Thought-Provoking “Sitting Pretty” on Stage

“I honestly think this is a must read for everyone. I am old enough that I’m not embarrassed to admit when I’ve been completely ignorant on a topic, and I absolutely was about disabled people. As Dr. Taussig points out, the message she often receives from the world at large is ‘we’re just not thinking about you at all.’ Well. I am certainly thinking about her, and all disabled people now.”

This five-star review of “Sitting Pretty” by Rebekah Taussig encapsulates a powerful message brought to the stage once again by Phillip Church and his What If Works nonprofit theatre group.

As explained on the WIW website:

“Marking each week of October as National Disability Awareness & Health Literacy Month What if Works brings to the Miami Dade community its inaugural production of The Next Chapter: ‘Sitting Pretty.’

“The Next Chapter launches a new innovative theatre series in which selected chapters from full-length works are fully staged, verbatim, as published. To start the series WIW has chosen Chapter 3 ‘More than a Defect’ from the acclaimed memoir, ‘Sitting Pretty’ by Rebekah Taussig.

“Life glimpsed through the lens of a wheelchair user. ‘Sitting Pretty’ offers a unique seriocomedy as only the deft and motivating writer Rebekah Taussig could deliver.

“Performed by a trio of spirited actors ‘Sitting Pretty’ examines Taussig’s daunting task of teaching a Disabilities Studies course to a class of impossibly disengaged students. The result? Equal parts comedy and pathos.

“The Next Chapter: ‘Sitting Pretty’ promises a theatre experience not to be missed!”

“Sitting Pretty” will be at the Seminole Theatre Friday, Oct. 2, from 7 to 9 p.m.

“The Seminole Theatre welcomes the return of What if Works with its next thought-provoking production, The Next Chapter: ‘Sitting Pretty.’”

General admission is $15. Tickets for seniors, veterans and students are $10.

Tickets are available through the Seminole Theatre or at the box office, 18 N. Krome Ave., Homestead, from noon to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.

Phillip Church, longtime professor at Florida International University, established What If Works as a bridge for his graduate students to experience every aspect of theatre in addition to academic classes.

Church explains:

“The purpose of this new series, ‘The Next Chapter,’ is to provide a public platform upon which authors of full-length works can be discovered by new audiences through the agency of theatre.

“The platform offers works with ‘stand alone’ chapters — that is a fiction or non-fiction whose chapters are not solely reliant on previous or following chapters to offer its full context.

“The difference between WIW’s staging of these transmuted works and more traditional adaptations is that they are staged, verbatim, word-for-word as published.

“They are afforded the dynamic elements of theatre that make theatre an exciting and entertaining medium, yet they attempt to draw focus to the literary value of the author’s original work.

“‘The Next Chapter’ follows previous WIW productions of short stories that had been staged verbatim: ‘Baseball Dreams,’ by Ana Menendez, ‘Lamplighters Tales’ by members of the Lamplighters Writers Circle of Homestead and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by 19th century author Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

“At times WIW feels it is consciously attempting to revive the golden-age-of listening.

“‘The Next Chapter,’ while providing audiences with requisite elements of drama also strives to offer its audience a listening experience that can be recalled long after the lights go out.

“With the recent shuttering of the one-hundred-year-old CBS News Radio, a broadcast that carried the news to listeners over 700 stations across the nation, the general languishing of interest in radio listening has resulted in the loss of an indispensable resource that not only provided entertainment but also played a significant role in developing the imagination of its listeners, young and old.

“Could live, verbatim theatre possibly redeem such a role in the age of Augmented Reality? ‘Nothing ventur’d, nothing gained’ (Benjamin Franklin).”

To learn more about What If Works, visit WhatIfWorks.com or call 305-586-3919.