Natural Shocks - A One Woman Play in a Tornado by Lauren Gunderson by Lauren Gunderson published on 2020-04-10T22:50:24Z This fast, funny, and ultimately harrowing new play starts as a brassy comedy and gradually becomes an American reckoning. Angela is stuck in her basement riding out a tornado warning in her area. With feisty opinions, trenchant memories, and loads of secrets revealed, our protagonist confronts the reality of what's outside her door. Based on Hamlet's "to be or not to be" speech, Natural Shocks turns the audience toward an unlikely hero. Angela is proved to be both liar and heroine, lover and survivor, sinner and saint. Read by the play's author, this is a unique chance to hear the play as the writer hears it... and to wait for the storm. "To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep; No more; and by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That Flesh is heir to?... " - HAMLET Sound Design and Editing by Kevin Dusablon Stage Directions by Kat Zdan Photo by Bryan Derballa Thank you to Dramatists Play Service. Find the script and inquire about rights there: https://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=5975 Thank you to the Mellon Foundation Playwrights in Residency Program that supported the making of this play. Donations to *Marin Theatre Company* encouraged https://www.marintheatre.org/donate/donate-now Donations also encouraged to the many organizations fighting gun violence and domestic abuse in America and around the world that include: *Mom's Demand Action* - https://momsdemandaction.org/ *National Domestic Violence Hotline* - https://www.thehotline.org/donate/ Genre Storytelling Comment by Gina Lawson This is so well done! I need to listen to it a couple of more times for all the conflict layering you have going on. I also enjoy your virtual classes right now. You provide a lot of inspiration for a first-time playwright. Thank you. 2020-05-19T23:39:26Z Comment by User 641868819 Whew. 2020-05-12T19:46:37Z Comment by User 398262206 Wow. Wonderful. Surprising and striking! Thank you! 2020-05-07T17:16:01Z Comment by Anthony Braxton Wow.. just wow. Just the creative input I needed with theaters shuttered already far too long... hope to see this staged sooner rather than later..! 2020-04-17T06:30:03Z Comment by Closetgeek Thank you for this. Took my breath away. 2020-04-16T12:59:45Z Comment by gregvovos Wow! This seemingly humorous play turns in a dramatic moment and then storms to its powerful, inevitable ending that will leave us speechless yet unable to forget our heroine’s final haunting line. Incredible. 2020-04-16T00:58:12Z Comment by Miccosuke Holy shit! That was great! Thank you. 2020-04-14T23:19:54Z Comment by Michael Dailey Wow. Funny. Fast. Devastating. Powerful. Thank you for this. 2020-04-14T16:28:10Z