drip

a fluid descent into the psychology of trauma. a girl fights to be free of the trauma tied to her estranged family. this crushing weight from the past, poisons the relationships of her present. her customer continues to poke at the boundaries of their connection, while her lover fights to make any connection at all.

between the flashes of past agony and glimpses of an uncertain future, the girl takes refuge within the embodiments of her own mind, simply called left and right. drip creates a world of movement and memory, a flowing fountain of raw emotional expression. drip tackles the issue head on of how the human spirit responds to wounds that simply refuse to be healed.

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drip was a project originally written by artist morgan mcdonald during her time at california institute of the arts. while acting in the workshop production of jimmy jenkenheimer: adventure super master. she pitched her latest draft to park lytle, hoping to have it staged at a future date. park had deeply enjoyed working with morgan on the workshop and found the script to be a shocking and unique story filled with creative potential, leading to his agreement to produce the production for the upcoming hollywood fringe festival.

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after a brief audition process that would feature actors who would be cast in future shackleton productions such as christopher martin (the meowing nuns) and sadie luce (emily sombra in the land of phobos) morgan mcdonald embarked on a 4 week rehearsal process. in the meantime, park and morgan began assembling their design team that consisted of continual shackleton theatrics collaborators such as jon flikkie, grace hlavacek, and emma mcmanus. the goal of drip was to create a very temporal space, capitalizing on the non-linear and asynchronous writing of the piece. it was also imporant to capture the fragility and fleeting nature of the girl's psyche, creating the plastic wrap setting with dark moody lighting design.

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drip made its debut in june of 2024, becoming a popular show amongst the festival and selling out the majority of its performances. the reviews herald it as "an atomic bomb of a show" highlighting the strong performance of gia ochsenbein and visceral writing of morgan mcdonald. this show would mark the first independently staged production from park lytle, and would serve retroactively as the first production staged by shackleton theatrics.