lora grasshopper kitty cat
New Room Studios presents our first theatrical production, Lora Grasshopper Kitty Cat, developed by Ben Moorad and Lora Lafayette.
about Lora Grasshopper Kitty Cat
This theatrical production is centered on Lora Lafayette’s personal story of schizophrenia, her struggles with suicide, and her will to live. Lora was named a 2023 Oregon Book Award Finalist for her memoir Possums Run Amok: A True Tale Told Slanted (Mercuria Press), which explores her early life. This show incorporates material from Possums Run Amok and continues Lora’s story after she’s released from years in the state hospital: how she made sense of her new life, her struggles with chronic mental illness, her development as a writer and relationship with her friend and fellow writer, Ben Moorad. We explore how she makes sense of a world in which she’s at the center of a cosmic battle between good and evil—a battle that no one else can see, and in which the fate of the universe is on her shoulders—while she just wants to live quietly in her apartment with her cat.
access
This show is about someone with neurodivergence, and we are working to make this production accessible to artists and audiences who identify as having disabilities.
We want to do this in a way that allows people to participate fully and joyfully in this production.
Our priority is to create and maintain an environment of mutual trust where people are treated with dignity and respect.
content notice
While Lora Grasshopper Kitty Cat is a sensitive look at one person’s existence, it does contain explorations of mental illness, self-harm and suicidal ideation, as well as references to institutional abuse and sexual assault.
We will strive to create a community of care for our performers and audiences throughout this project, and we won’t treat these themes in a graphic way. We aim to treat them with care and respect—we just want to be upfront about the content.
ONLINE PROGRAM
Lora Grasshopper Kitty Cat
creative team & cast
Co-Writers: Ben Moorad and Lora Lafayette
Director: Erin Leddy
Dramaturg & Production Manager: Maesie Speer
Performer/Creators:
- Alanna Fagan (Lora) — Alanna is a femme presenting Asian with long black hair in a braid. They’re wearing a black crop top and black joggers.
- Lily Linz (Lora) — Lily is a 23 year old white woman with brown shoulder length hair and green eyes. She’s wearing all black and has tattoos of an apple juice box, a coffin and a hand of playing cards.
- Mary Rose (Lora) — Mary Rose is 44 year old white (pinkish complexioned) female bodied person. She/they have short grey hair with variably lengthened bangs that stand up a bit and also fall to the right side of her face. She has brown eyes, is 5 ‘4”, and has a smaller frame. She is wearing a black shirt with no sleeves and black leggings.
- Ben Moorad (Ben) — Ben is a white male with green eyes and short brown and gray hair. He’s wearing a black T-shirt, gray pants and black socks.
- Lora Lafayette (herself) — Lora is sitting in the front row and is wearing cat ears.
access team
Access Coordinator: Becky Emmert
House Access Manager: Ryan-Ashley (Ray) Anderson
Access Consultants: The Curiosity Paradox (Grant Miller and Jonathan Paradox Lee)
ASL/English Interpreters: Lavender Cygnet and Jasmine Smith
Audio Describer: Barb Green
production team
Composer: Wilson Vediner
Lighting Designer: Rikkia Pereira
Stage Manager: Victoria Spelman
House Manager: Alyssa Mathews
Rehearsal Support: Joaquin Lopez and Jenni GreenMiller
Videography: Jesse Locke
scenes & content notices
We’ve listed content notices for each scene below. Click to expand any scene and see what it contains before you continue. To jump to Mental Health Resources click here.
Scene 1: Kitty Cat
Content notice: violence, suicide, death, hearing voices
Scene 2: Writing and Childhood
Content notice: mental illness, hearing voices, childhood sexual assault, violence
Scene 3: Psychiatry
Content notice: hearing voices, suicide, violence, incarceration/hospitalization, mental illness, psychological distress, suicidal ideation, self-harm
Scene 4: Youth and Russia
Content notice: sex work, suicidal ideation, hearing voices, death, incarceration/hospitalization, drug and alcohol use
INTERMISSION (15 MINS)
Scene 5: Friendship
Content notice: death
Scene 6: Psychotic Break
Content notice: death, mental illness, hearing voices, psychological and physical distress, self-harm, incarceration/hospitalization, suicide
Scene 7: Voices
Content notice: hearing voices, violence, psychological distress, visions, suicidal ideation, mentions of rape and genocide
Scene 8: Care
Content notice: hospitalization, suicide, suicidal ideation
program note: "What we mean by a workshop performance"
This is a stripped-down production of a work in progress. We’ve decided to present this to you first—at this stage—for several reasons. This is our first theatrical production as a creative team, it’s an original script that has undergone many revisions and is still in development, and for many of us, this is our first experience working with access professionals to make a truly access-forward show. We wanted to present this to you now and learn what’s working well and what’s not, so we can change what needs to be changed and improve things before we launch a full production.
