Awkward at Best

Pretty N' Papi

Tickets:$14, $12 for students, seniors, industry

Thursday February 24 th, 6 PM
Sunday      February 27th, 7 pm
Monday     February 28th, 6 pm
Friday       March 4th, 7:30 pm
Saturday March 5th, 2:30 pm

On this absurd ride of singing lesbians, tantric sex, and talking dogs, Ms. Pretty Smart scours the audience for the man from a dream.  After seeing into the future, where she is finally happy and paired with the charming Papi, she wakes up with no clue who he was, or how to find him. A hilarious, bawdy, and surreal blend of athleticism, comedy, and crazy characters. 

Created by Leah James Abel, Rebecca Houlihan, Olivia Hallie Lehrman

Cody Schreger (co-creator/performer) is a New York City based performing artist, choreographer and instructor. She has studied a wide range of creative arts from modern and flamenco dance to clown, Commedia Del' Arte, traditional theater, gymnastics and aerial arts. In 2005 Cody graduated Bard College with a BA in dance choreography and has since performed with companies such as Cirque Dreams, Cirque Boom, Lumins Circus, the International circus festivals of Albacete, Spain and Latina, Italy. While in NYC she performs and choreographs for local events and shows, and teaches ongoing classes in aerial arts. Cody recently finished a run as an acrobat in the world premier of Robert Lepage's staging of “Das Rhiengold “at the Metropolitan Opera. The production returns to the met in the spring of 2011.

Leah James Abel (co-creator/performer) sprang about in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has continued performing and teaching from New York to China and Korea — dancing, clowning, stilting, twisting around trapezes, or parading around with someone standing on her shoulders. Leah is happy to be back in the Boston area! She has performed on Spanish web, Solo Trapeze, Doubles Trapeze, Aerial Fabric and a variety of other aerial equipment -- including a cargo net strung 40 feet in the air. Most recently Leah performed and taught in Haiti with the nonprofit charity, Clowns Without Borders. Leah has also freelanced in New York City and as company member of two smaller companies (Cirque Boom and Kirkos). For two years she frolicked with the Imago troupe, a Portland, OR-based mask and puppet theater in their performances of Frogz and Biglittlethings. Last year, Leah completed her Masters in Environmental Law and Policy at Vermont Law School. With her degree, she intends to re-join the circus world and pay back her debt.

Olivia Lehrman (co-creator/performer) A native of Brooklyn, acrobat/comedienne Olivia Hallie Lehrman enjoys creating original circus theatre pieces, both solo and in ensemble. Swinging from a Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus flying trapeze act to character work with Naropa University Masters students, she has trained within a tight community of friends in Boulder and New York, and from Master teachers including Giovanni Fusetti and Avner the Eccentric. Whether performing aerial silks or clowning on a cruise ship, she loves the unique moments of interaction with each new audience. She teaches Pilates and kids' circus arts all over the city, is fundraising for upcoming Clowns Without Borders trips to Haiti and Colombia, and performed at the NY Clown Theatre Festival last September. Inspired by her year at Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, her second solo show combined her zany acrobatics with her love of languages, set in a Chinese restaurant, playing chopsticks behind her back while yelling in Mandarin; for mo'livia, take a trip to www.landinthe.net

Pamela Lehrman (co-writer) has been dancing since before she was born. At three years old, she thought her mother's stage makeup and push-up bra from the musical Sweet Charity was how all moms dressed for work. Since that age, she has studied tap, ballet, modern, step, and jazz, but her fame and fortune (of hoots & hollers) has come from her incredible hip-hop abilities, as seen from Broadway Dance Center to Muhlenburg College. Most importantly, however, she is utterly verily very hilarious. In preparation for this show, she has spent long, hard days researching the subject matter at hand: television.

Rebecca Houlihan (collaborator/performer) is very fortunate to be working with three such talented females. She's not quite sure how she got involved working with them as she had retired from acting and has been working in the basement of a restaurant for the past 4 years. She has performed in Imago Theatre's "Big Little Things" & "Frogz". She has also performed in some uncomfortably terrible Independent films. She promises this will be better.

"I went to see Pretty & Papi on Oscar night and boy, am I glad I did. This quirky, creative, unpretentious show was, I'm sure, much more enjoyable than Hollywood's parade of commercialism and artificial glamour."

"Olivia Hallie Lehrman is very good as Pretty. Her strong clowning background is evident and she brings a surprising honesty and heart to this character."

5 Questions for Pretty-N-Papi

PREVIEW

"Hilarious. Fantastic. Hilarious. Thought provoking. Hilarious"

"they were delightful. i didn't stop smiling once"

"Innovative, funny"

"Original, energetic, engaging and fun!"

"Innovative, funny"