Show: 29
Title: Against My Will
Category: Comedy / Drama / Solo Show / Spoken Word / Storytelling / Historical content / Political content / Shakespearian elements
By: Michael Quadrozzi
Created by: Michael Quadrozzi
Location: Rarig Xperimental
Summary: A solo storytelling show about overcoming childhood trauma.
Highlights: #TCTheater artists Michael Quadrozzi knocks it out of the park with his first solo storytelling show. It's so vulnerable, so beautiful, so moving. When he walks on stage and declares he has baggage to unpack, he's not talking about the backpack, duffel bag, and large roller suitcase he's lugging. Although he does literally unpack those bags, revealing family photos, childhood mementos, and other visual aids to his storytelling. But the real unpacking is of his childhood growing up on the East Coast with a narcissistic mother (and possibly other undiagnosed mental illnesses), a divorced dad he only saw on the weekends and who died suddenly when he was in college, and various stepparents and step/half siblings. With the help of words and drawings he writes on a large sketchpad, peeling of the pages one by one and laying them on the floor, he tells his well-written story in a way that's polished yet casual, as if he's sharing his deepest secrets with us, his new friends. And while the specifics of his story are unique to him, the themes of challenging families, grief, anxiety, and finding one's own way in the world, are universal. The best part of Fringe is when artists take their pain and turn it into art for all of us to cathartically share in, and this is a beautiful example of that.
