[Cwgrad-announcements] Twinkie Tower

[Abbie Bosworth]

I would be so honored if any of you could make it to see my new play, Twinkie Tower at CSSB. The following is a copy of the press release if you want to know any more about it.
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Abbie

Queer Theatre: Local LGBTQ Teen and Young Adult Group to Perform a New Play
 
Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance’s Theatre Program, in collaboration with The Pride Center at California State University, San Bernardino, presents Twinkie Tower, a new play by Redlands playwright Abbie Bosworth, August 7 and 8 at 8 p.m. and August 8 and 9 at 2 p.m. in the Santos Manuel Student Union Theatre at CSUSB.  To reserve tickets, call 909-537-5963.
 
Twinkie Tower takes a harsh but funny look at issues facing transitional-aged youth – young people ages 18-22.  It explores teen pregnancy, poverty, sexual orientation, gender identity, relationships, and independence.  The story centers around four young adults who all end up in Los Angeles: Aurora, a pregnant teen who has run away on her wedding day; Kit, a promiscuous lesbian who is struggling to come to term with her twin brother’s death; Seal, a girl inside a boy’s body who will do whatever it takes to make money for gender reassignment surgery; and Robbie, the father of Aurora’s baby who wants to make sure that his unborn child is okay.  The ghost of Kit’s brother and the unconventional Butch Angel round out the characters.
 
Director Michelle Ebert Freire, an Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at California State University, San Bernardino, finds the story heartwarming, hilarious, edgy…and disconcerting.  “These characters do not always make the best choices,” she explains.  “They’re children prematurely thrust in an adult world, and we watch helplessly as they sometimes pick a difficult or even self-destructive path.  Still, by the end of the play, each character develops some inner strength.”  Playwright Abbie Bosworth, who holds an MFA degree from the University of California, Riverside, and runs the playwrights’ program at The Performance Loft in Redlands, wrote the play based on devising sessions she and Freire held with RPYA youth in 2008.  Seeds of the story, then, come from the youths’ own lives and imaginations.  The eight cast members, ages 15-24, really connect with the characters and their situations because, as they say, “It’s real.”
 
In order to more fully explore some of the tough situations faced by the characters, there will be a post-performance interactive forum in which both audience and cast members can further discuss the story and how it connects to their own lives.
 
Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance (RPYA) is an 18-year-old organization whose mission is to provide a safe, healthy, and enriching environment for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and intersex youth of the Inland Empire.  Through social, health, education, advocacy, and arts programming, RPYA offers queer youth, their straight allies, and their families a resource otherwise hard to find in the Inland Empire.  The Theatre Program recently received a Queer Youth Theatre grant from the Mukti Fund.
 
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If you would like more information or are interested in scheduling an interview or visiting a rehearsal, please directly contact Michelle Ebert Freire at mebertfreire at gmail.com.


Abbie Bosworth.     801 E Central Ave Redlands CA 92374.      909 6491283
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