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About the show: 

DefibRillator (dee-FIB-ril-lay-ter) is based on the true story of Jennie Ward's sudden cardiac arrest, swift response by her family, hospitalization, surgery, and recovery in January - May of 2021. This play journeys backwards in time (from regained health to the moment of crisis), through the eyes of four Moms that come together to support "Jenny". Making, delivering, and eating lasagna becomes healing ritual and helps them confront their own fears about what might lie on the other side of the door when the doorbell rings.

Director's note:

In some alternate universe, there's the one-woman Moth-style version of this story. But since there's no "gotcha" moment ("Oh, you have X disease!" or "Oh, you need Y medication!") and I am 100% perfectly healthy with no deficits, it's actually kind of a boring story. "Super weird scary thing happened, and now everything is ok." What is interesting to me, though, is how my family and friends had to deal with the worst, scariest parts - without me. 

I was unconscious, and then in a medically-induced coma. (As is common in cardiac arrest, I aspirated some vomit during the resuscitation, and quickly developed a massive case of pneumonia.) By the time I woke up, everything was going to be ok! My people, however, were not so lucky. I wish I could un-make that, un-worry and un-scare all of my most loved ones. They had to wait. It was the height of Covid. No one could visit me. It was all uncertainty and terror and waiting. And yet: they donated money for medical expenses. They fought over who was going to do my kids’ laundry. And they brought dinner. They showed up in a massive way. What was that like, I wondered? How do you hold the fear and the love in the same hand? The existential dread and the hope? The precarity and the certainty? How do we get on with our days, knowing that, at any given moment, any one of us could drop dead, right now, for no reason?

You could call me lucky. Lucky to have been home with my family (thanks, Covid), lucky that my husband and kids started CPR in under a minute, lucky that the fire station is >1 mile from my house. Lucky that I am white and straight and young enough and well-off enough that it wasn’t a hard choice for EMS to shock me five times and work on me for 50 minutes before I even got into the ambulance. Lucky to live in the Twin Cities, which boasts world-leading cardiac arrest care: both in hospital and in local EMS training and practice. 

There are ~1000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the US every day. Nationally, 90% of those are fatal. If you’re alone, you’re dead. If you are not alone, and if someone (anyone!) steps in to administer CPR, your chances of survival – and with few-to-no after effects – go up radically (40-50%.) With additional treatments like ECMO and therapeutic hypothermia, it can go as high as 70%. Worried that you don’t remember how to do CPR? The Red Cross has many convenient classes available! Didn’t get around to taking that class yet? FEAR NOT! Too-slow CPR, too-fast CPR, not-hard-enough-CPR, too-hard CPR . . . there is no such thing as “bad” CPR. Recent studies have shown that hands-only CPR (no mouth-to-mouth) can be as effective as CPR with rescue breaths. Worried that the person may have something else wrong with them, or that they are injured? You can’t heal from an injury or illness if you’re dead from cardiac arrest. If a person has no pulse, and is not breathing, start CPR. And don’t stop. Get someone to call an ambulance. If you’re in a public area, send someone to find the AED (defibrillator.) When you get tired, get someone to step in for you. Even if they don’t know how to do CPR either. Start CPR. Start it right away. And don’t stop until EMS arrives and takes over. 

And later on, bring their family a lasagne.

Cast

Creative Team

Meet the Company

Sarah Broude

Sarah is a local actor, director, and educator. She teaches individual acting classes, group classes, and is a regular educator at Stages Children’s Theatre. She also teaches Prospectives of Peace at Sunset Hill Elementary. Sarah is a company member of The Birth Play Project, and you can see her in their version of Measure for Measure at revolving venues in October. Sarah is currently hosting and producing Pants On Fire, a Fringe/improv game show, with a different cast each night, at HUGE Theatre.

Kayla Hambek

Kayla is a nationally-produced playwright and co-founder of Aethem Theatre. Favorite roles include Margaret Leavitt (Silent Sky, Lyric Arts), Mrs. Reynolds (The Wickhams, Lyric Arts), Actress #1 (Baskerville, Lakeshore Players) and Rosie Mulligan (Mamma Mia, Fridley Community Theatre). Kayla has an MFA in Creative Writing from Augsburg University, and makes cool stuff for a medical device company in St. Louis Park.

