SARAH SITS SHIVA FOR HERSELF
Over a year and a half after sitting shiva for herself in the original 10 minute version of this play, Jackie is chuffed to reprise the role of Sarah in this reading of Megan Pope’s (now) full-length play as part of Normal Ave.’s NAPseries!
Sarah is dying but masking it with beserk confidence. She decides to throw a shiva for herself (even though shivas are for dead people and she is still very much alive). Only 3 people show up. Her mom, her ex-girlfriend, and her mom’s best friend Lou.
Directed by Kathleen Capdesuñer.
‘JACKIE’
A short film by Wylie Rush. Things got a little messy, and a little wild, and a little feline. An official selection of the Nightmares Film Festival, and winnter of Independent Horror Movie Awards’ Best Actress and Most Disturbing! You’ll just have to wait and see…
‘PLAYING OPOSSUM’
Presented as a reading as part of FringeCLUB by Fringe NYC at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and written by Ephraim Birney & Ryan Quigley, starring those strapping young lads, plus Jackie and Gus Birney. On the eve of their first live performance, an amateur rock band falls down a pit of ridiculous debate and intense self-discovery as they wait for their sound board to start up.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/playing-opossum-fringeclub-2019-tickets-75047472009
some (REAL) film festival updates
A cut of 'THIRST’ made it into the Portland Film Festival !!!!!
AND
‘JACKIE’ is an official selection of the Nightmares Film Festival, & nominated for Best Writing in a Short !!!!!
#TeamJackie&Wylie crushing that festival circuit. Here’s to many more updates!
YES SHE CANNES! at Dixon Place
She Cannes. And She Willes. Ellen and Jackie are extremely hype to workshop their expanded, full length play in front of a new audience at Dixon Place!!! Harge & Marge are back, baby! And let’s just say, things are a little different thing time around. It’s everyone’s favorite fake film festival, like you’ve never seen it before. Join us for new characters, new jokes, new sponsors, new laughs, new patriarchal oppressions, and new mustaches!
THE CONTRACT, a short by Michael Kasino
A couple of years after working with Reed Birney on a reading of one of Ernest Thompson’s plays at The Cherry Lane, and a couple years after working with Ephraim Birney on his webseries ‘Clickbait: The Show’, Jackie finally had the joy of working on screen with BOTH of them, at the same time!!!!!!
AFTERDEATH
Another short film by Wylie Rush. Basically, in simple (extremely, ridiculously, outrageously aspirational) terms, Jackie is hoping to be the non-romantic Giulietta Masina to Wylie’s Fellini. (I’d be more self conscious about putting that out in the world, but I mean, does anyone even read these anyway? Are you there? Blink once for yes). ANYWAY! Here’s to a lifetime and beyond of collaborations, Willard.
THE SPOTLIGHT at UCB
Jackie’s so hype to be part of the cast of this month’s SPOTLIGHT at UCB Hell’s Kitchen! In this brand-new show, some of the best sketch writers in New York write an hour of sketch comedy starring one of UCB's greatest sketch performers! Come watch the comedy superstar of tomorrow as he or she takes their first step into The Spotlight!
SCRAPPED, a comedy show for writers
This sketch talk-show features comedy writers and their big ideas that never made it past the writer’s room. They got scrapped. Never to be seen… until now. Here we celebrate the rejected, the forgotten, the misunderstood, and the downright dumb ideas of NYC’s best and brightest comedians. Let’s raise a glass to the art and struggle of comedy writing. Come on down to the People’s Improv Theater the last Wednesday of the month and watch Jackie make choices on the fly (and attempt accents she hasn’t practiced since her undergrad speech course at NYU)!
YES SHE CANNES! at FEAST
FEAST: A Performance Series gathers artists and audiences once a month for a three-course meal of performance and community. FEAST features three artists each month who practice three different performance-based art forms, creating a space where a triptych of theatre, comedy, dance, puppetry, music, improv, burlesque, and more provoke and inspire each other. FEAST opens doors to artists and audiences to experience work they might not otherwise get to perform or witness.
