THE ROCK N WRESTLE ROADSHOW

 

...is a “one-man/multiple-personality” mental health comedy in which you’ll meet: Johnny Love Lotion, a war veteran and wrestling emcee who's hunting hunters; Delilah Bordeaux Counterbee, heiress and socialite who’s become a peace activist now that the war is interfering with her sex life; Luis Saragossa, 8-year-old poet submitting his piece “Crazy 4 Justin Timberlake” to Teen Beat magazine; Rex Raleigh, adult film actor currently starring in The Half-Breed Who Bred with Half the West; Johnny Deeper, 15-year-old rapper behind the hit “Titty Action Boy”; and Huey Walker Lewis, former U.S. civil rights activist/current U.K. tube announcer.

 

The Rock N Wrestle Roadshow debuted at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London, has toured the East Coast of the United States, and did a run at the Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival.

 

REVIEWS

 

“As Collin takes us into the labyrinths and tangents of struggling minds, he pushes every boundary and every button of political correctness with sharp insight and wild humour.  We laugh, we hold our breath, we gasp, we nearly can't bear it.... As his energy transforms time and again on stage, roars of applause and laughter climax time and again from the audience.  Nerves of unsayable but familiar mindsets ripple into the metamorphoses of his performance.  See it and be challenged, see it and be changed.”

- Jill Lewis, Professor of Literature & Gender Studies, Hampshire College; Executive Producer, PROTECTION: Men and Condoms in the Time of HIV and AIDS (Fireworx Media)

 

“Amazing heart. Collin Chace is the most talented storyteller/actor I have ever seen.”

- Margie Pivar, co-author, Fourth Uncle in the Mountain: A Memoir of a Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam (St. Martin's Griffin Press)

 

“Chace brings both humor and pathos to his crass menagerie of characters, all of whom are coping with some type of mental illness. Their one bond is that they are all survivors, and heroes, in a world which is often hostile to those among us with mental challenges. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll think and perhaps, like me, you'll recognize someone you know and love in Chace's sensitive and inspired performance. This is not a ‘politically correct’ show... it is simply accurate in its representation of life on the fringe, warts and all. I dare you not to want to hang out with these lovable and bravely flawed characters more than once.”

- Richard E. Bump, Fanorama

 

“He didn't hesitate to go for a full and robust expression as he moved from character to character.... He told some pretty difficult truths, both in character and out, and shared of himself in ways that are too rarely seen in any artistic medium. It was, at times, a classic ‘you could hear a pin drop’ kind of performance. He could dance right up to the line of ‘oh-my-god-is-he-really-going-there?’ and lay it softly on the audience. Dealing with some deeply challenging issues of being alive on the earth in its current weirdness, from that place of raw emotional soup he conveyed a message of acceptance, understanding, forgiveness of one's self, and the pain and release of coming face-to-face with oneself. Doing it with aplomb in front of a room full of people is a skill that few have. I recommend it to anyone who craves honesty, wit and genuinely well-written characters.”

- Steve West, Live And Local on WKVT-AM, Brattleboro, Vermont

 

“I could have watched Collin Chace for hours. There's a kind of plankton that luminesce in the ocean when they are disturbed, and you can literally make incredible patterns in the dark water of light with your hands and body just by moving around. That is The Rock N Wrestle Roadshow for me. Disturbances creating moving light.”

- Ellen Donkin, Dean of the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Professor of Theatre; Editor, Upstaging Big Daddy: Directing Theater as if Gender and Race Matter (University of Michigan Press); Author, Getting Into The Act: Women Playwrights In London 1776-1829 (Routledge)

 

“One of our sons is gay, the other is psychotic. This show is the perfect family entertainment for us.”

- Couple in the audience, Brattleboro, Vermont (USA)