BLACKOUT Brings a Survivor's Story to United Solo

BLACKOUT will bring a survivor's story to the United Solo Theatre Festival at 410 West 42nd Street, New York, NY on March 24th, 7:00pm. The show is written and performed by Hailey Henderson, and directed by Valerie Curtis-Newton, with video materials by Kristie Post-Wallace & Jerilyn Armstrong.

In Blackout: A One-Woman Show, actor and playwright Hailey Henderson takes on the role of her ex-boyfriend, her abuser, her Title IX coordinator and more in a radical reclamation of her true story. Henderson, an abuse survivor, aims to use the show to bring a too-often hidden topic to light: "I'm speaking my truth as an exorcism of abusers everywhere and as a rallying cry for the abused to speak their truth... my hope is that an audience member really wakes up and that that awakening informs the way that they leave the theatre." Blackout will make its New York debut at the United Solo Festival at 7pm on March 24th.

Henderson is a Seattle-based actor, teaching artist and singer. She earned her BFA from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, UT, and her MFA in Acting from the University of Washington's Professional Actor Training Program. Hailey has performed with theaters in Buenos Aires, Eugene and Portland, Oregon and Seattle, and has toured Blackout to cities across the West Coast. Since 2021, Blackout has also performed at several colleges and universities, engaging students in powerful conversations around identity formation, sexual violence, relationship violence, suicide and Title IX.

"One of the most powerful alchemies in art is the transformation of the personal into the universal. The story Hailey Henderson tells in Blackout is all hers, and yet it could be anyone's, and I'd bet everyone watching is in the story somewhere. The skill with which Henderson guides us through her perilous, painful, and ultimately empowering story makes for the kind of evening I relish in the theater, an evening after which I feel I've really seen someone, and my attention turns to my own life and to those around me with new perspective... I think we should be looking at it and talking about it, for the sake of our students, for our children and partners, and for ourselves." says, Jeffrey Fracé, The University of Washington, Head of Acting

Tickets for Blackout are $42.50-$47.50, and are available to purchase at Unitedsolo.org.

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