Celebrate the remarkably unremarkable!
Wombat drool - written by david S. kessler
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 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 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.
Cast
K. – David S. Kessler
Team Wombat
Projections and Sound – Neil McFadden
Paintings and Sculpture – Patricia Powell Kessler
Some Photos – Lisa Passaro Schneider and Clyde Nishimura
Directorial and Moral Support – Aubri O’Connor
Scientific Illustration – Lisa Passaro Schneider
Wombat Drool Illustration – Adelaide Waldrop
Joe’s Movement Emporium
Jeniffer Leon, David Dowling, Belinda Caesar, Toni Rae Salmi, Gustavo Trejo, Brooke Kidd
Top the Wombat with Jane Morris by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1869
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. This production would not be possible without the wonderful people at Joe’s Movement Emporium.
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).
Wombat Drool premiered at the 2015 Capital Fringe Festival