Press release:
The Black Mountain Center for the Arts is proud to welcome back local writer and stage performer Murphy Funkhouser-Capps as she pulls some new and old stories Out of the Bag July 7 and 8 at 7:30 pm. Tickets for this informal storytelling performance are $16 and will benefit the arts center.
“I’ve been working on this, on and off, for the past 10 years,” says Capps. “It all started in a small apartment high in the Colorado mountains. I was a new single mother the day I awoke and discovered all of the baggage of my life has fallen out of the overhead compartment and was…everywhere.” Or so the story goes as Funkhouser-Capps tells it. “There were stories in each piece. I told some of those stories in my first one-woman show, Crazy Bags, and then tucked them into an attic until we found out Kenny was sick and I was inspired to write a second show, Carry On.”
Since Funkhouser-Capps arrived back in Asheville/Black Mountain area in 2008, she has performed her shows at multiple venues including Asheville Community theater, NC Stage and the Black Mountain Center for the Arts. The two upcoming performances she has planned will include old and new material, favorite stories and well-loved characters including “the Heathen,” a character that appeared in both her previous shows.
She will re-share some of the original stories from Crazy Bags, her award winning solo performance piece billed as an “auto-biographical prodigal daughter, coming-of-age play,” about her inspirational journey as a minister’s daughter and single mother. Crazy Bags won Best Actress and Best Director at the Colorado Theatre Awards and was nominated for a Denver Post Ovation Award for Best Solo Performance.
Carry On is still a work in progress. The writer/performer’s ultimate goal is to refine the material and bring it all together into a September performance to be directed by Jamieson Ridenhour at Asheville Community Theater’s newly-renovated space.
Audience members can expect to hear some new stories as well, some of which have never been heard – even by her mother who will be in the audience. “There will be a rebellion story about a black lace shirt and a good jail story,” according to Funkhouser-Capps.
The Arts Center is happy to have Funkhouser-Capps fill the theater space with her volumes of baggage, which she artfully manipulates to create an ever-shifting stage set for her revealing, insightful stories. You never know what she’ll pull out of the bag, but you can be sure Murphy will take you on a wild, yet touching, journey of self-discovery, love, loss and redemption.
For tickets or more information call 828-669-0930 or visit BlackMountainArts.org.
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