Tag Archives: Cincinnati Fringe Festival

7 years later, married and still very much in love, the creators of PETUNIA AND CHICKEN return to Cincinnati. And this time, they’ve got live music

Since premiering this show at the 2013 Cincinnati Fringe Festival and winning the Artists’ Pick Award, Carrie Brown and Karim Muasher of Animal Engine Theatre Company have taken it to fringe festivals and schools across North America. After collaborating last year with violinist and composer Natalia Steinbach to add live music to the show, they’re pleased to present this 2019 recording of PETUNIA AND CHICKEN to Cincinnati audiences. The audiences that started it all!

About the Show
Petunia and Chicken is a 4 time award winning play for audiences of all ages, inspired by the works of Pulitzer Prize winning author Willa Cather. It brings to life a heartwarming, funny, and thrilling story of immigration and love on the turn of the century prairie.

Petunia, a Czech immigrant girl determined to tame the wild land around her, meets Chicken, a Nebraska farm boy with dreams of great adventures. As the joys of their youth give way to the harsh realities of adulthood, they struggle to stay together. Performed by just two actors and a violinist in Animal Engine’s unique physical style. They create sprawling fields of wheat, bustling train stations, rain-soaked kisses and more with just their bodies, a hat, a scarf, and folk songs.

About Animal Engine
Animal Engine is the collaboration between Karim Muasher and Carrie Brown. We are two movement-based theatre artists who met while training at the London International School of Performing Arts, and found that we had a shared love of reading. Our mission is to make old stories new, by creating and performing uniquely physical plays that reimagine classic works of literature for the stage.

Working from a place of serious playfulness, we create our plays using research, improvisation, movement, and music. Fascinated with the simple act of storytelling, our plays are performed by just the two of us, with simple design elements, and are often accompanied by a live musician.

We believe in healing, that the artistic experience can help people learn and grow, so the characters in our plays persevere and become better versions of themselves in spite of difficult and often tragic circumstances. Our plays are also written for multi-generational audiences, because healing is as necessary for a child as it is for a grandparent. Our plays have been called “hard to beat” by the Washington Post and “remarkably clever” by City Beat Cincinnati. We perform and teach in our hometown of New York City, across the United States, and internationally at theaters, festivals, and schools.

Where/When:
Online as part of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, May 29-June 13
Digital talkback Saturday, May 30 @ 6pm (facebook and youtube)

Tickets:
$10-$15, available at cincyfringe.com