Noho Arts District: Whitefire Solofest Presents “Uprooted.” Written and Performed by Vanessa Boss. Directed and Developed by Jessica Lynn-Johnson.
March 18, 2019
Written by Samantha Simmonds-Ronceros
This is a truly magical play.
The play opens with Vanessa as a tree, waving her arms like branches moving in the wind. The tree represents her home, her need to feel secure and rooted in the world. And the wise old tree is in trouble, she needs a forever home.
Vanessa Boss has written a beautiful, mythological play, created to share the story of her young self searching for her place in a world where she has little control over where she goes, when she moves and what she can call home.
As a child, her father moved the family eight times before she graduated high school, which is a lot, especially for a girl as deeply in touch with the universe as Vanessa clearly is. Remaking a home so many times was painful, disorienting and made her little bright soul dimmer and dimmer.
She uses all the voices in her head as wonderful and diverse individual characters who advise and guide and sometimes wreak havoc in her life. Vanessa mesmerizes h
