FRINGE PLAY TACKLES CONTROVERSIAL ADOPTION ISSUE
Disrupted
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 5/23/16
Fringe Play Tackles Controversial Adoption Issue
Rehoming is the hotly debated practice of placing a previously adopted child with new guardians, usually without involving the court system or child welfare groups. A bold new stage production debuting at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in June tackles this controversy head-on.
An explosive five-part Reuters series recently brought rehoming into the national spotlight, revealing parents advertising their adopted children on Facebook pages and in Yahoo groups. Several states are currently considering legislation to regulate or outright ban the practice. But unlike most of the debates surrounding rehoming that tend to center around the experience of adoptive parents, the world premier of Disrupted explores the collateral damage that an adoption disruption or rehoming can inflict on a sibling relationship.
The play, written and directed by acclaimed LA memoirist Mary Anna King, follows two unlikely sisters who reunite in the wake of their mother’s death. But there’s more to address besides the will; the two sisters must also reconcile a disruption in their childhoods that caused them to disappear from one another’s lives when the older sister was rehomed.
“The Fringe Festival is the perfect place to explore a hot-button issue like this,” said King. “Experimentation is encouraged and audiences expect bold questions.”
King also has a very personal connection to the play: she herself was adopted. Her debut memoir Bastards chronicles the story of King and her biological siblings as they were adopted by five different families and raised apart from each other.
“On paper, my biological siblings and I are strangers, and yet in life we are connected in an incredibly intimate, knowing way. Both things are true: we are strangers, and we are family. That tension is fascinating to me.” King says.
Catherine Kresge (A Good Day to Die Hard, My Name is Doris) and Sarah Navratil (Cloudy with a Chance of Sunshine, Lady Windermere’s Fan) star as the sisters, with Madeline Merrit (Similitude, Bastards y Diablos) understudying.
Preview: June 5 at 7 p.m.
Performances:
Friday, June 10, 8 p.m. Friday, June 17, 8 p.m.
Saturday, June 11, 8 p.m. Saturday, June 18, 8 p.m.
All performances are in the Uptown Stage of the Underground Theatre at 1312–1314 N. Wilton Place, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Tickets are available at hollywoodfringe.org/projects/3764?tab=tickets.
