The Marsh Berkeley Adds Performance Of Marga Gomez' SWIMMING WITH LESBIANS, Running Through March 3

The Marsh Berkeley has added a performance to beloved Bay Area solo performer Marga Gomez' latest work, Swimming With Lesbians before this production heads to New York later this spring.

Set aboard the most notorious cruise ship on the high seas, The Celesbian, this solo romp follows a boatload of twisted characters including a disgraced lacrosse player yearning for her first lesbian affair, a captain who is always ready to go down on the ship, and an outwardly jovial but secretly meek bingo caller. Havoc reigns when an old boarding school bully turns up threatening to expose dark secrets, while The Celesbian's crew and cruisers navigate unbridled lust, endless buffets, and rogue waves.

Swimming With Lesbians will continue at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley, now through March 3, 2024, with performances 5:00pm Sundays (note: no performance on Sunday, February 11). For information or to order tickets ($25-$35 sliding scale, $50 and $100 reserved), the public may visit themarsh.org. 

 

Originally scheduled on Sunday, February 11, a talkback with Gomez and The Marsh's Founder and Artistic/Executive Director Stephanie Weisman Marga and Stephanie: Still Doing It For 30 Years, will now take place following the Sunday, February 18 performance. The two will speak about Gomez' show, their past collaborations (dating back to 1991) at The Marsh, and the power of solo theater.  

 

Swimming With Lesbians began workshop performances at The Marsh San Francisco in June 2023. It has since played at Dixon Place in New York City and the Brava Theatre in San Francisco. This seafaring story was hailed as having “all the makings of a great voyage, starting with scrumptious characters” by the San Francisco Chronicle, which went on to name Gomez as “one of the twinkliest stars in the Bay Area theater firmament.” Bay City News declared her as “San Francisco's sublime gift to the comedy world” and wrote of the Berkeley run, “whether or not you've ever seen Marga Gomez onstage, and no matter your age, gender or sexual persuasion, if you feel like laughing until you're gasping for breath, ‘Swimming With Lesbians' is a must-see.” Following its run at The Marsh, Gomez' fourteenth solo show, Swimming with Lesbians, will begin performances at New York's La Mama Experimental Theatre Club in the spring.   

 

Marga Gomez (she/her/they) is the author and performer of 14 solo plays which have been produced nationally, internationally, and in New York at The Public Theater, 47th Street Theatre, Performance Space 122, Dixon Place, and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Company.  Her acting credits include Off-Broadway and national productions of The Vagina Monologues, A.C.T.'s Fefu and Her Friends, Ars Nova New York's Dr. Ride's American Beach House and roles in Warner Bros. films Sphere and Batman Forever as well as a guest role on Netflix's Sense8. Her awards include a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding New York Theater, a 2023 San Francisco Artist Commission Artist Grant, a 2022 United States Artists Fellowship for Theatre and Performance, a 2021 Center for Cultural Innovation Grant, a Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Award for Best Featured Actress, and the 2010 Bay Area Critics Circle Award for Best Performance. Gomez is a winner of the 2023 Best Comedian Award from both 48 Hills and Bay Area Reporter. Gomez's solo theater career began at The Marsh San Francisco in 1991, where she has since been seen in award-winning, long-running productions including Latin Standards, LOVEBIRDS, Long Island Iced Latina, Memory Tricks, Not Getting Any Younger, among others. 

 

The Marsh is known as “a breeding ground for new performance.” It was launched in 1989 by Founder and Artistic Director Stephanie Weisman, and pre-COVID hosted more than 600 performances of 175 shows across the company's two venues in San Francisco and Berkeley. A leading outlet for solo performers, The Marsh's specialty has been hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “solo performances that celebrate the power of storytelling at its simplest and purest.” The East Bay Times named The Marsh one of Bay Area's best intimate theaters, calling it “one of the most thriving solo theaters in the nation. The live theatrical energy is simply irresistible.” Since its launch in April 2020, the theatre's digital platform MarshStream has garnered more than 100,000 viewers. Notable MarshStream moments include the debut of MarshStream International Solo Fest 1 and 2, The Marsh's first-ever digital festivals, and the U.S. premiere of The Invisible Line, a new documentary about one of the world's most famous social experiments gone wrong. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic MarshStream hosted over 700 live streams, providing some 300 performers a platform to continue developing and producing art. The Marsh continues to offer digital content on MarshStream, as well as in- person performances.

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