KOAL
May 22 @ 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
$45
WINNER : 5 Star Award
-Philadelphia Fringe Festival 2023-
Fresh off a hit run at Philadelphia Fringe, KOAL is a one-woman climate-catastrophe-clown-show for the end of the world. As wildfires tear through Australia, a baby koala, a coal miner and an Indigenous girl desperately strive to hold onto their homes before all burns and turns to ash.
Performed by Jacinta Yelland (AUS) and directed by Trey Lyford (USA), KOAL takes the audience from laughter to tears as it explores what is lost when your home is erased.
KOAL is an interactive solo-show that immerses the audience in the middle of the 2019 Australian bushfires. The show follows two eyewitnesses to this climate catastrophe; Koal, a baby koala recovering at a wildlife sanctuary after being saved from a nearby wildfire, and Stevo, a career coal miner trapped in a collapsed mine hundreds of metres underground. Woven throughout is the story of Minah, an Indigenous girl who was removed from her home and interned by her government during WWII.
KOAL premiered at the 2023 Philadelphia Fringe Festival and was the winner of the 5 Star Award. In January 2024, KOAL was presented at Ars Nova, NYC.
KOAL has been developed with the assistance of The Puffin Foundation Ltd., The Works, gimmick, Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists and Fresh Ground Pepper NYC.