"When I first read Facing Angela, it was like a sock in the gut. It felt so personal to me. Like Angela, I have an immune disorder (though, unlike Angela, I’m fortunate that you can’t tell by looking at me), and too many moments in Facing Angela hit uncomfortably close to home. It’s enough of a mindfuck to come to terms with the fact that your body is attacking itself without then having to confront what that will mean to and for the people you love, the people who love you. Chronic illness is profoundly unglamorous, sometimes frightening, inconvenient, not to mention outrageously expensive to treat. Will he be up for all that? Will he always think of me as fragile? Will he know how to support me through flare-ups? Can he still find me beautiful when he sees me sick? It’s a lot of work to love someone with so much baggage to unpack.
The more time I spent with the script and in rehearsal with the brainy and brilliant creative team, however, I started to feel that this was a story about all of our secret fears in marriage and commitment—that immune disorder or no, we all bring some kind of sickness into our relationships: dysfunction, addiction, self-absorption, insecurity, jealousy... all the ugly shit we carry around is corrosive.Facing Angela started to feel more like the story of what happens when that sickness is taken to an extreme and the toll it can have on what matters most to us. At least in part.
There is a lot going on in this sucker. I can’t wait until an audience falls down the rabbit hole with us."
- Natalie Hurdle, Understudy
The more time I spent with the script and in rehearsal with the brainy and brilliant creative team, however, I started to feel that this was a story about all of our secret fears in marriage and commitment—that immune disorder or no, we all bring some kind of sickness into our relationships: dysfunction, addiction, self-absorption, insecurity, jealousy... all the ugly shit we carry around is corrosive.Facing Angela started to feel more like the story of what happens when that sickness is taken to an extreme and the toll it can have on what matters most to us. At least in part.
There is a lot going on in this sucker. I can’t wait until an audience falls down the rabbit hole with us."
- Natalie Hurdle, Understudy
Sounds like a pretty cool show, huh?
We think so too, but we need your help to make it happen.
Please consider donating to our Kickstarter campaign. Every dollar counts!
Facing Angela, written by Scott T. Barsotti and directed by Kyra Lewandowski, runs June 29-July 28 at the Athenaeum Theatre (2936 N. Southport).
For more information please visit ruckustheater.org or athenaeumtheatre.org.
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