What Ever (An American Odyssey In 8 Acts)

Synopsis

Opened October, 1998 What Ever is a 100-character epic play performed by Ms. Woodbury in eight installments. It follows ten main characters across America as they intersect with over 90 others, creating a wild Dickensian tapestry in which their lives and stories converge. This epic play is divided into four evenings of theater and will be performed two acts per evening with one ten-minute intermission. The story deepens with each installment but any evening can be attended and seen as a fully realized play within itself. What Ever is the result of a dare: for nine months straight, Ms. Woodbury performed an entirely new show every week in the back of a bar in New York City. The yarn she spun was then shortened and tightened into What Ever by the friend who dared her to do it, director Dudley Saunders. What Ever has toured from New York to Los Angeles and Amsterdam to London. It has also been produced as a radio serial drama, which is scheduled to air in its entirety on Chicago public radio station WBEZ in tandem with Steppenwolf's production. Excerpts from the radio series have aired on Chicago public radio station WBEZ's "This American Life," hosted by Ira Glass. Heather Woodbury is a native of California who moved to New York City in the early 1980's and became involved in the East Village performance scene. She subsequently lived in several New York City neighborhoods, was employed as a go-go dancer, barmaid, club impresario and cater waiter and crisscrossed the U.S. several times by car, train, bus and thumb. All of this served to inspire the trans-American odysssey that is What Ever. In addition, Ms. Woodbury is the author of several solo pieces, two plays and one screenplay. She acted in the film Habit, which premiered at the Chicago Film Festival and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award. What Ever, an American Odyssey traveled to Galway, Ireland in 2002.