Directing scenes for THEATRE WITHOUT BORDERS
Mom, Dad, those years of physical acting to work are being put to solid use - Jackie is directing two scenes for this summer’s Theatre Without Borders conference at Wesleyan University. And to be exploring the works of female commedia dell’arte playwrights Isabella Andreini and Margherita Costa - who knew women were funny in the 16th & 17th centuries?!?
Disney’s FROZEN on Broadway Commercial
Jackie was recently cast in the new ad campaign for Disney’s FROZEN on Broadway. She inadvertently became this emoji in the process 🤷🏻♀️, and is curious as to why they didn’t use the ten minutes worth of material she gave them obsessing over the actor/puppet reindeer.
Reading at THE PLAYWRIGHTS REALM
Sarah Einspanier's brilliant ‘I LOVE SEAN’ is being directed by Jenny Koons at The Playwrights Realm - aka one of her favorite organizations. Three to 300 women strive to find happiness between what they want and what they're told they should want, who they are and who they're told they should be. Also known as “what happens when you write a play after transcribing an entire season of ABC's The Bachelor.” Presented as part of Playwrights’ INK Fest.
NOICE!
NOICE is a six-person super-collective of the BOEST and BROIGHTEST sketch comedians in NYC. Sketches are high-energy, observational, pop culture cake pops featuring big characters and hilarious worlds.
Starring: J. W. Crump (Gas Station Horror), Sean Reidy (Denied from New York), Kate Shine (Mama’s Boy), Ann Marie Yoo (AZN Pop), Jackie Abbott (Savage), and Aaron Porchia (Like Butter)
Written and Directed by J. W. Crump
SAVAGE Sketch Team
PIT House Sketch Team Show as part of Super Free Sketch Tuesdays! Come see our team SAVAGE perform on the Underground stage the last Tuesday of every month.
'BOXCAR' Reading at Trans Lab
Emma Rosa Went directs this staged reading of Else C. Went’s full length play as part of the culmination of Else’s year long fellowship with trans lab, the NYC-based fellowship for trans & gender nonconforming theater artists as supported by WP Project & the Public Theater.
Ida and Firefly ran away together when they were kids. Since then, they've lived on empty trains across the American landscape. Alexis is a teen runaway with a romantic notion of freedom. As the weeks pass, Ida and Alexis develop a powerful bond that threatens to knock everything off track.
'AX OF LOVE' by Ernest Thompson
An intimate reading of Ernest Thompson’s 20th Century epic ‘Ax of Love’, a thirty year journey through the brutality of love. Ernest Thompson is the Academy Award winning writer of ‘On Golden Pond’ - a film Jackie was introduced to at an early age by her father, and heavily influenced her fear of parental mortality.
THIRST
A delicious new pilot Jackie co-wrote with writer & director Wylie Rush.
'Chappy Grindr Scruff Tindr' by Dan Giles @ EST Marathon of Short Plays
Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Youngblood Short Play marathon consists of one week for the playwright to write a brand new play for four actors, and one week to rehearse it before the festival goes up on its feet. Praised by critics and beloved by audiences, it launched an industry-wide revival of the short play form and broke new ground by putting new and established writers together on one stage.
'Wiccan Party' for Quickie Fest 2018
Jackie’s former 12-year-old self would feel so scene seeing her now as a goth seance member in this 60 second short, written & shot by her friends Dylan Eshbaugh & Ben Getz.
The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals
The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals seek the very best of the next generation of theatermakers and arm them with what they need in order to find their way in this business. In August 2018 the next group will come together for a series of intensive workshops, panel discussions, and finally, a production of The 24 Hour Plays.
NOICE! at LoLGBTQ Fest
NOICE is a 45 minute sketch show written and directed by J.W. Crump and performed by a team of LGBTQ performers as part of the LoLGBTQ festival for The PIT!
$1 of each ticket sold will go to the It Gets Better project.
Comm. Ave. Overpass On The Boston Side
A new play by Julia Specht, directed by Harrison Densmore. Part of the Ensemble Studio Theatre's BLOODWORKS READING SERIES, where Youngblood writer's debut new full-length plays.
this play is about having a sister. it's about loving someone who is maybe too much like you. it's also about having a body and how disgusting and uncomfortable and amazingly perfect it is. it's also about a very similar overpass with a shorter fence.