FLUSHING
Flushing: Make Room for Someone Else
A piece about artistic legacy.
Together, we look into the abyss, sometimes from the edge of a volcano, sometimes from the window of a speeding train, sometimes through our parents' nightmares, to connect where we come from to how we got here. After years of knowing each other as theater colleagues, Linda and Eric discovered by chance that they grew up only a few miles apart in Flushing, NY. Though their life paths took them in different directions and to different parts of the globe, they once again find themselves in a similar place—in the process of handing their theater companies to a younger generation of leaders and facing the Brink of leadership succession. Flushing is a journey with Linda and Eric from present to past and back again engaging with issues of race, legacy and identity along the way.
Conceived and written by Linda Parris-Bailey and Eric Bass
Performed by Linda Parris-Bailey, Eric Bass, and Kirk Murphy
Directed by Kathie deNobriga
Puppets by Ines Zeller Bass
Original songs by Linda Parris-Bailey and Eric Bass
Additional recorded music by Julian Gerstin
Technical support by Jerry Stockman
Choreographic support by Shoshana Bass
This project is made possible, in part, by contributions from The Carpetbag Theatre, Parris-Bailey Arts and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Alternate ROOTS (2020 Artistic Assistance Project Development), the Network of Ensemble Theaters' Travel & Exchange Network (NET/TEN), supported by lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and by the National Endowment for the Arts.
The History of Flushing
Flushing is a collaboration between Linda Parris-Bailey, former Executive/Artistic Director of Carpetbag Theatre, and Eric Bass, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Sandglass Theater. Eric Bass has worked for over 40 years as a director, playwright, performer and mask and puppet maker. In 1982, he founded Sandglass Theater in Munich, Germany, with his wife, Ines Zeller Bass. Linda Parris-Bailey creates story-based plays with music focusing on themes of transformation and empowerment. She was artistic director of Carpetbag Theatre in Tennessee for over 40 years where she was also the primary playwright-in-residence.