One-Woman Play I FEEL THE NEED Sells Out at United Solo Festival

The award-winning, one-woman play, “I Feel the Need,” written and performed by former navy combat pilot, Loree Draude, and directed by Emmy Award-winner, Beth Bornstein Dunnington, has sold out for the October 13, 2023 performance at the United Solo Festival in New York City. A second date has been added on November 4 at 8:30pm at the Studio Theater, 410 W. 42nd Street.

I Feel the Need shares the story of the first women naval aviators who flew in combat squadrons on aircraft carriers in the 1990s. After successful runs at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the 2023 Hollywood Fringe Festival, where the play was a finalist for NAMBA’s Splash Award for shows that illuminate cultural traditions in a new and interesting way, and a semi-finalist for Loud Karma’s Emerging Female and Nonbinary Playwright’s Award, I Feel the Need returns to off-Broadway for the 2023 United Solo Festival, where it premiered to a sold-out audience in 2021 and won the award for Best Direction.

Ms. Draude is one of the first women who flew combat jets in the U.S. Navy. After ten years of military service, during which she deployed twice to the Persian Gulf and was selected to be an instructor pilot, she transitioned to the civilian sector by earning her MBA at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Draude spent the last twenty years leading teams at Silicon Valley start-ups and tech companies, including Google and Meta.

In her play, Loree brings the audience along on her journey as an accidental aviation pioneer and one of the first women to deploy in a combat jet squadron. Join her in the cockpit and land on an aircraft carrier together as she relives the adventure, humor, and tragedies of the six-month deployment on the USS Abraham Lincoln in 1995.

Tickets for “I Feel the Need” can be purchased at https://unitedsolo.org/shows/i-feel-the-need. Running time is 55 minutes, no intermission.

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