SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR to Premiere in LA

Executive Producers Joe Mantegna (award-winning star of stage and screen) and Ronnie Marmo (award-winning actor/director/producer), have decided to bring the show Self-Injurious Behavior to Los Angeles for the World Premiere. Written and starring Jessica A. Cavanagh, the workshop was a runaway hit in Dallas (2018) and then New York City (April 2019), during National Autism Awareness Month. The show will have their official Premiere September 6, 2019 at Theatre 68. Bren Rapp and Laura Buchwald have signed on as producers, with Marianne Galloway at the helm.

Self-Injurious Behavior is based on playwright and star, Jessica Cavanagh's own story of loss, love and survival in dealing with her son's autism diagnosis. When severely autistic, eleven-year-old Benjamin becomes a danger to himself, his divorced mother, Summer, makes the excruciating decision to admit him to a home for special needs kids. Seeking comfort, she visits her sisters in Portland who desperately and hilariously attempt to distract her with a weekend of escapism at the local renaissance faire. Plagued by haunting dreams of her son and memories of her marriage, she is forced to face the need to let go. Resonating across audience demographics thanks to the play's bittersweet and unique blend of honesty and humor, in telling her story, Jessica Cavanagh has captured a voice that speaks to the power within us all to not only cope with our own "unimaginables" but to continue to live, making this a story not only about autism and motherhood, but about the resilience of the human spirit.

The production is coupled with an effort to raise autism awareness and to reach out to the community of families living with loved ones on the spectrum, and those with autism themselves, through a special partnership with Autism Works Now.

Not only a production, the producers, Autism Works Now and Theatre 68 have designed an autism awareness and outreach program with: a percentage of all tickets sold going directly to Autism Works Now, Autism Works Now program participants being employed by Theatre 68 on performance days, Autism Works Now's business run by their program participants, Glorious Pies, enabled to sell their baked goods at performances, and the scheduling of special talkback events with program participants, families and celebrities after select performances all designed to give audiences a chance to increase their awareness and understanding of those living with autism, especially those now becoming adults and aging out of programs aimed at children. Joe Mantegna, whose adult daughter Mia has autism and who has participated in Autism Works Now programs explains, "It is important to understand that this is a condition that does not go away. As much as we put emphasis on the issues that happen with children, what happens to them when they become adults? They are adults a lot more years than they are children and we have to think beyond". Autism Works Now provides workplace readiness skills resulting in meaningful, dignified employment for individuals with autism and related disorders. Their sole mission is employment for individuals with autism and related differences, with a goal of having small businesses completely owned, operated by and staffed with individuals on the spectrum within five years.

Tickets Go On Sale at www.sibonstage.com

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