Custom Made Stages New Play Development Winner, Skudlarek's YOU'LL NOT FEEL THE DROWNING Opens 4/13

You'll Not Feel The Drowning, written by Marissa Skudlarek and directed by Gabriel A. Ross, is the first play to be workshopped by Custom Made Theatre Company as part of their New Play Development Program, Undiscovered Works, a project in collaboration with the EXIT Theatre with the goal of creating more direct avenues from page to stage.

You'll Not Feel the Drowning is a play about coming to terms with the dangerous natural forces that surround us. Inspired by an award-winning New Yorker article about the likelihood of a cataclysmic tsunami striking the Pacific Northwest coast, it tells an intimate story of three people who make their lives in a tsunami zone. Greg (Jason Wong), a post-doctoral researcher in seismology, comes to a small town on the Oregon coast to do scientific research, but encounters unexpected resistance from its citizenry. Susan (Terry Bamberger), the mayor, is a formidable woman who is aware of the tsunami risk but has done nothing to mitigate it. Laura (Maria Giere), Susan's daughter, is caught in the middle between Greg and Susan, between bravery and fear. In determining how to respond to the tsunami threat, all three learn that some of their beliefs are well founded, and some are built on shaky ground.

"I had already wanted to write about the part of the world where I'm from, " says playwright Marissa Skudlarek, "Well, technically I grew up in the Portland suburbs, but I wanted to write about Oregon's wilder parts, its beauty, the somewhat masochistic love I feel for wet, grey places. Oregon can make you a romantic. I thought about Schulz's article, and the twisted sea chanteys of Portland-based band The Decemberists, and the bleak cold grandeur of the Pacific. It was the idea of the tsunami that stuck with me, more than the earthquake itself. I've always found drowning a particularly scary way to go; yet at the same time, mightn't there be something oddly poetic about it?"

Given its first reading in May, with subsequent developmental readings in September and December, the 2017 workshop of You'll Not Feel The Drowning will have six performances by fully memorized actors who have been rehearsing with the director for two weeks. Basic costumes, sound, and lighting will help envision what a full production would look and feel like. A key part of the development process in this work's progression to a full production, the workshop is like creating the blueprints for the building to come and gives the author an exciting new way to see the best aspects of her work, and what still might need tweaking.

As part of our new play development program, two performances will include a chance to give verbal feedback to Skudlarek (mediated by dramaturg Allie Moss and program director Stuart Bousel.) Skudlarek will then use this feedback to continue evolving the play on its journey to a full production. Each performance will also give the audience a chance to provide written feedback. Please stick around and help a new work continue to grow!

April 13-22, 8 PM, (Th, F, Sat), EXIT Theater (156 Eddy Street)
Talk backs with playwright on April 14 and 21
Tickets: http://you-2.bpt.me
More Information: http://www.custommade.org/drowning

Marissa Skudlarek thanks Custom Made Theatre for the opportunity to further develop You'll Not Feel the Drowning via this workshop production. This script was originally commissioned by the San Francisco Olympians Festival, an organization for which Skudlarek has written frequently. Her other Olympians Festival plays include the full-length Pleiades (produced by No Nude Men Productions in 2014, to critical acclaim); the screenplay Aphrodite, or the Love Goddess; and the shorter plays Teucer, Laodike, The Dryad of Suburbia, and Macaria, or The Good Life. Skudlarek's other full-length plays include Juana, or The Greater Glory (staged reading with the Loud and Unladylike Festival, 2016), Deus ex Machina (Young Playwrights Festival National Competition winner, 2006), Marginalia, and The Rose of Youth (Marilyn Swartz Seven Award and Vassar College production, 2008; staged reading at the EXIT Theatre, 2013). Her shorter plays and translations have been produced by PianoFight Productions, San Francisco Theater Pub, Un-Scripted Theatre, Wily West Productions, and the San Francisco One-Minute Play Festival. Skudlarek is an occasional contributor to American Theatre's website and, from 2012 to 2016, she wrote a twice-monthly column for the San Francisco Theater Pub blog. She grew up outside of Portland, Oregon, studied Drama and French at Vassar College, and has lived in San Francisco since 2008.

