'r Kids Family Center to Present THE GOOD ADOPTEE at Cabaret On Main

'r kids Family Center announced today they will host two performances of the award-winning play The Good Adoptee on Friday, May 10 at 7pm and Saturday, May 11 at 2pm at Cabaret on Main (597 Main Street Rear, East Haven, CT). This emotional and humorous solo play written and directed by Suzanne Bachner stars actor Kat Nardizzi. Both performances serve as a fundraiser for 'r kids Family Center and will be followed by a panel conversation with adult adoptees and birth parents that have relinquished their parental rights. Tickets are a $50 donation and can be reserved at cabaret-on-main.com.

About the Play

Can you imagine not knowing your own identity? The Good Adoptee is the riveting, outrageous true story of award-winning playwright Suzanne Bachner's search for her birth/first parents in the face of New York State's sealed records. Once she opens Pandora's Box, can she find a way to integrate her dual identities and still remain “the Good Adoptee”?

The Good Adoptee has toured to the London International Fringe Festival and all over the U.S., including a 7-week 9-city Connecticut tour to support the vital and now successful legislative efforts of Access Connecticut. Suzanne's play, which features dramaturgy by Bob Brader and projection design by Chris Kateff, has won awards for Best Autobiographical Script and Best Actress for original star Anna Bridgforth when it premiered in the United Solo Theatre Festival in New York City. It was also named a Best Play by Indie Theater Now.

Theater Scene called The Good Adoptee “a spellbinding emotional detective story!”, Hi Drama raved: “The Good Adoptee is everything you want a solo show to be: well crafted, lovingly performed and thoroughly entertaining!” and Sadie Takes the Stage (London UK) raved, "a story is rarely so personal and it has a very healthy amount of laugh-out-loud humour," awarding the show a rating of five stars. More information on the play can be found at thegoodadoptee.com.

'r kids Family Center Executive Director and Co-Founder Randi Rubin Rodriguez states, "I have had the great fortune to see The Good Adoptee twice. Suzanne's story of her journey and struggles to reconnect with her biological parents will be an enlightening reality for all to experience. We are excited to present this important play and the post-show conversations with adult adoptees and biological parents who relinquished their parental rights. This fundraiser will be used to expand 'r kids Family Center's adoption services, increasing the number of children who will be able to grow up in permanent, nurturing, and loving homes."

About the Artists

Suzanne Bachner is an award-winning playwright and director and an adoptee rights advocate. Suzanne's new play, Conversations with My Divorce Attorney, just had an acclaimed premiere festival run in the NYC Fringe at the 14th Street Y. Her trio of long-running NYC hit plays includes CIRCLE, which ran for five months Off Broadway, won Most Daring Show of the London Fringe in its Sold-Out International Tour and was called “ingenious” by The New York Times. She created and directed two cult hits: Icons & Outcasts, which transferred to The Duplex for a six-month run, and BITE, the choose-your-own-adventure comedy with 968 unique scripted permutations which had a five-month NYC run and international tour. Other playwriting and directing credits include the 14-actor San Diego commission and marriage equality epic, Brilliant Mistake, and her celebrated kaleidoscopic memoir play, We Call Her Benny. Suzanne's totally true solo show, The Good Adoptee, which won the Best Autobiographical Script Award at the United Solo Theatre Festival, has toured to the London International Fringe Festival and across the U.S., has been part of law and life-changing adoptee rights advocacy and connected with global audiences in its virtual presentations. Suzanne studied playwriting with Romulus Linney and Adrienne Kennedy and holds an MFA from The Actors Studio Drama School at the New School University. She is a four-time OOBR Award winner and a member of the Dramatists Guild. Broadway World called her work “the future of theatre.” More information at JMTCTheatre.com

Kat Nardizzi is an actor and singer living in NYC. Born in Los Angeles, she spent most of her childhood growing up in a handful of states across the south. Kat got her first taste of acting at age 5 when she was cast as Dot the Cow in The Little Red Hen and has loved performing ever since. During and after high school, she performed and interned with the Broadway Dreams Foundation helping organize and run week-long performing arts intensives across the country alongside Broadway professionals such as Gavin Creel, Eden Espinosa, Billy Porter, and Tituss Burgess. She received her BFA in Acting from Elon University and has lived in New York for over a decade. After a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Kat made her Off-Broadway debut in Lighthouse: An Immersive Drinking Musical at the Soho Playhouse. Some of her favorite New York Theater credits include Pocketmon: A Parody Musical, Attempts On Her Life, and The Vagina Monologues. As an Artistic Associate of JMTC Theatre, Kat has played in a handful of lead roles in Suzanne Bachner's plays: the sexy comedy CIRCLE at the 2020 APAP Conference, a virtual presentation of Birthday for the National Association for Adoptees & Parents, and a virtual reading of Conversations with My Divorce Attorney which ran on Broadway On Demand. Most recently, Kat performed Suzanne's Multi-Award Winning Solo Show, The Good Adoptee, in NYC at the Kraine Theater. When not in rehearsal or working, Kat loves to lift heavy things and make videos about bisexuality, makeup, and mental health on Instagram and TikTok (follow her on both: @katnardizzi). She currently lives in Manhattan with her two pups—Winnie and Bowie. More info at KatNardizzi.com

About 'r kids Family Center

The New Haven-based 501c3 non-profit's mission is permanency, safety and stability for vulnerable children and their families. Their objective is to promote permanency, safety and stability for children by providing nurturing services to biological, kinship, foster and adoptive families. The ‘r Kids tagline embodies its mission; "With each child, the world begins anew." - Midrash.

Because the needs of the entire family are essential to children's sustained success, ‘r kids Family Center employs a holistic approach, anchored in the best interests of each child and respect, that promotes reflection and responsibility. This process takes many paths: (1) 'r kids welcomes birth parents who feel defeated and perhaps embarrassed by missteps, extending support, identifying strengths upon which to build and working to develop their sense of dignity and pride, and (2) ‘r kids is an advocate for birth parents who often feel isolated, with few understanding or empathizing with their plight or the multitude of barriers they frequently face. Beyond these efforts, ‘r kids helps to cultivate secure bonding and attachment for children, by increasing the individual skills of their biological parents and nurturing a community of foster and adoptive parents who share the values to fortify these reestablished connections. The newly forged “village of support” advances the goal that children grow up in permanent, safe, nurturing families and, when possible, are reunited with their families of origin.

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