Together We Fight For The Forgotten

Wombat drool - written by david S. kessler

directed by Lynn sharp spears

 What is Wombat Drool?

K, a quirky zookeeper with infectious enthusiasm and a penchant for storytelling, has just got to tell you about Wombats, lovely Wombats. And Red Pandas. And silent German movies. And Tortoise poop. And a sleeping Siamang Gibbon. And vertigo. And Moonrat vaginas. And sex education movies. And Wombats! Join K in his digressions and diversions as he exalts the remarkably unremarkable. 

Drawn from David S. Kessler’s almost forty years of experience at the National Zoo (and from his fevered imagination), Wombat Drool is the fictional and amusing rants of a man more comfortable with animals than people, a man who spent his life behind bars with a compulsion to share what he knows and feels about his fellow cagemates and the humans on the outside. K celebrates small mammals, the forsaken and forgotten of the animal world, the misfits, the weird, the smelly. Get small with K and discover that Small Matters.

Team Wombat has crafted an entertainment for those who love animals, for those who don’t love animals, and for those who fall somewhere in between. Join K and be stuck up a tree with a Red Panda, harassed in the Tortoise yard, pelted by the space Chimp, cuddled by the Siamang, and the Wombat? The Wombat Drool? You’ll just have to find out for yourself.

Cast

K.  – David S. Kessler 

Team Wombat

Director - Lynn Sharp Spears

Projections and Sound – Neil McFadden 

Lighting Design - Liv Jin

Producers - Aubri O’Connor and David S. Kessler

Stage Manager - Lisa K. Blythe

Paintings and Sculpture – Patricia Powell Kessler 

Marketing - Hannah Wing-Bonica

Production Manager - Ileana Blustein

Set and Props Design - Aubri O’Connor

Some Photos – Lisa Passaro Schneider and Clyde Nishimura 

Scientific Table – Lisa Passaro Schneider 

Graphic Design Illustration – Adelaide Waldrop 

Wombat Drool is a work of fiction

Resemblance to any animals – human or otherwise – is pure coincidence

No animals were harmed in the making of this production

David S. Kessler spent nearly four decades at the National Zoo, many of them as a small mammal biologist. After that, he founded Uncle Funsy Productions, purveyor of things theatrical. He has written numerous sonnets, including one in 45 minutes for WNYC’s The Next Big Thing, songs for the mercifully short-lived Fidel’s Marching Marimba Band, three novels for nobody in particular, and numerous scientific papers. He is eternally grateful to his wife Patricia for her support, advice, and art.

Uncle Funsy Productions: Wombat Drool, One Mutual Happiness, Numesthesia (all at Capital Fringe Festival) (writer/performer/producer). Nu Sass/Uncle Funsy: Gwen and Ida: The Object is of No Importance (writer, co-producer, mixologist). The Arcanists: The Tarot Reading IV, The Tarot Reading V (Medium [writer/performer]). Pointless Theatre: Forest Treás (performer).

unclefunsy.com

A portion of Wombat Drool premiered at the 2015 Capital Fringe Festival