For theatergoers looking for unique fare this holiday season, Door Shakespeare has just the ticket. Michael Stebbins, Door Shakespeare’s Producing Artistic Director, will bring to life – with simply a chair, podium, boom box and a bottle of water – holiday stories by American humorist David Sedaris on December 7–8, 2018, at Vail Hall, on the grounds of Björklunden, just south of Baileys Harbor.
Holidays on Ice, by David Sedaris, features Stebbins reading three selected stories, including Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol, from the collection Holidays on Ice. Performance times are 7 p.m. on Saturday, December 7, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, December 8. The readings are free-of-charge, but donations are welcome. Parental discretion is advised, as the holiday offerings do contain adult content.
Publishers Weekly called David Sedaris, “Garrison Keillor’s evil twin.” David Sedaris is the author of Barrel Fever and Holidays on Ice, as well as collections of personal essays, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, and Calypso. He recently published a collection of his diaries, entitled Theft By Finding, Diaries (1977-2002). He is the author of the NYT-bestselling collection of fables entitled Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary. He was also the editor of Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules: An Anthology of Outstanding Stories. Sedaris’ pieces appear regularly in The New Yorker and have twice been included in The Best American Essays.
Michael Stebbins is no stranger to the works of David Sedaris. Stebbins said, “I was living in NYC In 1992, and on NPR’s Morning Edition, David Sedaris described his short tenure as Crumpet the Elf at Macy’s department store in The Santaland Diaries. I was hooked.” Since then, he has directed Joe Mantello and David Sedaris’ stage play The Santaland Diaries, drawing praise from Washington DC’s Metro Weekly for creating “a production that is a wonderful combination of polished, professional theater and something out of Waiting for Guffman.” He has shared Sedaris’ holiday writings in a number of venues over the years (Milwaukee’s Theatre Gigante and Boswell Book Company, and for a number of seasons at Rep Stage in Columbia, Maryland). “I enjoy sharing some Sedaris around the holidays,” Stebbins says, “because I know there are people out there who appreciate and relate to his unique sense of humor and are longing for something other than The Nutcracker or A Christmas Carol.”
Michael Stebbins is Door Shakespeare’s Producing Artistic Director. He has appeared off-Broadway, and performed on some of the top regional theatre stages across the country – from DC’s Woolly Mammoth Theater Company to the Tony Award winning Berkeley Repertory Theatre in CA. In Wisconsin, he has appeared at Skylight Music Theatre, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, and Theatre Gigante. He is a member of Actors’ Equity Association. and holds his BFA and MFA from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Professional Theatre Training Program.
Note: Stories from “Holidays on Ice” by David Sedaris are performed with the permission of the author’s agents, Don Congdon Associates, Inc. © 1997 and 2010 by David Sedaris.
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