SPARTANBURG, SC – The award-winning Proud Mary Theatre Company is proud to announce their forthcoming one-woman show THE PINK UNICORN is now available for booking at theatres, college campuses. high schools, churches, and other venues across the Carolinas April through June 2020.
In this heart-wrenching play by Elise Forier Edie recently produced Off-Broadway with Tony-winner Alice Ripley (Next to Normal) and. starring the playwright, as the keynote address at the 2019 South Carolina Theatre Association conference in Florence, SC, Trisha Lee’s life and faith as a Christian widow in a conservative Southern town is suddenly upended when her 14-year-old daughter Jolene announces she is “gender queer” and garners national media attention after starting a Gay and Straight Alliance chapter at her high school.
Proud Mary Theatre Company is a community theatre based at the Artists Collective Spartanburg and is South Carolina’s only LGBTQ+ theatre company.
Esteemed Greenville director, actor and educator Anne Tromsness directs the South Carolina premiere of The Pink Unicorn starring Upstate actor Kelly Davis February 7-16 in Spartanburg and Greenville, before the act goes on the road to spread this message of love an acceptance.
Tromsness is a frequent actor and director at The Warehouse Theatre and faculty member at The Fine Arts Center of Greenville County Schools, and a passionate, longtime ally and advocate for LGBTQI rights. In 2014 she was awarded the SC Equality Community Champions Award for the Upstate.
“When I watched the video of Elise’s show, I just burst into tears – that fierce and unconditional mama love and support, those Southern voices standing up for equality in their conservative community,” said Tromsness, who also serves on the board of directors for the SC Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“This is a play that I think will resonate in our community, prompt conversation, and perhaps remind us that no matter how futile things may seem, love contains boundless power, and that our children, if we listen to them, accept them, and love them, can elevate our understanding of the world beyond our own imaginings and create the capacity for change,” she added.
Originally from New York, Davis (Helen Bechdel in Proud Mary Theatre’s musical Fun Home in June 2019) has worked with companies such as Theatre for the New City, NYC Fringe Festival, Astoria Performing Arts Center, Rising Sun Theatre Company, and Emerging Artists Theatre, and locally with the Mill Town Players, Centre Stage, and Upstate Shakespeare Festival.
“I am so honored to embody Elise Forier Edie’s words and to tell this story of a mother’s struggle to honor her own faith while supporting her child’s coming out as gender queer,” said Davis, who currently serves as a teaching artist in Greenville Schools through both the Warehouse Theatre and SmartARTS, and teaches musical theatre at Upstate Carolina Dance Center.
The Pink Unicorn made its Off-Broadway debut in 2019, and was originally produced in Ellensburg, Washington by DogTown Theatre in 2013. The Pink Unicorn has been performed throughout the U.S. and Canada including a run at United Solo Theatre Festival in New York, where Edie won Best Storyteller.
For booking information, please call Sandy Staggs at (864) 580-8385 or email [email protected].