WHEN
Mon, November 30 @ 7:00 pm
WHERE:
The Rockwell
COST:
TRAD & DENTATA
TRAD is a theatrical tear-down of the modern phenomenon of trad—or traditional—wives and the associated Christian nationalist arsenal of beliefs, which also indulges our collective yearning for fantasies of escape. This trad wife is eternally rotund with her husband’s seed: What could possibly shake the ripeness of her faith in this idyllic existence?!
POV: Your husband is on his way home from work. You’ve got seven buns on the counter and one more in the oven, all baked from scratch, waiting for him. The peaches are bursting on the branches of your homestead’s orchard, while below ground, something is nearing completion. You hear capital H-I-M whisper through the prairie grasses a song that melts your obstinate will, beckoning you to enter a wonderland of reliance and submission.
DENTATA: New work from an award-winning idiot. Join Beth Anne (a woman!), a middle-aged beauty queen (almost!), who has spent her life shape shifting into what she thinks others want, only to realize she doesn’t know herself at all.
She looks for her reflection in Medusa, the Sirens of The Odyssey, and the Weird Sisters of Macbeth. These misunderstood women (women!) pull her through the wreckage of her past, forcing her to confront the stories she’s been told about what it means to be beautiful, desirable, good, and worthy.
In a wild, theatrical unraveling, Beth Anne is ripped open and reborn as something powerful, ferocious, and entirely her own.
Directed by Jess Lazar (Funny or Die, Hulu) and co-birthed by SITI Company’s Lucy Smith. Written and starring award-winning Julia VanderVeen.
****.5 “A genuinely out-of-this-world, next-level performer…Miss this at your peril.” -The Reviews Hub
“Hypnotic trembling rage with a wink. A war cry dressed in a clown’s costume.” – SceneMag UK
**** “VanderVeen is simply amazing.” – EatMoreArtVegas
Shortlisted Cabaret Award Brighton
Hannah Mitchell is a performer, theater-maker, and educator whose work springs from the improvisational arts of clown and bouffon. She is a founding member of the experimental performance collective CHILD, whose creative output “so insistently defies human logic,” (Helen Shaw, The New Yorker), and her work has been featured in the New Yorker’s year-end “The Best of Theatre” list. Her evening-length shows have been supported and presented through Mabou Mines Resident Artist Program, The Philadelphia Fringe Festival, The Exponential Festival, and !?:New Works Festival. Hannah premiered her latest bouffon project TRAD, to sold-out audiences at both The Exponential Festival in January 2026, and The Philadelphia Fringe Festival in September 2026. Her projects have taken inspiration from auctioneer chant, consciousness alteration, garlic, country music, local news, Greek tragedy, cyborgs, and trad wives to explore sincerity, subterranean desire, family systems, grief of epic proportions, and gender roles under capitalism. Hannah has performed at many venues around NYC, including The Public Theater, The Brick Theater, Park Ave Armory, Collapsable Hole, Lincoln Center, Life World, The Whitney Museum, New Ohio Theatre, HERE Arts Center, Target Margin Theater, and The Brooklyn Comedy Collective, among others. She teaches clown classes at the Brooklyn Comedy Collective and independently in partnership with Local Grandma Theater Co. hannahmitchell.net
Julia VanderVeen is an award-winning actor and comedian whose work is defined by a rigorous physical pedigree and a sharp, satirical edge. With a background in dance, Julia trained extensively in Clown and Bouffon. She served as a teaching apprentice under Christopher Bayes (Head of Physical Acting at the Yale School of Drama) and is a frequent collaborator with Spymonkey’s Aitor Basauri.
Julia gained international recognition with her solo debut, My Grandmother’s Eyepatch, which earned multiple five-star reviews at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and was featured in The New York Times and The Scotsman. She is the recipient of the Estrogenius Award for Best Solo Clown (NYC) and the Best Solo Show / Best of Fest awards at the Orlando Fringe.
She is currently touring her new solo show, DENTATA—a feral, ferocious reclamation of misunderstood female archetypes throughout history that features her puppeting her own vagina as Medusa and tackling Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters. She is also in development for Cookies, an all-femme/queer Bouffon show exploring the world of the Proud Boys and the women who love them.
SOCIAL MEDIA: @_razmus / @julesvandie
Timeline:
DOORS: 6:30 PM
TRAD: 7:00 PM
DENTATA: 8:30 PM
Age Limit: This event is All Ages
ID: Valid ID required for Alcohol Consumption/Entry
Limited Late Seating: Due to the architecture of our space, the entrance is next to the stage and it is disruptive to the performer to enter late. We will seat you if there is an opener but once the headliner starts, you may be allowed to sit in the lobby but will not be allowed to enter. Please know this is for the best experience for the artist. No refunds for late entry.
Start Time: Performances will begin no later than 15 minutes after stated show time.
Refund Policy: All sales are final. No Refunds.
ADA Accessibility: The Rockwell is partially ADA Accessible with an elevator and restrooms in saloon wide enough for wheelchair use.