Help Bring Our Award-Winning Show to Edinburgh Fringe!

“What’s the story you need to tell?”

A teacher asked me this once in grad school. I knew what it was, but I was too afraid to tell it.

The story: a couple years ago, I matched with a Belgian tourist on Tinder. After a whirlwind 24-hour romance, she went back to Belgium. Soon after that, I sold my most prized possession in the world (my shitty red drum kit) to buy a ticket to Belgium to be with her. In Belgium, I experienced the deepest wells of desire, shame, and intimacy. It broke me open. It changed everything.

This is the story I was too afraid to tell.

Years later, on the verge of quitting art altogether, I decided that I had to tell this story before moving back to Kentucky, going to law school, and never performing again. What did I have to lose? My dignity? Probably.

I called my friend and collaborator, Paolo, and read him an early draft in the hope (and fear) that he would want to direct it. After a long silence, he simply said, “We need to do this.”

And so, with help from David Fickas (mentor of the year) and Drama 3/4, we did it! At the Hollywood Fringe Festival, where we won the Best of the Broadwater award, and then Off-Broadway, at the United Solo Theatre Festival, where our sold-out run was extended.

(Paolo^)

Over the course of those performances, something became clear. This wasn’t just a story that I needed to tell for myself.

It was a story that needed to be told.

Sex in the internet age. The twisted knots of dark desires. The roles we cast ourselves in, in and out of the bedroom — as men, women, and, all of us, performers. Beyond the crazy European love story, this is what my show is actually about. This is a story that needs to be told.

It’s been a lifelong dream to perform at the world-famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I didn’t think I could do it. Then, my friend and former roommate during the events of the show, Julia, asked if she could help me take the show to Edinburgh after seeing it in LA and New York. We applied… and we got in! At the prestigious Greenside venue, in a primetime slot! Six shows a week, for three whole weeks!

Uh-oh.

Beyond somehow performing this show 18 times in 21 days, how could I ever afford the venue, travel, lodging, and food? I’m your friendly neighborhood starving artist. (I’m quite hungry as I type this.)

I’ve never wanted to do a GoFundMe. I hate self-promotion and asking for money for art. But this time, for this show, for this story, I am happily pleading: I need your help.

Where will your money go? Let me tell you!

If you’re reading this, first of all, I can’t believe you made it this far (I promise my show is more thoughtfully edited). Second, it would mean the world to me if you could help me and my team take this show to the world's largest theatre festival. Anything and everything helps so much. I promise it does.

This is the story that I need to tell, but it’s more than that. It’s a story that people young and old, men and women, need to hear right now. I know in Scotland it will strike more nerves, move more hearts, and continue to vaguely embarrass my mom who cannot ever, ever see it.

Please, consider helping me share this story on the biggest stage in the world.

(The stage is actually quite small, but you understand.)

See you in Scotland, I hope!

(Not sold? Check out this awesome trailer!)