This second annual festival welcomes fellow artists from across the country to share their works with our communities and beyond.

Tickets are $25 per show or $60 for a festival pass (all 3 shows!).  Pay-What-You-Can tickets are available for low and fixed income community members. Ticket Links Below!!

Following each performance there will be a reception with a light meal of soup or salad. Enjoy a cash bar on our patio before & after the performances.

Friday, Sept 19 at 7:00 pm
REMEMBER YOU WILL DIE
Written & Performed by Maureen McGuigan
Director/Dramaturgy
Alicia Lynn Grega
Music
Jason Smeltzer
Images/Projection Design
Gregarious (Alicia Grega)
Scranton, PA

What happens when existential dread meets dark comedy? Maureen McGuigan's solo show "Remember, You Will Die” transforms life's heaviest topics into an unexpectedly uplifting theatrical experience that audiences won't forget.  From conversations with neighbors over magical mushroom chocolates, McGuigan weaves personal anecdotes with fascinating historical facts and scientific discoveries. The result is a performance that makes audiences laugh, cry, and ultimately feel less alone in confronting life's biggest mysteries. "Death is probably the most taboo subject in our society," says McGuigan, who also serves as Deputy Director of Arts & Culture for Lackawanna County in Scranton, PA. "But the only certain thing in life is that we will die.” This show encourages us to discuss death more openly so we can live more authentically. Remember You Will Die features projection and music by Jason Smeltzer. It premiered at the Scranton Fringe Festival and will go on to tour Ireland later this year.

Maureen McGuigan is a poet and playwright with an M.F.A in creative writing. She is also the Lackawanna County Director of Arts and Culture and oversees grant programs, community events and public art programs in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  She has been collaborating with director Alicia Grega for more than 20 years. Maureen will be travelling to Ireland this autumn with the peformance.

Saturday, Sept 20 at 7:00 pm
9 PICTURES
Written, Performed and Facilitated by
ashley sparks
Los Angeles, California

A work-in-progress immersive and interactive solo show blending facilitation, family photos, and stories (from ashley and the audience) about death, grief, politics, and race. It’s not as depressing as it sounds. This multimedia experience also includes karaoke, at least one dirty joke, snacks, and a worksheet.  This performance, if that’s what it is, is being developed through community sharings. The script evolves after each performance. With an M.F.A. in Directing and Public Dialogue from Virginia Tech University, ashley has made theater with ensembles such as Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles, ArtSpot Productions and Mondo Bizarro in New Orleans, and PearlDamour. sparks is the co-director of Mark-n-Sparks, a time-based creative experiment creating work at the intersections of policy and housing justice. 

ashley sparks is an itinerant theater maker, facilitator, and convening curator for movement networks/organizations.  sparks co-directs the theater ensemble Mark-n-Sparks alongside Mark Valdez and runs spark + dive, inc. Their work is a constellation of ensemble theater, large scale cross-sector collaborations, and arts-informed facilitation that rehearses the creation of new worlds, builds civic imagination, and deepens our collective capacity for engaging in democracy. sparks has worked with ensembles like Cornerstone Theater Company, ArtSpot Productions, Touchstone Theatre, and PearlDamour.

Sunday, September 21 at 7:00 pm
CETACEAN (The Whale)
Written/Performed/Produced by
Deke Weaver
Director/Choreographer/Performer/Producer
Jennifer Allen
Additional Performer
Laura Chiaramonte
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois

With a team of award-winning collaborators, Deke Weaver’s life-long project is presenting a performance for every letter of the alphabet—each letter representing an endangered animal or habitat. CETACEAN (The Whale) is the 6th performance from The Unreliable Bestiary. Truly interdisciplinary, 2023’s CETACEAN was a dazzling collage of lo-fi effects, story, video, sound with a large helping of dance and a dash of national park ranger talk. A Fall 2025 tour brings a condensed translation of the original show to New England, the Gulf of Mexico, and the land-locked seas of the Great Lakes. CETACEAN (The Whale) is dark, thoughtful humor for the anthropocene. 

Deke Weaver’s (writer/performer/co-video/producer) work has been presented by the Sundance Film Festival, PBS, Channel 4/U.K., New York Video Festival (Lincoln Center), Chicago Humanities Festival, Berlin Video Festival, Moth,  Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as well as livestock pavilions, backyard sheds, forests, prairies, night clubs and living rooms. A Guggenheim Fellow and Creative Capital grantee, he is currently a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign with appointments in the School of Art & Design, the Department of Theater, the Department of Dance, and faculty affiliation with the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies.

Jennifer Allen (director/choreographer/performer/producer) has been part of The Unreliable Bestiary’s collaborative team since its inception in 2009. She has worked with John Jasperse, Donna Uchizono, DD Dorvillier, and Jennifer Monson, and her own choreographic work has been presented by The Kitchen, the historic Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church and PS 122. Allen is an acupuncturist who has been guiding people towards inner balance and wholeness since 2007. jenniferallentherapy.com

Laura Chiaramonte (performer) is a choreographer, videographer, performer, and educator. Her movement research explores the intersections of dance somatics and interdisciplinary art forms, integrating sound, visual media, design, and technology into her performances. Currently, Laura serves as an Assistant Teaching Professor of Dance, Dance Media Coordinator, and Archivist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Department of Dance. Additionally, she is the Director and Curator of the Flatlands Dance Film Festival and the Video Archive Director for the Bates Dance Festival.