Best Comedy Winners Return For Melbourne International Comedy Festival With THE LIVING ROOM

A comedy about death, conceived in grief, birthed by Amrita Dhaliwal & Gemma Soldati. The Los Angeles hit, The Living Room, has just been added to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The comedy will have a full run, at Melb Town Hall -Lunch Room, with previews March 26 & 27, and runs March 28 - April 19, at 8:30pm, with Sunday performances at 7:30pm. No Monday shows.

Confined to The Living Room, these two Accountants of Death work tirelessly to record the death toll. The occupational hazards wear on the clowns as they learn the meaning of life and death. What ensues is an absurd and physical jaunt brimming with audience interaction, existential phone calls, impaired dancing and the love of a goldfish.

Developed at The Lyric Hyperion Theatre in Los Angeles, this show rides the fine line between comedy and tragedy. Employing physical comedy and absurdist theatre techniques, this show leaves the audience laughing and crying and thrust out into the night to ponder it all. Amrita Dhaliwal and Gemma Soldati are students of Cirque du Soleil's John Gilkey, Spymonkey's Aitor Basauri, The School for Theatre Creators with Paola Coletto, Upright Citizens Brigade, The Groundlings and both teach for The Idiot Workshop in Los Angeles. Together they devised a clown show inspired by their loss of loved ones.

About Amrita Dhaliwal

Currently, she can be seen performing regularly on stage and on screen and is an ensemble member of The Murge, which FLAUNT described as "...a comedy that is so far past stupid that it becomes nonsensically compelling." She also co-produces, writes and hosts the hit LA show, Indian Wedding, featured in LA Weekly as "Top 15 Things to do in LA" and Comedy Cake says "Go, go, go!" She is currently the Managing Director and an instructor for the Idiot Workshop, founded by Cirque du Soleil's John Gilkey. Behind the scenes, Amrita recently directed Rag Head, a play about the post 9/11 increase in hate crimes against Sikh Americans, and was featured in StageRaw's "Top Ten." She was featured as an actor in the highly competitive and selective 2017 CBS Diversity Showcase. Amrita is a graduate of the School for Theatre Creators, a Lecoq-based physical theater program. She has trained extensively in clown with Paola Coletto, Aitor Basauri, Philippe Gaulier and Clown School LA. Her traditional theatre training, from Black Box to Steppenwolf, focuses mostly on Meisner and viewpoints. A student at heart, she is a graduate of what seems like all the improv/sketch programs... including: Second City Chicago, iO Chicago, Annoyance, UCB and Groundlings. For more information about Amrita or her work, check out amritadhaliwal.com.

About Gemma Soldati

Performer, producer and teaching artist in Los Angeles, Gemma studied with The Idiot Workshop & John Gilkey. She was an ensemble member of The Murge, which LA Weekly described "Spontaneous Theater of the absurd...Lascivious, blasphemous and potentially dangerous...This could be LA's craziest improv show." Additionally, she was an ensemble member in Invention of Language and The Simple Simples. She has studied with Philippe Gaulier, Aitor Basauri, Paola Coletto, and Deanna Fleysher. She performs in Los Angeles and has produced/created the following shows: The Sleepover Show; the Cobbler; and Amateur Burlesque, which was featured in Comedy Bureau's 2018 "100 Best Things in Comedy We Were Witness To In No Particular Order" in Los Angeles). "The idea of a bunch of [clowns] doing burlesque might sound suspicious to you, but leave it to Gemma Soldati and many of the regular players of the Lyric Hyperion to bring a fresh, bizarre, surprising, and hysterical take on taking your clothes off comedically." - The Comedy Bureau

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