Gabriel A. Ross has performed across the Bay Area for years. Recent roles include Isaac in Isaac's Eye (Custom Made) Antony in Julius Caesar (SV Shakespeare), Young Harry/Jack in Shakespeare Goes to War (World Premier at The Rhino), and Charles/Ladvenu in Saint Joan (Jewel Theatre). He toured California performing children's theatre. Gabriel is the Casting Director at Custom Made. He has directed numerous readings of original and classic works. He directed The Book of Liz and The Actor's Nightmare at Custom Made. He recently directed Greetings! at Pacifica Spindthrift Players. He is grateful to be directing this workshop and thankful for the support of the cast, crew, and staff of CMTC.

Allie Moss is a dramaturg and director. Her dramaturgical projects include MacBitch (upcoming, Breadbox Theate) The Realistic Joneses (American Conservatory Theater), Love and Information (assistant dramaturg, American Conservatory Theater), and Let There Be Love (assistant dramaturg, American Consevatory Theater). Her recent directing work includes Erinyes/Eumenides (Custom Made Theatre's Undiscovered Works Reading Series), The Vagina Monologues (A.C.T. V-Day Project), and Stop Kiss (A.C.T. Fellowship Project). Moss holds a BA in Theater from Goucher College and works as the Artistic Administrator at American Conservatory Theater.

About Custom Made Theatre Co.
The Custom Made Theatre Co., in our 18th season of production, is committed to producing plays that awaken our social conscience, focusing on the strength of the ensemble and creating an intimate theatrical experience. Custom Made became the proprietor of the theatre at 533 Sutter St. in August of 2015, and is now in the second season as resident company of the 99-seat, intimate stage which was formerly the home of SF Playhouse. Previously, Custom Made ran the Gough Street Playhouse (attached to Trinity Church @ Bush) and the mainstage at Off-Market Theatres in SOMA.

Awards include the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics' Circle Best Overall Production in the Bay Area, under 100 seats, for In Love and Warcraft in 2015 and The Play about the Bay in 2012. Over the past two seasons, Custom Made has been honored with fourteen Theatre Bay Area Award finalists, and over twenty Critic Circle nominations. Custom Made recently received the SFBATCC's Paine Knickerbocker Award for making a lasting contribution to Bay Area theatre. Recent world premiere productions include Sam and Dede, or My Dinner with Andre the Giant, Of Serpents and Sea Spray, and The Braggart Soldier and Little Brother. Recent regional premieres include In Love and Warcraft, Middletown, Slaughterhouse-Five, Peter/Wendy, and The Pain and the Itch. For a full list of our company history please visit www.custommade.org/history

Custom Made is a member of Theatre Communications Group, National New Play Network (Associate member), and Theatre Bay Area.

About EXIT Theatre
The mission of EXIT Theatre is to develop theater artists by providing opportunities to perform. Our focus is on providing open access opportunities for all theater artists so they can develop and experiment. We do this by commissioning, developing and producing new plays; providing production support and low cost theater rentals to small companies; hosting theaters and playwrights-in-residence; and by producing the San Francisco Fringe Festival, the largest grass roots theater festival in the Bay Area.

We operate five storefront theaters, with a total of 300 seats, in the Tenderloin district of downtown San Francisco. Our theaters range in size from 25 seats to 80 seats and annually host 100 independent theater companies.

EXIT Theatre was founded on Eddy Street in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood in 1983 when a group of method actors and retired vaudevillians came together under artistic director Christina Augello to perform a new play in the lobby of a residential hotel and passed the hat for funding. The local alternative press has named EXIT Theatre "Best Local Venue", "Best (3,000 miles) Off-Broadway Theater", "Best Off-Beat Theatre" and the artistic director has been named "Best Producer" and "Working Woman of the Year."

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