The Everyman Repertory Theatre will perform Hold onto Your Hat!, a one-woman show, written and performed by Andrea Itkin, at the University of Maine Hutchinson Center on Friday, October 5 at 7:30pm. The show is part memoir, part social commentary, written from the perspective of youth through old age, delivered all in rhyme and a bit of song with a lot of humor. “Andrea kept bringing in these poems to our Actors’ Studio last year and reading them, and we were all just blown away by how good they were; how funny, how sad, how, sometimes, angry,” said Everyman Rep’s artistic director Paul Hodgson. “We knew we had to help her get it on stage and in front of people.” Itkin, speaking of writing the show, said: “Although I had written some plays and monologues, short stories and poems, I had never attempted rhymes or songs before I started working on this show. It was initially inspired by Patti Smith’s memoir, Just Kids, which got me thinking about that time of my life and experimenting with expressing experience in a new way.”
Hold onto Your Hat! is a multimedia experience featuring photographs by Cig Harvey and Scott Anthony Smith, collages by Tammam Azzam, paintings by Natasha Mayers, and a short film by Dylan Itkin. Original recordings by Mary Anne Driscoll and Curran Reynolds of Body Stuff. It is directed by Scott Anthony Smith.
Andrea Itkin has been writing and performing in Maine for over 35 years. Most recently she was in the reading of Lost and Guided by Irene Kapustina, and has been in many productions with ERT, including playing Givola in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Nat in Rabbit Hole, and Carrie Watts in The Trip to Bountiful.
Tickets for all performances are $20 for adults and $10 for students and may be purchased in advance at everymanrep.org or by calling (207) 236-0173.
For more information or to request a disability accommodation, contact Nancy Bergerson, 207.338.8049. Additional information about the Hutchinson Center is online (hutchinsoncenter.umaine.edu).