F--king Handicapped Guy

		F--ing Handicapped Guy
		SAN FRANCISCO FRINGE FESTIVAL 2002 PLAYS
		HOME / SCHEDULE / AUDIENCE REVIEWS / TO REVIEW A PLAY / TICKETS & DIRECTIONS
CLICK HERE FOR A RUNNING DISCRIPTION OF ALL THE FRINGE PLAYS CLICK ON PLAY FOR INFO ON THAT PLAY <52 American Appetite: Tales of Dirty Young Boys & Spry Old Men, The An Evening At Home Anablep and Other Oddities Back to Kroenig Beckett's Last Dance Beneath Sita's Belly Black Box Confessions Blue Sofa Candistan Caught Sleeping Cleopatra!-And Antony ClockBusters Death Blow - The Show Devouring Time Engineer and The Artist, The Enronicles Exit Laughing! F--king Handicapped Guy Fred Anderson -Professional Goofball! Full Spectrum Improvisation George Bush's Nuts Getting It Wrong Guano dell' Amore - ("Birdshit of Love") Gulag Ha Ha Interactive Solo Performer Daniel Packard Ken and Andy Show, The Lillie, A Musical Looking, Then Pointing Mad Adventures of Chaos For Hire, The Me Laugh You Long Time Menopause and Desire: Or Why Must I Be Middle Aged and In Love? Microclimates: A Crime Against Gravity or The Burrito From Sausalito My Son, the Mummy: Episode Pi nEO-sURREALIST sYSTEMS pRESENTS: HOE- DOWN!!!!! Objects In Mirror (May Be Closer Than They Appear) OUTTAKES: Monologues, Stories, and Social Commentary Rise And Fall of The US/them Empire, The Smashing Icons Something You Might Want Song in Your Blood, The Spray Stranger In Woodstock Surfing Toasters Survival of the Fit Enough/ Fern Talking To Myself Tangled Uncle Jacques' Symphony Underground Movement Theatre Upper Canada Cougar Movement, The Valentine's Play Time Way Light Strikes Filled Mason Jars, The Winterkill Woods For The Trees Zucchini: The Forbidden Dance!		F--KING HANDICAPPED GUY STEVE PARKS PSEUDOHAWK PACIFICA, CA 60 MINUTES SOLO PERFORMANCE CHILDREN OVER THE AGE OF 15 COULD ENJOY IT. MATURE CONTENT VENUE: SHELTON THEATRE - 533 SUTTER STREET You_ll fall down laughing at _F---ing Handicapped Guy,_ a darkly comic offbeat solo show. Steve Parks is f---ing mad. Not surprising for a successful playwright who develops MS at the age of 26. Because it was a mild case, he was able to deny his illness thanks to his Christian Science upbringing. But in 1990 his MS turned disabling and Parks fell into an angry depression, no longer able to write. Not until he re-discovered humor could he write again. Now he_s a f---ing funny guy. In a wheelchair. VENUE: SHELTON THEATRE THURSDAY 5 8:00 PM FRIDAY 6 8:00 PM SATURDAY 7 8:00 PM THURSDAY 12 8:00 PM FRIDAY 13 8:00 PM SATURDAY 14 8:00 PM $8 F---ing Handicapped Guy was developed with Charlie Varon at the Marsh in San Francisco. Parks plays have been produced at the Mark Taper Forum in L.A.,. Eugene O_Neill National Playwrights Conference, Cast Theater in L.A., Soho Rep in New York, the Denver Theater Center and Jewish Repertory Theatre in New York. _F---ING HANDICAPPED GUY_ Debuting at the SF Fringe Festival September 4-September 15 With an extended run at the Shelton Theatre through October 14 SAN FRANCISCO_What happens when a successful playwright reared a Christian Scientist develops MS at the age of 26? Because it was a mild case, Stephen Parks was able to deny his illness thanks to his Christian Science upbringing. But in 1990 his illness turned disabling and Parks_s limbs grew weak, requiring him to use a wheelchair. At this point his denial stopped working. He fell into an angry depression_anger at his bad luck, anger that others could walk and he couldn_t, anger at Christian Science, which he believed had let him down. _Being a Christian Scientist you deny anything that you don_t like. But it was pretty hard to deny something like this. I was real active when I was younger. I was active with horses, I played college football. It was a big part of who I thought I was. For a while I thought maybe this was a way for me to return to the path (Christian Science) but it didn_t work, it couldn_t help me. _ His depression lifted only when Parks found his way back, not to Christian Science, but to writing. The result is a wry, darkly comic, brutally honest and poignant solo show, _F---ing Handicapped Guy,_ that debuts at this year_s SF Fringe Festival. Parks wrote and developed the show at the Marsh Theater working with respected playwright and actor, Charlie Varon. With his droll and deadpan deliver, Parks catches audiences off-guard and subtly invites them to laugh at things they have been told since childhood not to. Before his MS worsened, Parks had an impressive national career going as a playwright in the mid-80s. An alumnus of San Francisco State_s creative wiring program, Parks had his first success in 1978, the same year he learned about the multiple sclerosis. That year he won slots for his _No English Spoken_ in both the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Eugene O_Neill National Playwrights Conference in Waterford, Connecticut. He opted for the O_Neill, returning there the following year with his _Skidding Into Slow Time._ More plays followed at the O_Neill, and then a production at the Mark Taper Forum in 1979 of his _The Idolmakers._ His subsequent plays received productions at the Cast Theater in L.A., at Soho Rep in New York, at the Denver Theater Center and Jewish Repertory Theatre in New York. In 1984 then San Francisco Chronicle theatre critic Bernard Weiner interviewed Parks, wondering why he was successful elsewhere but not in his own hometown. The playwright had passed over a chance to be in the Bay Area Playwrigths Festival for the greater visibility of the East Coast_s O_Neill. Parks said he_d submitted scripts to the Magic Theatre, but they_d been rejected. _You have to realize,_ he told the critic, _that my situation of being basically unproduced in my hometown is not unique by any means. There are a goodly number of talented playwrights in the Bay Area who are produced widely elsewhere who can_t get major productions here._ Back then, he never could have imagined that his first San Francisco show would be a _90 percent true to life_ piece about being a _handicapped guy._ _F---ing Handicapped Guy_ will have its world premiere in this year_s San Francisco Fringe Festival at the Shelton Theatre September 4 to 15. It extends for another four weeks at the Shelton through October 15 playing Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8pm.