Laura Simms performs the spirit of story.
She is an American treasure.
—Vi Hilbert, Salish Elder
“One of the best things I have ever experienced on stage.”
New One-Woman Show
How to Find Romania
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While telling us the history of her childhood in Brooklyn, NY, Laura Simms reveals the remarkable journey of an artist’s coming to terms with history, spirituality, and family after WWII.
Laura becomes a myriad of characters including a Maori elder, a stubborn father, her Romanian grandmother, and herself: as an imaginative child, delinquent adolescent, and adult seeker. She tells stories from Africa and Babylon, shifting time and place with a subtle change of voice and the simplest of costume changes.
“How to Find Romania” breaks new ground with a direct theatre genre of storytelling that engages the audience with the immediacy of a kitchen table conversation. A performance of riveting personal narrative and uncanny traditional stories.
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“Everything that theater is intended to be: a story that intensely personal, yet unrelentingly universal.”
— Jack Fleming“Simms salts this tour de force theatrical event of family secrets with hilarious memories, and weaves them with myth and ancient Jewish lore to create a spellbinging. She leaves tracks of sorrow and sweeps them away to reveal a realm of possibilities and enduring truths.”
— Laura Holland, SF“Just to say I’m still trying to find my socks after they blew off in the dark.”
— Ramsay Wood, author -
Time: 90 minutes, with intermission
Tech Needs: Lights, music engineer, and stage manager
Space: Can be performed in large open space or on a stage.
Sound: Lavalier/cordless (over 200) or no mike (less than 200)
Cost: Please inquire.
Unlocking Nine Locks
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Whatever holds a woman back is vanquished in this weave of tales, traditional and personal from New York, South Africa, the Caucusus, and Iraq. In our complex world of conflicts and severe weather change these tales offer compassionate and outrageous instructions. These are tales worthy of Scheherezhade‘s alchemy of transforming evil into joyful revelation of inherent kindness. Laura’s exploration of the power of storytelling combines a riveting symbolic fairytale with true life stories.
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We were witness to one of the most extraordinary storytellings I’ve ever seen or heard. This is an event of a century. For someone to tell a story within a story within a story is beyond imaginable. Laura took us clearly and completely and wholly there in the most holy of ways.
—Diane Wolkstein
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Time: 80 minutes, with intermission
Tech Needs: Lights, music engineer, and stage manager
Space: Can be performed in large open space or on a stage.
Sound: Lavalier/cordless (over 200) or no mike (less than 200)
Cost: Please inquire.
Rejoice! Regardless.
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A storytelling evening in two acts: an outrageous response to increasing speed and violence is joy. The evening begins with an encounter in Manhattan with a Buddhist monk and a man dancing naked on Broadway. Laura Simms tell a combination of personal narratives and traditional tales of healing, resilience and unconditional goodness. She lets us feel her remarkable work including Haiti and Romania. Interwoven is a Kurdish Jewish fairytale, an African wisdom story and a Tibetan Buddhist tale of brilliant female transformation.
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Time: 60 minutes, no intermission
Tech Needs: Lights and stage manager
Space: Can be performed in large open space or on a stage.
Sound: Lavalier/cordless (over 200) or no mike (less than 200)
Cost: Please inquire.
One-Woman Shows
Mud Sisters and Other Tales About Friendship
A true life tale of growing up in Brooklyn and other stunning tales.
55 Minutes and five tales.
Ages 7 – 12
Family Stories
To book a performance or for tailor-made programs or residencies for specific ages, grades and themes
Contact Laura
“Laura Simms tells stories with the elegance and precision of a Japanese print.”