In the interest of keeping this workshop version at about 90 minutes, we’ve had to leave out some parts of the script that we think will feature in the full production. These include:
- The grasshopper! (It’s right there in the title, but we had to cut back some scenes that introduce and develop that theme and what it says about the characters’ relationships to death.)
- A scene where Lora explores what it was like to be institutionalized in the State Hospital for two years.
- A scene where we explore the complex web of medicines Lora’s been given over the years and how they’ve affected her.
The full production will also feature: immersive visual projections; scenic, costume and prop elements; live music and more immersive sound elements. Thank you for being a part of this journey!
special thanks & supporters
Ki (Kay) Von Schiller; Pam Ingram; Subashini Ganesan, Rikkia Pereira and New Expressive Works; Street Roots; Joaquin Lopez; Carla Girard and Mercuria Press; Bruce Rutledge and Chin Music Press; Hand2Mouth Theatre; Tom Jackson; Julien Morris; and Stephanie Barr.
This project has been made possible through the generous financial support of: Ronni Lacroute, New Expressive Works, the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation, the Regional Arts & Culture Council, the Multnomah County Cultural Coalition, the Oregon Arts Commission, and the Oregon Community Foundation.
writing prompts
We used a lot of freewriting to generate much of the show, and some of the writing prompts we used ended up in the script. You might want to try these prompts yourself and see what comes out. Set a timer for 5 or 10 or 15 minutes, write down one of these phrases and just write whatever comes up for you during that time, and see what you get:
- I started writing…
- My parents back then…
- When I was a child…
- I want to be…
Lora's playlist
- “Anarchy in the UK” — The Sex Pistols
- “48 Crash” — Suzi Quatro
- “Don’t Fear the Reaper” — Blue Öyster Cult
- “Feel the Pain” — The Damned
- “Turn Blue” — Iggy Pop
- “In Dreams” — Roy Orbison
- “The Ballad of Dwight Fry” — Alice Cooper
- “Ça Plane Pour Moi” — Plastic Bertrand
artist bios
Alanna Fagan (any) is not a kitty cat, but is aiming to be one in the next life. She is scared of feet more than hands, and wonders how the screams we cannot stop will feel once they reverberate through the bank to reach us. Recent credits include: In a Different Reality She’s Clawing at the Walls, and the JAW New Play Festival. They send so much love to this team, this audience, & all the Loras out there. @avelyesqe
Alyssa Marie Mathews is a puppeteer, theatre-maker, and all-around artist. She has over 15 years of theatre experience across many different areas but nowadays puts a focus on puppetry and management. She currently works with Hand2Mouth Theatre as their Operations Manager and with the touring sci-fi/horror/comedy/rock musical troupe Puppeteers For Fears as Managing Director + Lead Puppeteer.
Becky Emmert is the first Head of Accessibility at Portland Art Museum. She is a proud Disabled, Chronically Ill, Neurodivergent, Spoonie who is a member of the Deaf Community. Becky has coordinated Independent Living and youth transition programs, taught university rehabilitation counseling courses, worked as a mental health counselor and case manager, and served on multiple government committees. She is passionate about using Disability Justice principles to create inclusive spaces where there is opportunity for meaningful engagement with art and each other for all community members.
Ben Moorad (he/him) is the founding Director of New Room Studios and is one of its Artistic Principals. He’s a writer, performer and MacDowell Fellow. Ben is the Co-Founder of Write Around Portland (which has provided networks of free writing workshops for underrepresented people since 1999), he’s the Co-Founder of Pass the Mic (a music education program for immigrant and refugee youth since 2018), and he’s the Founder and Co-Producer of a podcast about contemporary life in Lebanon called “We Are the Ones Who Live Here.” (IG: @benmoorad)
Erin Leddy has been making original theatre in Portland since 2002. Erin was a company member and performer with Hand2Mouth for 19 years, where she participated in the creation of over 20 shows. Her solo performance My Mind Is Like An Open Meadow won 5 Portland Drammy Awards in 2011 (including Outstanding Production). The friendships she has formed and deepened through devised theatre have carried her heart and soul for the past two decades. Erin is a collaborator by nature and loves to play with her friends, her cats, her husband and her beloved daughter Billie.
