Brad Lawrence's THE BIG SECRET To Play UNDER St. Marks in February

FRIGID New York will present a special engagement of The Big Secret written and performed by storyteller Brad Lawrence (first person to win back-to-back Moth GrandSLAMs), February 16-27 at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009). Performances will take place on Sunday, February 16 at 7pm, Thursday, February 20 at 7pm, Saturday, February 22 at 7pm, Monday, February 24 at 7pm, and Thursday, February 27 at 9pm. Tickets ($25) are available for advance purchase at www.frigid.nyc. The performance will run approximately 60 minutes, with no intermission.

At fourteen, Brad Lawrence made a promise to keep a secret for his friend Jessica, a secret that, decades later, he realizes may have contributed to her untimely death at the hands of her abusive husband.

Brad and Jessica's story begins in an Evangelical youth group, where they form an unlikely bond amid apocalyptic sermons and purity culture. She was sixteen when she became pregnant by her married boss, who coerced her into having an abortion. Years later, Jessica was murdered by a man who saw her past as a justification for his violence. Brad's silence, born of loyalty and habit, kept her truth locked away just as she had told it to him-until the repeal of Roe v. Wade forced him to confront whether he had kept her story faithfully, or if he had let secrecy warp her memory and her loss.

This show unpacks the ways secrets, faith, and trauma shape identity and relationships, while also exploring how reframing the stories we tell ourselves and others can lead to healing and justice.

Brad Lawrence (Writer/Performer) is a story producer for the RISK! Podcast, a storyteller, and solo show performer who has performed to sold out crowds around the United States and in the UK. As a storyteller, he has performed for RISK!,Story Collider, at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was the first person to win back-to-back Moth GrandSLAMs, which led to him becoming a host of the Moth and a regular on Moth Mainstages around the United States. As a solo performer he has performed all over the country, to rave reviews from press and audiences alike. He is the co-producer and co-host of Hotsy Totsy Burlesque, a comedy send-up of Pop-Culture that has run for fifteen years, been featured in the New York Times twice, and sells out The Slipper Room in the Lower East Side every month. Brad is a sought after story coach for individuals and corporations and currently teaches for the Story Studio and The Irish Arts Center and for his own company, Common Thread, dedicated to helping people capture the narratives that have shaped their lives, through storytelling, oral histories, and public communications.

FRIGID New York's mission is to provide both emerging and established artists the opportunity to create and produce original work of varied content, form, and style, and to amplify their diverse voices. We do this by presenting an array of monthly programming, mainstage productions, an artist residency, and eight annual theater festivals that create an environment of collaboration, resourcefulness, and innovation. Founded in 1998, the aim was and is to form a structure, allowing multiple artists to focus on creating and staging new work and providing affordable rental space to scores of independent artists. Now in our third decade we have produced a massive quantity of stimulating downtown theater. www.frigid.nyc

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