Whammy!
The Seven Secrets to a Sane Self
The agony and the ecstasy of "self-help" get a delirious makeover in this madcap
multi-media dance-theatre extravaganza. Part 1960's dance party and part Nietzschean nightmare, Whammy! prods and probes the American fever dream where Dr. Phil, Diazepam and daily affirmations crash headlong in sexual addiction, suicide and The Shirelles. WTF? Want to know the seven secrets to a sane self? You know you do! And there’s only one way to find out!
Whammy! is a 75-minute exploration of the self-help movement and the people who fuel it. There is no plot, but rather a series of ensemble movement activities and dances punctuated by individual revelations. The play’s only text is pulled from actual self-help books. At its core, Whammy! uses the lens of dream imagery to examine the emotional price that we pay, as individuals, for the security that we find in social groups. Its tone veers from outrageous, absurd comedy to poignant, brutal confessional.
Conceived and Directed by Chuck Harper
Performed by:
Maggie Conroy, Greg Fenner, Chuck Harper,
Anna Skidis, and Mikey Butane Thomas as The Quimbies
and Jeff Skoblow as Dr. G
Movement Activities and Scenic Drawings by Mikey Butane Thomas
Sound Design by Chuck Harper and Mikey Butane Thomas
Associate Director - Maggie Conroy
Scenic Design - Lex von Blommestein
Lighting Design - James Wulfsong
Stage Management - Kristina Cirone
The text for Whammy! is drawn from, or inspired by, a vast array of Self-Help and New-Thought books including, but not limited to, On Being a Real Person, by Harry Fosdick; Don’t Call it Love: Recovery from Sexual Addicion, by Patrick Carnes; Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression, edited by Nell Casey; No Time to Say Goodbye: Surviving the Suicide of a Loved One, by Carla Fine; The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, by Andrew Solomon, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book, by Walker Percy; Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe, by Andrew Boyd; The Collected Works of Phineas Quimby, by Phineas Quimby; and Stop Obsessing: How to Overcome Your Obsessions, by Edna Foa and Reid Wilson. Additional texts from It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World screenplay by William and Tania Rose, and by workshop cast members Anna Skidis, Spenser Greentree and Sarah McKenney.