LAB Theater Project To Present CRAZY QUILTS In November

LAB Theater Project will present Crazy Quilts, a new dark comedy by Karen Fix Curry.  Playing with the notion that things are not always what they seem, Crazy Quilts explores how strangers can quickly become family, and at your lowest moments can change your life in unexpected, profound, and sometimes unsettling ways.

The playwright, Karen Fix Curry, has had plays produced at City Theatre in Miami, and Theater 3 and Sundog in New York, as well as in London, Williamsburg, Dallas and California.  She is also an actor, teacher, costumer, and vocalist, who performed in and wrote for an Irish band for over a decade.  Crazy Quilts is directed by LAB's founding director, Owen Robertson, and features Tampa area actors Avry Eden, Caroline Jett, Judy Wilson, Rusty Gillespie, and Amanda Cappello.  Robertson designed the set, with lights by Jacob Nordstrom, sound by Rick Anthony, and costumes by Lindsay Ellis.

Like her characters, the playwright lives on an island in Puget Sound, and has been sewing, crocheting and quilting since she was young.  Curry says she's always been a huge fan of dark comedies and their heightened reality.  “This play is about the real struggles of physically and emotionally traumatized people, but the comedy makes it relatable without being so dark it would be tough to sit through.”  She adds that “quilting is a huge hobby in the Pacific Northwest, and quilters are a closeknit group who support each other artistically and personally, and are meticulous, with amazing attention to detail and incredibly creative.  What better support group could there be?”

The spirited Crazy Quilts club has been a fixture on their small island in Puget Sound for years.   Members cheerfully stitch beautiful bed covers by day, while quietly conspiring to find solutions – permanent solutions -- to each members' personal problems.  When Lisa comes to interview the quilters for the local paper, she suddenly realizes she is being recruited into the club!  If she accepts that her own plight requires a terminal fix, this friendly group could change her life forever.  But then she'll have to pay it forward herself when the next vulnerable recruit comes along!

The director, Owen Robertson, says “This story speaks to me on a very personal level.  While serving in the Army I conducted several domestic violence investigations and often they led to frustration.  I had difficulty wrapping my head around how victims could go back to their abusers. As I got older, I discovered the reasons were very complicated. In Crazy Quilts we get to sit with a group of victims who take control of their circumstances because they feel no one else can. Not only do they take control, but they find the "perfect" method.  The second reason is that everyone in the group of people that Karen gives us is rich with interest. The compassion shown by the Quilters toward their next initiate, Lisa, is overwhelming. Would that we all have such friends.  Humor is an extraordinary way to hold the mirror up to our society and make us look at something painful and then make it entertaining.  Karen Fix Curry has done that for me with Crazy Quilts

Crazy Quilts runs for two weekends, November 14-24.  Performances are Thursday through Saturday at 8:00 pm, with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 3:00, in LAB's theater at 812 E. Henderson Ave, on the western edge of Ybor City.  On-Demand performances will be available starting Thursday, November 21 through Thursday December 5. Audience members who purchase on-demand tickets will be emailed a link to the video site.