Mildred's Umbrella Presents KIMBERLY AKIMBO, 11/29-12/15

Mildred's Umbrella Theatre Company proudly presents our Houston area premier of Kimberly Akimbo, by Pulitzer Prize- winning playwright, David Lindsay Abaire. The show will be directed by veteran Houston director, Ron Jones, starring Carolyn Boone, Kim Tobin-Lehl, Jennifer Decker, Luke Fedell and Ty Doran. The performances will run November 29 thru December 15, 2012 at Studio 101 at Spring Street Studios.

SYNOPSIS: Kimberly Akimbo is a dark comedy about a lonely teenage girl suffering from a disease that causes her to age 4 and 1/2 times faster than normal. Thus, sixteen-year-old Kimberly is trapped inside the frail physical body of an elderly woman. She meets another misfit (a teenage boy), and the two form an attachment to one another that borders on attraction. The situation is not helped by Kimberly's rapidly deteriorating health and her completely self-absorbed and dysfunctional family. The material is relevant to today's issues with acceptance of people, who are different and the skills a neglected child must use to survive today's dysfunctional world. While dealing with the inevitable experiences of old age and death, Kimberly Akimbo strikes hopeful notes about breaking destructive patterns and finding peace amid turmoil.

David Lindsay Abaire is an American Pulitzer Prize winner and Tony nominated playwright whose works include High Fidelity, a musical adaptation of the 1995 Nick Hornby novel of the same name, Wonders of the World, which premiered at Washington D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theatre headlined by Sarah Jessica Parker, Fuddy Meers, which has obtained over 200 productions and adaptations into several languages, Dotting and Dashing, Snow Angel, Rabbit Hole, which was converted to the screen starring Nicole Kidman, and Good People just to name a few. Upon graduating with a BFA in Theatre from Sarah Lawrence College, David Lindsay-Abaire was accepted into the prestigious Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at the Juilliard School. Since then, he has received funding from South Coast Repertory, the Jerome Foundation, and the Dance Theatre Workshop. He has also attained awards from various festivals, the Tennessee Williams/ New Orleans Literary Festival, and the South Carolina Playwrights Festival, as well as the Berilla Kerr Foundation, the Lincoln Center LeComte du Nuoy Fund, Mixed Blood Theater, Primary Stages, and the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center. In addition to being a proud Dramatists Guild member, and its representative on the American Theatre Wing's Tony Nominating Committee, Abaire is a New Dramatists Resident Playwright, and a member of the WGA East.