DONNA/MADONNA Joins United Solo Theatre Festival 11/14

One-man show "Donna/Madonna" joins the lineup of the United Solo Theatre Festival for its east coast premiere at 6:00 pm, November 14, 2010 at New York City's historic Theatre ROW, (410 West 42nd Street).

"Donna/Madonna" takes mama-drama to a new level as writer and performer John Paul Karliak guides audiences through his life, raised by a Donna Reed-like mother in Scranton, Pa. and sharing genes with a Madonna-like fashionista in Los Angeles, Ca. This true-life nature versus nurture story is co-directed by Tiger Reel, founding artistic director of LA's Action! Theatre Company and Matthew Craig, a faculty member at the Second City Training Center in Los Angeles. Musical interludes and mash-ups are the work of 2007 LA Weekly Theatre Award-winner Billy Thompson and rising club staple DJ ChocLixx.

Audiences were wowed by "Donna/Madonna's" debut run at Los Angeles' Celebration Theatre in August. The play's November 14 date is especially fitting for its subject matter, as it is follows on the heels of LGBT History Month (October) and before National Adoption Day (November 20).

Adopted by a doting, delicate Catholic housewife from Scranton, John Paul wants badly to be her perfect son. As he realizes he will never be the ideal local boy, he seeks answers from a very different source: his fashion-writing, married-to-a-British-pop-star birth mother. Through stories, characters and song, audiences will laugh out loud as John Paul fights the battle of nature versus nurture in "Donna/Madonna". Taking us from his first living room performances to, he shows just how strong a mother can be... and when not to impersonate Carol Channing.

Tickets are $18 general admission and can be purchased through Telecharge (212-239-6200).

John Paul Karliak is an actor/writer from the "Electric City," Scranton, Pennsylvania. Recent film projects include: Dante's Inferno, "Little Black Dress" for AFI, "L.T.D." (web series), and "Delusions of Grandeur" (TV pilot). LA theatre credits include: The Girl, the Grouch & the Goat (world premieree), Into the Woods, Inherit the Wind, Women and Wallace, Whatever, and Sexual Perversity in Chicago. John Paul is a graduate of USC School of Theatre, iO West, and Second City Training Center. John Paul has written numerous short films and four plays produced in locales around the country. Donna/Madonna marks his first full-length solo production.

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