Downstage proudly presents
the World Premiere of
MY FAMILY AND OTHER ENDANGERED SPECIES
by Ellen Close and Braden Griffiths
adapted from the novel Amphibian by Carla Gunn
directed by Simon Mallett
April 23-26 & April 29-May 3, 2014
8 pm nightly with a 2 pm matinee May 3
Big Secret Theatre, EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts
“I think happiness is the whole problem – everyone, including my own mother, wants to be happy all the time, and nobody wants to be worried, even though they super, to-infinity should be.”
Nine-year-old Phineas William Walsh has an encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world. What he doesn’t understand, though, is why his parents can’t live together – after all, when other mate-for-life animals have a fight, it’s not like one of them just packs his bags and leaves the country. To make things to-infinity worse, Phin is worried sick about what humans are doing to the planet, and his mother is worried sick about him. So, when a White’s tree frog ends up in an aquarium in his fourth-grade classroom, it’s the last straw, and he stages an elaborate rescue.
Adapted and performed by Downstage Creation Ensemble members Braden Griffiths and Ellen Close, My Family and Other Endangered Species is a funny, imaginative and moving new play that will engage young adults and adults alike with a fast-paced story about environmental anxiety and puppets that transform from everyday objects.
