Savannah Reich's WHAT IS THE BUTT GAME? to Premiere at the Cannonball Festival in Philadelphia

Award winning playwright Savannah Reich returns to the Cannonball Festival this year with the world premiere of her new play What is the Butt Game? Created in collaboration with deviser Connor Hogan, this new piece explores the satanic panic of the late 1980s and the infallibility of personal memory. Reich is grateful to have received a commission for this project from Caridad Svich at the Lucille Lortel Theater in NYC, as a part of the new Alcove New Play Development Program. What is the Butt Game? opens September 1st at Christ Church House (20 N American St, Philadelphia, PA) for four performances with each show featuring a new cast of local philly favorites.

"What is the Butt Game? is really different every time we perform it" collaborator and director Connor Hogan says. "After seeing it, one audience member commented that they didn't know how we would replicate it every night, but with a cast of unrehearsed actors responding to live direction, that's kind of the point." What is the Butt Game? stars Connor Hogan as Savannah, and an ensemble as three unrehearsed guest stars as everyone else. Hogan serves as the lead performer directing the movements and text of the rest of the ensemble. Local fringe favorites such as Sarah Sanford, Kelly McCaughan, Rose Luardo and others improvise their way through this personal narrative to bring the audience in touch with their own childhood memories.

In 1989, when playwright Savannah Reich was three years old, her daycare was shut down by the Child Protection Agency under suspicion of child abuse. The primary investigator was particularly interested in something a child called "the butt game", and interviewed many of the kids and parents to try to find out how it was played. This investigation was part of the Satanic Panic; a fear sweeping the nation over the idea of Satan-worshipping sex cults that loved to abuse and ritually murder toddlers. All these accusations later proved false, but in the late 1980s, police and social workers were sure that Satanic cults were operating right under their noses, and that no toddler was safe. With the help of her collaborator Connor Hogan and an ensemble of local actors, Savannah attempts to answer the question: why did CPS see danger where Savannah saw love and community? How does a moral panic spread? And what actually was the butt game?

Tickets to What is the Butt Game are currently on sale by visiting https://phillyfringe.org/events/what-is-the-butt-game/. Tickets are pay what you can pricing. More information about Savannah and Connor can be found at their instagrams-@savannahreich and @connordinary.

Savannah Reich and Connor Hogan present

What is The Butt Game?

Cannonball Festival at Christ Church Neighborhood House

Sunday Sept 1 @ 3:30 pm

Sunday Sept 15th @ 3:30 pm

Friday Sept 20th @ 8 pm

Thursday Sept 26th @ 6:30 pm

Director / creator: Connor Hogan (they/them)

Playwright / creator: Savannah Reich (she/her)

Guest Performers: Announcement coming soon!

Savannah Reich is a playwright and screenwriter based in West Philadelphia. Her plays have been produced at theaters and universities across the country, commissioned or developed by Walking Shadow Theater Company, The Flea, the University of Minnesota, SuperGroup, the Playwrights Center, and Seven Devils New Play Foundry, and supported by residencies at Tofte Lake Art Center and MassMoCA. Her feature-length screenplay "Beebe and Barton" was the winner of the national Sloan Student Grand Jury Prize in 2015, and her short film "Men Among Men" was the winner of the Bill Murray Comedy Award at the Twin Cities Film Festival (judged by Bill Murray himself!). She was a 2020/21 McKnight Fellow at the Playwrights Center, and her play "Oedipus in Seattle" was the winner of the audience choice award at the 2022 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. She currently teaches playwriting and screenwriting at the University of the Arts. She holds an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University, where she studied with Rob Handel.

Connor Hogan is a performer, creator and educator who uses play to bring together folks from all backgrounds. As an actor and director, they have worked at theaters across the country including the Folger Theater, Constellation Theater Company, WSC Avant Bard, and Theater Unspeakable. They served as the Artistic Director and Founder of HalfMad Theater Company, named by the Washingtonian Magazine as the 2015's Best New Theater Company.

As a deviser, they explore with wild physicality to unearth new questions with the audience. Their most recent works include Gilligan Gigs Again, Dinner! Connor and Franny Write a Cookbook, I Have to Pay My Rent!, and The Usual. They currently teach Movement at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. In their work, they seek to shake up the spectator's expectations and clear the air for unheard voices and stories.

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