About "Mother Load"

After an incredibly successful nine-week run off-Broadway, Mother Load is gearing up for a thirty-week national tour starting in 2008!


Last spring, audiences of parents and non-parents alike were howling at Mother Load’s expose of the cutthroat world of competitive parenting. Modern motherhood, this show tells us, is not for sissies. Moms have always felt the pressure to do right by their children, but our generation of parents has turned that pressure up to 11.

In a world where a toddler's birthday party must be catered, a stroller costs eight hundred dollars, and there’s a new danger in your child’s toybox every week, how can a mother keep from losing her mind? From prenatal yoga to preschool interviews, the heroine of this show struggles to throw off the "Mother Load" of unrealistic expectations, ignore the competitive "sanctimommies" lurking in every playgroup, and somehow find the time to enjoy her kids.

Anyone who has fed their kids dinosaur chicken nuggets three times this week will identify with the guilt this show lampoons, and fellow perfectionists will cheer as this mom frees herself from it. You'll love Mother Load whether you are a mother—or just have one!


AMY WILSON (Writer/Performer) has appeared on and off-Broadway, on television, and in films.

She made her Broadway debut as “Sunny Freitag,” the Atlanta ingénue, in the Tony Award-winning play The Last Night of Ballyhoo. Other New York theater credits include Hobson’s Choice (Atlantic Theater Company), Hamlet (Target Margin), Young Goodman Brown (by Richard Foreman), Landlocked (Miranda Theatre Company), and Memory Play, with Eli Wallach (Women’s Project New Directors Series).

On television, Amy was a series regular on the sitcoms Norm (ABC) with Norm MacDonald and Daddio (NBC) with Michael Chiklis, and had a recurring role on Felicity. She has also appeared on Ed, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Deadline, Boston Common, and All My Children. Her film credits include Kinsey, Kissing Jessica Stein, Keeping the Faith, and Ira and Abby.

She also worked as a sketch comedy writer and performer with LIVE ON TAPE. That group developed a sketch comedy show for NBC, and shot six episodes in Saturday Night Live’s studios.

But her favorite productions are her three young children—Connor, Seamus, and Maggie-- whom she raises with her husband, David Flannery, in New York City.


JULIE KRAMER (Director) just directed a workshop production of Wendy Weiner's Hillary at the Public Theater, and an off-Broadway production of Jenny Lyn Bader's None of the Above (Lion Theater). Other directing includes the new musical It's a Hit (New York Fringe Festival); Christen Clifford's Baby Love (Mesto Zensk International Festival of Contemporary Art in Ljubljana, Slovenia, "Best of Fringe," San Francisco Fringe); Wendy Weiner's Elements of Style (New York Fringe); Jacqueline Brogan's Nixon's Daughters (The O'Neill Theater Center); None of the Above (New Georges); Andrew Secunda's One Woman Show ("Best of Comedy", Time Out New York, Upright Citizens' Brigade Theater); and a showcase for ABC/TV. She directed three shows for the HBO US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, including Amy Wilson's A Cookie Full of Arsenic. As a Guest Director at NYU/Strasberg Julie directed Rebecca Gilman's Boy Gets Girl and Jenny Lyn Bader's Out of Mind. She's a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a member of SSDC.


BETSY STOVER (Performer) grew up in Minneapolis, MN, the child of a Lutheran minister and an opera singer. She attended New York University and studied at Tisch's Playwrights Horizons Theater School. She’s starred in numerous radio and television commercials and is a regular sketch performer on NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Betsy has also appeared on MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, and at Caroline’s Comedy Club on Broadway. Betsy is a longtime member of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in NYC. There, she has written, performed, and directed countless sketch and improv comedy shows over the last 10 years with many of the comic performers you see on television and in movies today. She’s also taught improv comedy there for 7 years. Betsy is honored to be in Mother Load, and would like to thank Amy Wilson for entrusting her to tell her story. She lives with her husband and fellow performer, Ari Voukydis, and their dog on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.


BRIAN LIEBMAN (Producer) Brian Liebman is the founder of Liebman Entertainment, a management and production company that provides full service artist representation to actors, actresses, writers and directors. Liebman, throughout his career, has represented and continues to represent Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Golden Globe winners and nominees. Liebman is Co-Executive Producer of Adrift in Manhattan, an independent film starring Heather Graham, William Baldwin, and Dominic Chianese (2007 Sundance Film Festival Dramatic Competition). He is an Executive Producer on the documentary film American Dancer as well (2003 South By Southwest Film Festival). Liebman also sits on the Board of Directors of Backhouse Productions.


