The World Premiere of Bo-Nita at Seattle Rep, October 18 – November 17, 2013, also garnered rave reviews.

Up next for Elizabeth: She continues workshopping Portugal, a play that centers around workers at the Hanford nuclear waste site who are exposed to radioactive materials while on the job.

Bo-nita at Portland Center Stage:

Bo-Nita at Seattle Rep:

Kate Eastwood Norris in Bo-Nita by Elizabeth Heffron at Portland Center Stage

Bon-Nita is nearing the end of its run at Ellyn Bye Studio at Portland Center Stage (February 1 – March 16).  Directed by Gretchen Corbett. Kate Eastwood Norris plays Bo-Nita and multiple characters.  Read the cast and creative team bios. View the playbill.  Bo-Nita was developed at the JAW Playwrights Festival in Portland, July, 2012.

Kate Eastwood Norris got standing ovations at PCS. Several performances were sold out. Bo-Nita is completing a triumphant Northwest premiere, between Seattle and Portland. Sample reviews:

Dennis Sparks | Dennis Sparks Reviews [18 Feb 2014]

“And, to put it simply and bluntly, Norris is extraordinary!  Not only is she able to portray at least a half dozen other characters, with only minimal changes in her voice or posture, but we never lose track of the story.  She is so good, I simply can not imagine anyone else doing the role.  In over 40 years in the business myself, I have rarely seen a performance to equal this!  In other words, even though the story might be off-putting to some, trust that Kate (and Elizabeth and Gretchen) will lead you through it with such a deft hand, you will feel transported by the experience.”

To say the least, I highly recommend this show.  If you do go, please tell them Dennis sent you.” Read the full article here.

Aaron Scott | Portland Monthly [20 Feb 2014]

PCS’s Bo-Nita Is a One-Woman Cavalcade of Gumption

“There’s nothing remotely tepid about Bo-Nita and the tale she tells. Instead, our precocious 13-year-old protagonist gets herself into scalding milk that she then whips, in a mere 85 minutes, into a Dairy Queen Blizzard of black comic delight, coated in a sweet chocolate shell of, if not redemption, at least hope.”

“Norris soars in her characterizations, never once muddying the colorful personalities as she bounces back and forth in rapid succession. But perhaps even more exceptionally, her skilled acting combines with Heffron’s script to imbue a humanity that elevates each from a caricature to a character, in the eccentric sense of the word, deserving of our empathy.”
Read the full article here.

Kaitie Todd | Willamette Week [17 Feb 2014]

A review of Elizabeth Heffron’s one-woman show, starring Kate Eastwood Norris

“Kate Eastwood Norris deftly embodies six characters, one moment loose and gangly and awkward as Bo-Nita, and seconds later adopting the stern intonation of a mother not to be questioned. She nails the timing throughout, capturing a wordless, argumentative staring contest between lovers, or an uncomfortable car-ride conversation between mother and daughter.” See the full review here.

Portland may have a special affection for Bo-Nita. The single actor / many character play was developed at the JAW Playwrights Festival in Portland, July, 2012.

The Oregonian said of Bo-Nita: “… this madcap comedy of mid-American family dysfunction carries dark undertones about the effects of poverty and sexual abuse on a resourceful 13-year-old.  Bo-Nita handles such issues with sensitivity — even amid the outlandish characters and situations that had the JAW audience howling with laughter.”

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Mitzi’s Abortion was produced in New York and Florida in 2011, Washington DC, July 12-25, 2012, and in Minneapolis, October 19-28, 2012. See reviews. Mitzi’s Abortion, received ACT Theatre’s (Seattle) New Play Award in 2005, and had its world premiere at ACT in 2006.

Bo-Nita plays at Seattle Rep until November 17 (see reviews) and then moves to a run at Portland Center Stage, February 1, 2014.

Want to keep up with Elizabeth’s readings, performances and theatrical adventures? Subscribe to the blog via email on the right.

Hannah Mootz, Bo-Nita, Seattle Rep

Sometimes the stars align perfectly in the theater. The play is excellent, the directing crisp and the acting picture perfect. This doesn’t happen very often but when it does, a spectator feels like she’s just won the Powerball lottery. A Searing Portrait of a Young Girl’s Life, by Alice Kaderlan, Seattle P-I

The magic of Heffron’s writing—and Mootz’s performance and Budraitis’s direction—is its deftness, its ability to slip these bitter questions into a story that is, despite itself, still funny. Bo-Nita, like its title character, is a little miracle. A Grim Caper, by Brendan Kiley, The Seattle Stranger

Seattle-based Heffron’s cluttered, revved-up, ultimately poignant script swerves between a comedy of the grotesque that draws guffaws and cringes, and a compassionate study of a bright, at-risk kid who talks tough but can’t always mask her hurt and loneliness. Misha Berson, Seattle Times.

Mootz teeters between girl and hag, thug and wag, with nary a moment’s conflation. Her multiple performances in one seal her reputation as one of Seattle’s most intriguing and technically adept talents. Though the only performer onstage, each of her distinct characters steals scenes from the others; it’s a stage trick like an Escher drawing. Opening Nights, Bo-Nita, Margaret Friedman, Seattle Weekly.

“Elizabeth Heffron is one of the friendliest playwrights you’ll ever meet. She laughs easily; and when she listens, it’s usually with the attentive, sensitive smile of an experienced mom. Pretty, relaxed, and engaged, she doesn’t seem in any way a troublemaker. But that’s only true if you haven’t seen her plays. “That’s what I was told by a literary manager I met at Hedgebrook,” she says, remembering a recent encounter at the Whidbey Island writers’ colony. “After we read one of my plays, she just looked at me and said, ‘But you seem like such a nice lady.’ ” Read the rest of the story: Seattle Weekly Fall Arts: Elizabeth Heffron. Why a local playwright wants us to consider a rigged economic system.

Post-Play Discussions: October 27, 2 p.m.; October 31, 7:30 p.m.; November 3, 2:00 p.m.; November 6, 2 p.m. SRO Spotlights: Thursday, November 7. 11 a.m. (Meet the artists of Bo-Nita.)

Next, Bo-Nita has a run at Center Stage in Portland, from February 1 – March 16, 2014. If you Tweet it hashtag: #pcs_Bonita

Seattle Rep’s synopsis for Bo-Nita:

Life’s not easy for Bo-Nita. It never is for a 13-year-old, but especially one who winds up with a dead, semi-ex-stepfather on her bedroom floor. With humor, pathos, and a dash of Midwest magic realism, Bo-Nita follows the resourceful exploits of a working class mother-daughter duo determined to stay together—and out of jail. Elizabeth Heffron is a local playwright and alumna of the Rep’s Writers Group. Under her skillful hand, Bo-Nita, is a theatrical coming-of-age tale that is both hilarious and heartbreaking.

See the Seattle Rep Writer’s Group Spotlight: Elizabeth Heffron. Elizabeth talks about her latest work-in-progress, Portugal, that will have its first read at The Rep this Friday night. Excerpt from the Q & A:

(Portugal) is about a pair of tank farm workers, a young couple, and what happens when one of them gets “dosed” by radioactive waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation over in eastern Washington. How the company responds. How their family and co-workers respond—and ultimately how this accident changes both of them. The problems over there are so overwhelming and seemingly intractable, and yet people keep doing what they can to try and clean the place up, even in the face of massive technical problems and corporate corruption. I am drawn to this combination of both despair and hope.

…dispose of me…, by Elizabeth Heffron – A young woman and a former step-father figure are reunited after the death of her mother and try to redefine their relationship in the midst of a life-changing event.