Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Petunia's Coffee House

I've been writing and developing a show with my friend and UCB alum, Wayne Henry. He created a character named Petunia Lee Swanson, who's had some segments on YouTube, and he wanted to expand her horizons in a somewhat musical way, so Petunia's Coffee House was born!


We started improvising scenes, and then writing them. I've written some pieces over the years: one for the Vagina Monologues, one was a cabaret called "Love in 35 Minutes," and I've been taking writing classes at The PIT.

In "Writing for SNL," Ali Farahnakian talked about the Writers' Table, and with Petunia's, we've definitely been there! I love the roundtable forum. It's been a blast to toss around comic lines , seeing what makes us laugh. A lot of those sessions have ended in laughter through tears, because we've been cracking each other up!

We "open" Petunia's Coffee House in July as a workshop-in-progress. It'll be interesting to see if people want to go along for the ride! I hope so! :)