MARTIAN ENTERTAINMENT, LLC (General Management) is owned and founded by Carl D. White, and supported by a highly skilled staff lead by Associate General Manager, Lauren P. Yates. Producing & management creds include: Altar Boyz (NYC & B’way Nat’l Tour); Naked Boys Singing! worldwide; Elvis People - A Play (Opens June 21 at New World Stages); Amy Wilson’s Mother Load; Dog Sees God; The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) – NYC & West End; The Black & Whites Blues; People Are Wrong!; Squeeze Box; Matt & Ben; Listen To My Heart; Love, Janis; The Last Session; Mike Daisey’s 21 Dog Years; The Women of Lockerbie; Criss Angel Mindfreak; The York Theatre Company, and many others. Martian served as Interim Executive Director of the prestigious New World Stages, and co-founded The Gallery there as well. Upcoming: Producing the new “MySpace Musical” TOP 8, by Jordan Beck and Jonathan May; managing the controversial new play Kick The Spotted Dog.
www.MartianEntertainment.com


KATIE ROSIN / KAMPFIRE FILMS PR (Marketing, PR, Advertising) Off-Broadway: Wasps in Bed, Beckett Theater; Anaïs Nin: One Of Her Lives, Beckett Theater; Triple Threat: (mis)UNDERSTANDING MAMMY: The Hattie McDaniel Story, Real Danger & Elephant Girls, Theatre 5; The Monument, Clurman Theater. NYMF Festival: The Children, TBG Theater. Off-Off-Broadway: Bloody Mary, Clemente Soto Velez, Blood Wedding, Walkerspace; Buried Child, Access Theater; Changing Violet, Shetler Studios and Theatre; Expressing Willie, West Side Theater; The Girl Detective, Connelly Theater; The Lady Cavaliers: Signature Stories, Greenwich Street Theater; Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, Kraine Theater; Zarathustra Said Some Things, No?, Shetler Studios and Theatre.Rosin’s roster of clients includes: Ateh Theater Group, Brooklyn International Film Festival, Clockwork Theatre Company, Emerging Artists Theatre, Groove With Me, The Lady Cavalier Theatre Company, The New York Innovative Theatre Awards, Nicu’s Spoon, T. Schreiber Studios, Woman Seeking...A Theater Company, Woodshed Collective and United Stages.
www.kampfirefilmspr.com


LAUREN HELPERN (Scenic Designer) Lauren Helpern is an award-winning set designer whose work has been seen extensively in New York and around the country. Her recent projects include At Least It’s Pink, at Ars Nova, and Scituate, at The Barrow Group. She designed the OBIE-winning OFF-Broadway production of BUG and the Broadway production of Voices in the Dark, and has worked for such theatre companies as MTC, the Atlantic, Second Stage, National Dance Institute, Theatreworks, Syracuse Stage, Portland Center Stage and the Anchorage Opera. In Las Vegas she designed Blue Man Group / Live at Luxor and Always...Patsy Cline, starring Sally Struthers. She worked with director Julie Kramer on None of the Above, for which she was nominated for a Hewes Award. Lauren is a partner in the design firm Luce Group.
Please check out her websites at www.laurenhelpern.com and www.lucegroup.com


GRAHAM KINDRED (Lighting Designer) Off-B’way: Wasps In Bed (Beckett Theater), Retzach (59E59), Trolls (Actors Playhouse), Picon Pie (The Lambs Theater), Orgasms the Play and Uncle Jacques’ Symphony (SoHo Playhouse), Roman Nights (DR-2). Regional: I Got Merman (The Majestic Theater, Dallas, TX); Suddenly Hope (Denver Civic Center); Two Small Bodies, Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage, and Expectations (Stamford Center for the Arts-Rich Forum). He holds an MFA from Temple University.


JOE MIUCCIO (Sound Designer) Mr. Miuccio is a sixteen-year veteran of the New York post-production/music industry. He began his career as an audio engineer and sound designer at Dennis Hayes and Associates in New York City. While there, he final-mixed and sound-designed thousands of television commercials. As well as being a re-recording mixer, Miuccio is also a composer. He has been a guitarist for over 25 years and has created sound design and original music for several documentaries and short films. He received a Clio Finalist award for sound design and original music in 1992 as well as a MOMA award in 1995. In 2004 he composed music for a PSA produced by United Nations. The PSA was nominated for an Emmy Award. Some of his current and past clients include: Xerox, Dr Pepper, Coke, Pepsi, Mercedes, Toyota, Visa and FedEx, just to name a few. Miuccio currently produces at Penny Lane Studios in New York City as Chief Engineer. He continues to record, mix and compose for clients such as the History Channel and ESPN.


SCOTT DELACRUZ (Company Manager / Production Coordinator) works primarily as a stage manager, company manager and technical director. Off-Broadway and New York credits include: 15 productions with the York Theatre, including That Time of the Year, Fanny Hill, Souvenir, The Musical of Musicals, and Thrill Me; 30 productions in the York Mufti Series; A Broadway Diva Christmas (Julia Miles); Animal Tales (Family Opera Initiative); Bartenders (Houseman); Jolson & Company (Century Centre); Showtune (Theatre at Saint Peters); Cat’s Paw (Soho Rep); and many other shows with The Toy Box Theatre, Aulis Collective and INTAR. TV: The Brini Maxwell Show. Film: Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. “Life is Wonderful!”.