Lily Alice Linz is an actor-creator, and performance artist from Santa Barbara, California. She is a recent graduate of the Institute of Contemporary Performance at Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble. She studied Physical Theatre at Dell’arte International, and before that, trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for performance art. Recent credits include OAT: Julius Caesar ICP: Big League Chew (creator/performer), We Who Are About to Die (creator/performer) Dell’arte: Red Light Cabaret. She is a co-collaborator and company member of Proximity Theatre, which is an experimental theatre company dedicated to making new work. She is also a proud member of the queer femme clown “cult,” Magenta Mountain Majesty.
Lora Lafayette’s memoir Possums Run Amok was printed by Mercuria Press (an imprint of Chin Music Press) in 2022, and it was a Finalist for an Oregon Book Award. (An excerpt from Possums ran in The Buckmxn Journal.) She’s also an award-winning poet, whose work has appeared in PLAZM Magazine, Pen & Ink, The Oregonian and other journals. She’s currently working on a volume of poetry and a second memoir called Posthumous Possums.
Maesie Speer (she/they) is a cultural worker from Memphis, TN whose practice bridges performance, dramaturgy, ritual, and creative producing. Maesie is a past company member of Hand2Mouth with whom she created, toured, and formed lifelong friendships for 10 years. They have also collaborated with Unit Souzou, facilitated with Oregon Humanities, and performed with Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Sojourn Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and Ten Pen Chii Art Labor. Maesie serves as board chair for CultureSeed, a nonprofit accompanying youth in the Columbia Gorge through mental health care and environmental connection. They live with cats and humans in the Roseway neighborhood.
Mary Rose is an actor and improviser as well as a proprietor at Nalu Kava (@nalu_kava on IG)—a cozy, non-alcoholic bar here in Portland. She teaches Action Theater—an embodied improvisation form—through Portland Action Theater (portlandactiontheater.com). She delights in dancing, spending time with her family and friends, exploring plant medicine, singing… She has thoroughly enjoyed working with the fantastic cast and crew of “Lora!” While she’s got your attention, she’d like to remind you to send a message to your reps to demand a ceasefire in Gaza!
Ryan-Ashley (Ray) Anderson is a creative director, artist, writer, and recovered standup comedian who recently transplanted to Portland from North Carolina. They are a PNCA merit scholar, dually enrolled in the Critical Studies and Visual Studies programs, and love promoting and supporting the projects of other artists. Prior to grad school, they spent over a decade in curatorial, artist representation, and arts program development roles. As a neurodivergent creative, Ray’s professional and art practices are guided by their passion for and commitment to accessibility and equity and is committed to making the arts accessible for all.
Victoria Spelman (she/her) is delighted to be working on “Lora Grasshopper Kitty Cat.” She is a Las Vegas native, who moved to Portland mid pandemic. She wears many hats in the theatre world including actor, director, intimacy director, producer, and now stage manager. Her specialty is in physical theatre and loves devised projects. She is a graduate from the Dell’arte School of Physical Theatre as well as the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She thanks all of her supporters in her life, especially her loving partner Aurora.
mental health resources
24/7 Crisis Lifeline
Text or call 988 or chat 988lifeline.org
You can reach a specialized LGBTQI+ affirming counselor by texting Q to 988 or pressing 3 when calling.
About 988
People can use 988 for themselves or if they are worried about a loved one who may need crisis support.
988 serves as a universal entry point so that no matter where you live in the United States, you can reach a trained crisis counselor who can help.
988 offers 24/7 access to trained crisis counselors who can help people experiencing mental health-related distress. That could be:
- Thoughts of suicide
- Mental health or substance use crises
- Emotional distress
Learn more at https://988lifeline.org
Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare Urgent Walk-in Clinic
Receive immediate, in-person care for a behavioral health crisis. Serves anyone at no cost.
4212 SE Division St, Portland, 503-963-2575
Open Monday-Friday, 7am-9pm | Saturday-Sunday 9am-9pm