Danielle Krivinchuk

Danielle has a Master's in Acting from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. While there she created and performed a one-Woman Show, Shades of Living. Representative Credits include: Radiant Vermin (Lyric Arts), The Penelopiad (Theatre Unbound), The Drowning Girls (Freshwater Theater), Silent Sky (Lyric Arts), Synchronicity and The Funny (Raw Sugar), The Oresteia (Hero Now), Arcadia and Betty's Summer Vacation (Chameleon Theatre Circle), Eastern Standard (Workhouse Theatre Company), Our Country's Good (Starting Gate Theater Company), Seven and Choices (Chain Reaction Theatre Company), and multiple Fringe shows. She is also a Crisis Intervention Actor and trainer.

Stacey Poirier

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Stacey Poirier received her BFA in Theater from the University of Minnesota, Duluth. She was a founding member and Artistic Director of Theatre Unbound for 17 years. That was in the "BEFORE" times. Currently she serves as the Operations Manager at a local board game company.

Jennie Ward

Director/Playwright/Sound Design/Producer

A co-founder of Justice Theatre Consortium, Jennie has directed and taught in Chicago, New York City, and Boston. Locally, she has directed and assistant-directed with Six Points Theater (formerly Minnesota Jewish Theater Company), Playwrights’ Center, Guthrie Theater, Jungle Theater, and St. Croix Festival Theater. She has taught at the University of Minnesota/Guthrie BFA Acting Conservatory, Hamline University, and St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. She is the Managing Director for Ananya Dance Theatre. Jennie earned her MFA in Directing from the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training (Harvard University). She lives in Highland Park with her husband and two sons. On January 17, 2021 she experienced a sudden Cardiac arrest of no known cause. She is delighted to be not dead.

Melissa Simmons

Stage Manager/Producer

Melissa's selected Directing Credits include: Aliens with Extraordinary Skills, Gertrude Stein Christmas, 24 Hour Xtreme Theatre Smackdown (Theatre Unbound). Melissa began teaching Speech and Theatre at Providence Academy in 2002 with a BA in Theatre from North Central University and has since earned a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction from St. Thomas University. She has directed over 100 productions at the educational theatre level. Before teaching, she worked with Children's Theatre Company, Illusion Theatre, and Emmrich Theatre Production Co.

Julie K. Phillips

Producer/Voice Over

A director, actor, and co-founder of the Justice Theatre Consortium, Julie is thrilled to be getting our first project onto its feet. Twin Cities Directing Credits: The Little Mermaid (Eden Prairie Players), Mary Poppins Jr. (Northern Starz Penguin Players), 46 Plays for America’s First Ladies (AD, Theatre Pro Rata), The Penelopiad, A Gertrude Stein Christmas, Motherhood Outloud, Measure for Measure (AD) (Theatre Unbound). Local Acting Credits: Circle Mirror Transformation (Theatre in the Round), Redemption (Nimbus Theatre), The Good Fight (Theatre Unbound). Julie earned her MFA at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2007 and is a proud associate member of SDC.

Tess Borgerding

Puppet Creator

Tess is a puppet improviser and fiber artist based in the Twin Cities. You can check out her knit, felt, and dye crafts at the Powderhorn Art Fair this August, all summer at the Northeast Farmers market, or online through her Etsy shop, TeeKaeHandmade: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TeeKaeHandmade.

Anita Kelling

Sound Artist and Designer

Special Thanks

Other Fringe shows we recommend:

Work by friends/collaborators on this project:

• Pants on Fire
• Daddy Issues

If you want to support Queer Fringe there's a whole must-see list: 
https://lavendermagazine.com/our-scene/the-queerest-minnesota-fringe-possible-a-guide/
 

• Transition: A Story of Two Trans People Becoming Themselves

If you want to support BIPOC Fringe:

• 5 Episodes of Minnesota Tonight; 4 Minnesota Fring3, it’s Minnesota 2Night’s 1st Time at Minnesota Fringe.
• Blackout Improv Does Something
• Two Bowls of Cereal and Some Bacon
• Kaleidoscope (not to be confused with Collidescope - which also looks good)
• The Light Bringer

If you want to support Women-forward Fringe:

• Show Me Your Wings
• That Woman: The Monologue Show

If you want to support Disabled Artists at Fringe:

• More Better Stories