UNMENTIONABLES opens Aug. 27!

Hey there, amazing friends & family!

Okay, yes, I've been in DC since July 30 and no one's heard from me. But there's a good reason, I promise! Check out the full "Why I was in the hospital" story below. No reason to freak out anymore, thank god; I'm doing MUCH better. For those of you who have known, thank you for all your good wishes!

I have also decided NOT to move to California (which some of you knew I was considering). If you want more details, email me, but suffice it to say that my health & family are coming first. :)

So now that I'm all better, my new show, THE UNMENTIONABLES by Bruce Norris, is going up at Woolly Mammoth Aug. 27-Sept. 23. I play a do-gooder stuck in a crazy situation in Africa; it's very funny and very biting!

Synopsis from Woolly's website:
Bruce Norris’s explosive satire launches the Woolly season after startling audiences during its world premiere last fall at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre. Thanks to their missionary zeal, a motley collection of do-gooder Americans stirs up tension and trouble in an isolated African village. A wealthy entrepreneur, a pair of Christian charity workers and a flamboyant government official get caught in a web of good intentions and bad judgments in this scathingly funny and provocative new work.

Pay-what-you-can previews are:
next Mon & Tues, Aug 27 & 28 at 8pm
(VERY popular - try to come early!)
and for the exact Wed-Sat at 8, Sun at 2 & 7 schedule thereafter,
visit http://www.woollymammoth.net/.

IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE SHOW FOR FREE:
Our final dress will be this Saturday, Aug. 25, at 8pm.
Please do show up; we'd love to have some audience response before we head into preview week!

It's a truly amazing show with a fabulous director (Pam MacKinnon); incredible cast includes Naomi Jacobson, Tim Getman, Dawn Ursula, Charles Hyman, Kofi Owusu, John Livingston Rolle, James J. Johnson, and James Foster, Jr.; and should anything happen to me again, the lovely and talented Tonya Beckman Ross will step into my hiking boots.

Hope to see you there!

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
7th & D Sts. NW, Washington, DC
Closest metros are Gallery Place/Chinatown and Archives/Navy Memorial.

Hope your summer's been fabulous...
I love you all!
Hugs,
Marni

When being in bed all day sucks...

And so this wonderful internal bleeding now comes with accompanying pleurisy! Oh, joy!

I've been bedridden all day because breathing deeply is too painful.
Bleh. :(

Thank god for Tylenol with Codeine!

Marn

Why I was in the hospital

Everybody has been asking, so I finally wrote it down. I already emailed this to a couple of you... :)

Monday night (7/30) I had pains in my stomach, so I took a couple of Tylenol before I drove back from NYC to DC. I drove for two hours and stopped at a rest area, and my stomach felt worse (I thought it was from suspect spaghetti sauce, and if I went to the bathroom, I'd feel much better, but no-go.)

I got back in the car and drove two more hours, but as I'd slow down for tolls & stoplights, any engagement of my stomach muscles was painful. By the time I got to my parents' house at 1:30am, I couldn't stand up at all. I felt like I'd either pass out or puke or both.

After 20 minutes on my hands and knees in the street outside my parents' house, I finally called and woke them up; it took us another 20 minutes to get me inside the house from the car. I had to stop every two feet and rest on all fours. I was crawling part of the way. After I went to the bathroom I felt a little better, but still like I was going to pass out/puke. We called an ambulance, and the EMTs poked around my belly, then tried to get me out to the stretcher; I still couldn't stand beyond 90 degrees.

I got down three of the front steps before I had to stop again, then finally puked, thank god, and they carried me the rest of the way to the ambulance. I got to the hospital about 3am Tuesday morning (7/31). Apparently I'd had an ovarian cyst that ruptured and didn't stop bleeding, because I was on anti-coagulants. I had about a liter and a half of blood in my abdominal cavity. They couldn't even see my internal organs on an ultrasound because of the fluid. At one point my blood pressure dropped to 60/30. Yipes!

After about 40 bedridden hours in the hospital, I finally got to come home last night, no surgery necessary. Yay!!! I still feel kinda weak and my belly's a little distended, but much MUCH better than I was. I've had to miss the first three days of rehearsal for my new play at Woolly, but they've been very understanding, and I'm looking forward to being there tomorrow, taking it easy at first.

How's that for a story? :)