A PICNIC AT THE ASYLUM: A COMIC-TRAGEDY WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY ANGELA NEFF
A Picnic at the Asylum
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Angela Neff
PHONE: 415-518-3140 (Call me for COMPS!)
EMAIL: [email protected]
—Dedicated to all of those who have struggled with mental illness, their own & others.
Editors Pick: Phoenix Fringe Festival
“Picnic’s is humorous, intensely powerful and heart-breakingly profound. Neff’s performance style oozes physicality and wins over audiences everywhere she travels.”
—Downtown Phoenix Journal
For listings: A Picnic at the Asylum written and performed by Angela Neff
Comic-tragedy
A young woman struggles to come of age as the dark spiral of bi-polar illness takes over her once-idolized father’s life, landing him a manic vagabond street preacher on Phoenix’s skid row.
While living in Los Angeles, Angela Neff’s bi-polar father ended his life by jumping off the top of the Hyatt Regency in Phoenix. No one in her immediate family had the money to pay for the funeral and none of his relatives wanted to pay. 25 years later Angela has written a moving play honoring his vibrant life and the comic-tragedies of the impact of mental illness on everyone it touches.
Date: June 19, 2010 through June 25, 2010
Where: The Hudson Guild Theatre 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles
Tickets: $12 tickets can be purchased in advance at http://www.hollywoodfringe.org/
Performance Dates and Times:
June 19 5:00 PM – FREE!
June 20 8:00 PM
June 22 9:30 PM
June 23 9:30 PM
June 25 8:00 PM
Tickets and Information: www.picnicsattheasylum.com
Stella Productions Presents A Picnic at the Asylum in the 2010 Hollywood Fringe Festival. Written and performed by Angela Neff.
Angela Neff from San Francisco, California will perform her play, Picnics at the Asylum June 19-25 at the Hudson Guild Theatres. The performance is as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival and tickets are available for $12 at http://www.hollywoodfringe.org/.
Back Story
Living on the streets of downtown Phoenix in the 1980s, Bob Neff was a manic self-ordained street preacher outlandish enough in his messianic message to draw the attention of local journalists. Now, 25 years after he made his final headline leaping to his death from the top of the Hyatt Regency, his daughter, actress/playwright Angela Neff, performs her solo play about the vibrant and tragic life leading up to that final act.
Before he was another homeless “character” on skid row, Bob Neff was a loving father of eight piloting an unreliable 1948 Woody on surfing safaris and leading his kids’ backyard 4-H adventures in a nascent Silicon Valley. His tendency to take things to extremes – from advanced Catholicism to psychedelic holidays – somehow seemed part and parcel of that era’s Northern California grooviness.
But the dark spiral of bi-polar mental illness eventually sent him down a rabbit hole of madness – to a brooding state mental hospital complete with electro-shock therapy and surreal Sunday picnics. Ultimately, the madness tore apart his family, too – leaving his daughter to come of age in its shadow, seeking solace and love in wild memories.
About the Playwright/Performer
A Picnic at the Asylum, is Angela Neff’s second play and was developed in San Francisco with playwright/director David Ford, nationally renowned for his work with solo theater artists. Picnics’ had its debut at The Marsh theater in S.F. and ran to rave reviews on the 2010 Phoenix Fringe Festival. She has performed in various cities in the western United States and is honored to bring her father’s personal story to Los Angeles where she was living when her father ended his life. This summer, she is also bringing her father’s story to the Capital Fringe Festival in DC.
Promotional Blurb
In A Picnic at the Asylum, Angela takes us on an outlandish and poignant journey, full of psychedelic sunglasses, rockin’ church services and wild rides in an undependable wood-sided station wagon. She examines the relationship between love and madness as her dad goes from being a hard-charging father of eight, fearless surfer and impromptu 4-H leader, to being a vagabond street preacher – spouting his manic message of love on Phoenix’s skid row before undertaking a final act of madness and escape.
Picnics was developed in San Francisco with director David Ford, nationally renowned for his work with solo theater artists. Angela has performed in various cities on the western United States and is honored to bring her father’s personal story to Phoenix where he spent the last years of his life.
