Rorschach Theatre to Present SLEEPING GIANT Beginning Next Month

Performances run October 4 – November 3, 2024.

By: Blair Ingenthron Sep. 07, 2024

Rorschach Theatre to Present SLEEPING GIANT Beginning Next Month Image

Rorschach Theatre will present the DC-Area premiere of Sleeping Giant, by Steve Yockey and directed by Jenny McConnell Frederick, from October 4 – November 3, 2024.

When a firework-filled marriage proposal goes very wrong, the accompanying explosions wake up something very old that has been sleeping in the nearby lake for thousands of years. What follows are intimate, darkly comic, and sometimes startling vignettes about the lengths people go to when they desperately want to believe in something.

Written by Emmy-nominated Steve Yockey, the playwright of previous Rorschach shows VERY STILL AND HARD TO SEE and REYKJAVIK, and the creator of the TV series THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT (HBO) and the DEADBOY DETECTIVES (Netflix).

ABOUT THE PLAY & PRODUCTION

Rorschach's co-Artistic Director Jenny McConnell Frederick will lead a talented team of artists to transform the former retail store at 1020 Connecticut Avenue into Steve Yockey's smart, dark look at an unexpected force that enthralls and unnerves a community. The play explores the allure of dangerous idols, the undertow of mob mentality, and the desperate search for something to believe in – a struggle that resonates as both timeless and dangerously urgent.

“Steve Yockey brilliantly blends intimate relatable moments with mind bending circumstances” says McConnell Frederick. “His dark wit and fearlessness are a perfect match for Rorschach's aesthetic.”

Rorschach's temporary home, a 2-story former men's clothing store offers audiences an engaging lobby experience with visual art, photo ops, and a gift shop to explore before descending into the subterranean theatre and bar.

Sleeping Giant features performers Robert Bowen Smith, Erin Denman, Sydney Dionne, and Jacob Yeh.

The design and Production Team includes Sarah Beth Hall as Set Designer, Ashlynne Ludwig as Costume Designer, Dean Leong as Lighting Designer, Thom Woodard as Sound Designer, Aoife Creighton as Props Designer, and Kylos Brannon as Video Designer, Germar Townsend as Production Manager, and Leica Long as Stage Manager.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT & DIRECTOR

Steve Yockey (Playwright) is a Los Angeles-based writer. His plays Bellwether, Pluto, Afterlife, Octopus, Large Animal Games, Subculture, Cartoon, Very Still & Hard to See, Blackberry Winter, The Thrush & The Woodpecker, The Fisherman's Wife, Wolves, Disassembly, and Niagara Falls are published and licensed by Concord Theatricals. He holds an MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Steve recently adapted the NYT Times Bestseller The Maid by Nita Prost into a film for Universal & Wink and is working on the horror comedy Violent Shimizu Wants Revenge for Sister Studio. In television, he was a Co-Executive Producer on the series Supernatural and is the Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated creator/showrunner of HBO Max's darkly comedic thriller The Flight Attendant. He is also the creator/showrunner of Netflix's Dead Boy Detectives, adapted from the cult Vertigo/DC comic books.

Jenny McConnell Frederick (Director) is a director, producer, and maker of impossible theatre. She's the co-Artistic Director of Rorschach Theatre which she founded in the summer of 1999 with Randy Baker. For Rorschach, she created and developed the company's groundbreaking pandemic pivot Psychogeographies. She's currently Helen Hayes Award nominated for her co-adaptation of Angel Number Nine and has directed more than a dozen shows including the Helen Hayes Nominated Voices Underwater and God of Vengeance as well as both of the sold-out runs of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. She also directed the Helen Hayes Award Nominated Fantastagirl and the Math Monster at Adventure Theatre in 2022. In 2015, she conceived and directed Truth & Beauty Bombs, an original work based on the Canadian webcomic, “A Softer World.” She co-created Chambers of the Heart and MOVE!, two immersive dance/theatre projects at Word Dance Theatre. She served as Artistic Director of CulturalDC's Source Festival and Mead Theatre Lab Program. In that capacity she oversaw the selection, development and production of more than 200 works for the stage over nearly a decade. Work developed and produced by Jenny at the Source Festival boasts multiple National New Play Network Rolling World Premieres, several American Theatre Critics Association Steinberg Award Nominations, and an Osborn Award Winner. Jenny has directed for Theater J, Capital Fringe Festival, Catholic University and University of Maryland. She has served as a member of Theatre Washington Advisory Board and a mentor director for the Theatre Lab's Honors Acting Conservatory and for the Kennedy Center's American College Theatre Festival and was a featured speaker at the CityWrights Conference in Miami. She graduated cum laude from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA in Theatre and briefly joined Mensa for the free pencils. She lives in Takoma, DC with her husband and their long-term collaboration, a son named Thane.