Solo performance legends Brian Copeland and Charlie Varon join forces to present new monologues on life in the Age of Trump in THE GREAT AMERICAN SH*T SHOW. After a successful and highly-praised show in San Rafael in April, they're bringing it back on Thursday, November 14 at The Marin Center's Showcase Theater.
Copeland and Varon are legends in the Bay Area's solo performance scene. Brian Copeland is known for his hit solo shows Not a Genuine Black Man and The Waiting Period. Charlie Varon's best-known works include Rush Limbaugh in Night School and Rabbi Sam. All of Copeland and Varon's monologues in the SH*T SHOW were developed with and directed by noted solo performance director David Ford.
The two performers conceived THE GREAT AMERICAN SH*T SHOW as an evening of laughing, but more importantly, an evening of thinking. The four monologues in the show (two by Copeland and two by Varon) cover topics including how to deal with a family member who's all in for the Donald when you're not, trying to turn red congressional seats blue in the Central Valley, #MeToo and more. Audiences are calling the show "a therapy session for progressives quietly going insane."
The show originated when Varon saw Copeland perform a 15-minute monologue last fall at The Marsh in San Francisco. The monologue begins the day after the 2016 Presidential election. Brian is driving from the East Bay to San Francisco; at the Bay Bridge approach he is honked at by a driver in his blind spot. Then the motorist, a bearded white man driving a Prius, pulls up, rolls down his window, looks at Brian and yells, "N----r!"
"I haven't been called that word in a long time," Brian says. "Years actually. But today, the day after Donald Trump is elected president, it's almost like the Prius driver was granted permission."
Varon says: "Brian's monologue was equal parts truth, pain, and comedy. I left the theater disturbed and invigorated. A few days later, I called Brian and suggested we do a show together. He said yes, and we got busy writing."
Copeland and Varon have been performing the show once a month to sold-out houses at The Marsh, with material evolving as political events unfold.
Audience response has been electric. One audience member described the show as "much needed catharsis. Finally, someone saying all the things we have been feeling during the sh*t show."
For tickets or more information, visit: https://tickets.marincenter.org/eventperformances.asp?evt=280
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