Katrina: Mother-In-Law of 'em All

d sections were read at the Culture Project’s IMPACT Arts Festival. In 2007, FLEEING KATRINA was produced in Louisiana at the Jefferson Performing Arts Center and the next version of the play KATRINA’S PATH received a staged reading at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s national conference. KATRINA’S PATH was taught by Dr. Melinda Wilson to her “Multicultural Perspectives in American Theatre” class at U. Sacramento and was produced at the University of New Orleans. In 2008 KATRINA’S PATH was a regional finalist in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. In 2009, KATRINA’S PATH received a reading at the Great Plains Theatre Conference and became the first published Hurricane Katrina play by Original Works Publishing. In 2010 THE HURRICANE KATRINA COMEDY FEST received "Best of the Festival" and "Overall Excellence in Production of a Play" honors in the New York International Fringe Festival and was entered into the Fringe Encore Series at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. The play received 15 positive reviews, including THE NEW YORK TIMES, and praise from ICM agent Buddy Thomas. In 2013 THE HURRICANE KATRINA COMEDY FEST ran during the Hollywood Fringe Festival at The Lounge Theatre. Arts Sage Award and was performed at The Fountain Theatre. This production was the first time the play was set in the Mother in Law Lounge, where much of the action takes place. The title was subsequently changed to KATRINA: MOTHER-IN-LAW OF ‘EM ALL and in 2014 the show was performed at The Bayou Playhouse to its first audience of Katrina survivors; it received rave reviews and standing ovations. In 2015, KATRINA: MOTHER-IN-LAW OF ‘EM ALL will run in New Orleans for the 10th anniversary at The Joy Theater, a Katrina rebirth story in itself and site of so much unforgettable Katrina experience. About the 2007 version at JPAS’s beautiful Westwego theatre which was shuttered by Hurricane Gustav; Margarita Bergen wrote in BAYOU BUZZ:


“..... my good friend Don Rees very kindly offered to drive me over to the Jefferson Performing Arts Theatre in Westwego to see the last performance of the play that everyone was talking about, “Fleeing Katrina” by Rob Florence. I now know why everyone was talking about it! So much so, that somehow, we have to find a sponsor to bring it to a downtown New Orleans theatre so more people can feel the experience.”


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PULL QUOTES ABOUT KATRINA’S PATH, Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival finalist and first published play about Hurricane Katrina:


“Of all the shows I have seen on this haunting subject, Katrina’s Path is the most definitive.”
- Patrick Shannon, Hurricane Katrina survivor and New Orleans theatre critic

“... intense, funny, scary, and elegiac.”
- Dr. Michael Swanson, Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival


“I assigned Katrina's Path to my upper-division ‘Multicultural Perspectives in American Theatre’ course last fall. In fact, after studying plays by August Wilson, Velina Hasu Houston, Luis Valdez, and Spiderwoman Theater, I concluded the semester with Katrina’s Path to reinforce that theatre is not fiction because it exists within and often shapes our own realities.”
- Dr. Melinda Wilson, California State University, Sacramento

“These stories will help subsequent generations learn and grow, evolving into more compassionate individuals who may not avoid devastation but who will inherit the culture to survive it. This attests to the timeless nature of the play’s subject matter - it is not about Hurricane Katrina... it is about people and life and hope.”
- Eve Himmelheber, Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival
“Katrina’s Path is a valuable piece of art that will show future generations the moving stories of destruction, death, diaspora, friendship, and humanity in New Orleans.”
- Edith Kreutner, Fulbright lecturer, University of Innsbruck, Austria



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Under the tile of: THE HURRICANE KATRINA COMEDY FESTIVAL
Named "Best of the Festival" and
FringeNYC Winner: "Overall Excellence in Production of a Play"
Entered into the Fringe Encore Series at the Lucille Lortel Theatre

FROM: The New York Times, ArtsBeat August 17, 2010

“The evocative true stories assembled are full of fear, courage and resilience. But they are also rich in the flavorful humor, inextinguishable identity and civic love that characterize the inhabitants of America’s most battered city.”

- David Rooney



FROM: The Huffington Post

“I'll be shocked if The Katrina Comedy Fest doesn't run off-Broadway or at least tour around the country after its successful run in the New York International Fringe Festival.”

- Michael Giltz



FROM: DELUGE OF DARK HUMOR: MOVING TAKE ON DISASTER
THE NEW YORK POST 8/19/10

“There's no shortage of horrific moments, such as the vivid descriptions of water slowly rising in houses and bodies floating in the flooded streets. But the playwright also captures the gallows humor that springs up in such circumstances, making the evening surprisingly uplifting.”

- Frank Scheck



FROM: BackStage.com

“What's remarkable about this production is its willingness to forgo theatrical trappings for pure storytelling... Florence doesn't analyze or condemn; he just lets the words seep in.”

Nicole Villeneuve, 8/16/10



FROM: www.theUrbaneUrbanite.com 8/16/10

"It's refreshing to see a show about the biggest national disaster in U.S. history that isn't overwrought and heavy-handed in direction. Florence's script breathes life into the simple stories that we didn't hear about on CNN and the life lessons these folks learned along the way. Like Sheldon points out at the top of the play: 'The truth is a lot better than the fiction.'

The Katrina Comedy Fest poignantly reiterates that tragedy plus time equals humor. And when done correctly, one powerful play." FROM: Theatermania.com / Peter Filichia’s Diary

Rob Florence’s The Katrina Comedy Fest is actually a docudrama – and the best-acted Fringe show I’ve seen....
At the performance I attended, suddenly there was a scream from the back of the house. Was it part of the show? It could have been a new character commenting on what Katrina was doing to her. No, it was actually a woman having an epileptic fit, causing Mitchell to stop speaking and the actors to sit quietly. Once the woman was stabilized, the game actors went on and got the audience right back into the show. Now that’s a cast.

- Peter Filichia



FROM: The Katrina Comedy Fest: A Festival Of Brightness In The Eye Of The Storm

“Their ‘comedy’ is not making light of what happened, but rather about not being beat by a situation which so many of the people in this play recalled as “post-apocalyptic”. I say ‘people’ rather than “characters” because all the stories are from 5 distinct people and are 100% true, free of the biases of media exaggeration or bureaucratic exaggeration. Comedy, in a Classical sense, is not about making light of something and diminishing it, but rather the Greeks and Romans defined the word “comedy” as stage-plays with happy endings.”

Stephen Tortora-Lee, 8/27/10



FROM: WWW.THEASY.COM

“For the most part, this piece is documentary theater at its best....

...though sprinkled with moments of levity, the main effect of the piece is to show just how profoundly traumatizing Katrina was for the residents of New Orleans and the city itself. The characters, especially Antoinette, played beautifully by Lizan Mitchell, are the heart and soul not just of the play but of New Orleans itself. Viewed through their eyes, one begins to see the disaster not from the outside as a spectator or as a concerned citizen, but from the inside as a fellow human being.

.... It is a reminder not just of the scale and tragic consequences of this awful event, but in a wa