when residents of the Bay Area cannot enjoy one of his productions. Collaborators include Geoff Hoyle, Brian Copeland, Charlie Varon, Echo Brown, Marilyn Pittman, Rebecca Fisher, Wayne Harris, Jill Vice, and Marga Gomez. Ford’s work has been seen regionally at The Public Theatre, Second Stage Theater, Theatre at St. Clement’s, Dixon Place, Theatre for the New City (New York), Highways Performance Space (Los Angeles), and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Co. (Washington, D.C.). His work has also been featured in most of the fringe festivals in North America, as well as at theaters around the Bay Area including Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Magic Theatre, and Marin Theatre Company. Ford’s directing has garnered several “Best of Fringe” Awards and a Goldie Award. 

ABOUT THE MARSH

The Marsh is known as “a breeding ground for new performance.” It was launched in 1989 by Founder and Artistic Director Stephanie Weisman, and pre-COVID hosted more than 600 performances of 175 shows across the company’s two venues in San Francisco and Berkeley. A leading outlet for solo performers, The Marsh’s specialty has been hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “solo performances that celebrate the power of storytelling at its simplest and purest.” The East Bay Times named The Marsh one of Bay Area’s best intimate theaters, calling it “one of the most thriving solo theaters in the nation. The live theatrical energy is simply irresistible.” Since its launch in April 2020, the theatre’s digital platform MarshStream has garnered more than 100,000 viewers. Notable MarshStream moments include the debut of MarshStream International Solo Fest 1 and 2, The Marsh’s first-ever digital festivals, and the U.S. premiere of The Invisible Line, a new documentary about one of the world’s most famous social experiments gone wrong. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic MarshStream has hosted over 700 live streams, providing some 300 performers a platform to continue developing and producing art. The Marsh will continue to offer digital content on MarshStream, as well as in- person performances.

 Photo Credit: Carla Befera

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