HELP US RAISE SOME DOUGH ;). GBPM is embarking on a world tour-- and we need your help to make it happen!

We are in need of more funds to pull this show off to the caliber that it deserves. We are raising $15,000 for our August trip to the world-renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Getting in Bed with the Pizza Man is a racy, whimsical one-woman show exploring the perils and thrills of sex and singledom post-pandemic by actress, writer, and comedienne Katie Folger. Katie is this year's winner of Best Actor by The Austin Chronicle in 2024. 

Fully produced at the Crashbox Theatre in May of 2023, with two sold out weekends and rave reviews, Getting in Bed with the Pizza Man was named as a Top 10 Theatrical Moment of 2023. Lauded as "witty, wise, and phenomenal at physical comedy" by NOHO Arts, Folger made her Los Angeles debut in May 2024 at the historic El Portal to enthusiastic houses.

Thematically, the show is a fool’s journey of fumbling your way to empowering yourself while trusting your convictions and finding your voice. The target audience is young women, but historically this show resonates with a much wider demographic regardless of age and gender. We recently established partnership with Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, who is an avid fan of the show and posts about our show regularly on its Instagram, which has almost a million followers. This is a powerful piece of comedic storytelling with immense heart hailing from a fiery, fierce independent female creator hailing from Austin, a largely male-dominated creative scene.

But this critically-acclaimed comedic work cannot reach more audiences without the necessary funds to make it happen. That's where you come in!

SUPPORT THE TOUR NOW & SPREAD THE WORD!

All contributions are tax-deductible. If you or anyone you know could support this show further with a tax-deductible gift, it would be greatly appreciated.

MISSION

>> GBPM is an unabashed, scathing, yet comedic and playful exploration of the roles that women are conditioned and expected to play in heterosexual romantic and sexual interactions and how those roles can keep us constricted and playing small. It examines the discomfort and awkwardness yet spiritual necessity of stepping beyond those constraints and defining worth and sexuality for the self— not in relation to cisgender men. Often reduced to the label of “chick flick,” female narratives, especially those that deal with sexuality, are deemed trivial, gratuitous, trashy. GBPM is an unapologetic celebration, centering, and summoning of one layer of feminine perspective and sexual empowerment.

>> Saddled between the white picket fence vision of older generations and the prevalence of “hook up culture,” fleeting situationships, and debauchery characteristic of dating in the 2020’s, Getting in Bed with the Pizza Man asks: What do love and sex now look like? Is unbridled sexual exploration truly liberating? Where is home if you haven’t found it with another person? And is there value in both tradition and exploration?

>> Beyond this, as an actress and creator HQ’ed in Austin off and on for the last 12 years, I've observed a lack of art and making that emphasized elegance, glamor, beauty, femininity, elegance, and the female perspective in general. Austin’s creative scene is endearingly and characteristically grungy, Austin’s film scene not-so-endearingly and characteristically dominated by cisgender men. For years, I've experimented with her own reactions to this void; GBPM is my next paint splatter at a canvas. I'd love this work to be a strong beacon outward of the Austin creative scene and as a female voice within it.

THEMES & EXPLORATIONS: Sexual Empowerment | Celebrating Womanhood + Femininity | Bodily Autonomy | Agency | Female Gaze | Boundaries | Relinquishing Shame, Self-Doubt | Using Your Voice | Redefining Sexuality + Spirituality for Self | Challenging Gender Norms

PROJECT SYNOPSIS

Katie is a 30-year-old single woman fumbling with dating, sex, and boundaries in a rigidly boundaried pandemic world. On a dagger-tongued jump down a rabbit hole of beginner’s sexual empowerment, Katie exits the circumstantially imposed monogamy of a reality where it isn’t “exactly responsible to f*ck whomever you wanted when there was a deadly disease decimating significant portions of the population” with a wild(ish) woman’s abandon. On her first trip since lockdown to San Francisco, a saucy, kismet run-in with an old crush Lane leads to an “invitation to magic”…and potential for a hedonistic week of love-making. But her highfalutin expectations for transcendent, plague-fee orgasms are humbled by a stinging admission from Lane. Feeling rejected and unsure of herself, Katie finds herself consumed with prospect of love and sex, rebelling against the roles she thinks she’s supposed to play—pious girlfriend, perfect wife—with a teen’s angst, mostly to no avail. But seemingly lame, dead-end session with a psychic named White Raven gives an unexpected way to that foreshadowed magic, setting Katie on a winding quest of sexual misadventure and discovery—a hippie cuddle-puddle, an illicit encounter with Lane’s bestie, a curious collision with a pizza man—that ultimately centers Katie, sans pizza man, in her own delectable narrative.

ABOUT THE TEAM

Katie Folger (Creator, Performer, Writer, Producer) is an actress, writer, and comedienne based in Austin, Texas. Her work is geared toward more nuanced representation of women in media, inspired by longtime mentor Robert Redford. Currently nominated for Best Actor 2024 by The Austin Chronicle, her bold and memorable performances on both stage and screen have garnered her praise from festivals like Sundance, SXSW, and Locarno, among others. Alongside her work as an artist, Folger is currently working towards a Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with special interest in working with victims of intimate partner violence and in crisis and trauma intervention. 

Kevin Bailey (Producer) is the producer and general manager of his production company, MB Artists, which was formed in 1992 by partners Kevin Bailey and James J. Mellon. They founded Los Angeles’s award-winning NoHo Arts Center, producing over 30 new plays and musicals, including Ann , written by and starring Holland Taylor. Ann made its Broadway premiere at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater and garnered a Tony Nomination for Ms. Taylor as “Best Actress,” and was most recently seen at The Pasadena Playhouse in 2022.

Matrex Kilgore (Director) is an award-winning international performer, director, and teaching artist based in Austin, Texas.  He is the co-founder of the Center for Imagining and Performing Justice and also works for Texas Commission of the Arts. Beyond this, he has taught theatre for social change to students ranging in age from elementary to college level. Matrex previously served on the Board of Directors for Ground Floor Theatre. He has directed five one woman shows. Some credits include: Black Do Crack by Florinda Bryant, TWENTYEIGHT by Tyler English-Beckwith, Cracked by COIVD by Florinda Bryant, “A” (What The Black Girl Found While Searching For God) by Taji Senior, Single Black Female by Lisa B. Thompson., and Devour. by Taji Senior.

WHERE DO THE RAISED FUNDS GO?!

We've got our dates, we've got our venue... now, we just need our full budget! Help us market the heck out of this thing, pay our fabulous team of artists what they deserve and make this the most show-stopping production it can possibly be at the caliber it deserves by pitching in with your community and spreading the word!

These funds will ultimately cover:

• Cast travel
• Venue rental
• Marketing
• Public relations
• Administration
• Crew/staff

I am fiscally sponsored by Austin Creative Alliance, allowing tax-deductible donations for GBPM. As you may know, ACA, an Austin-based non-profit, advocates for inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility within the cultural sector. Their mission aligns perfectly with mine, advocating for gender parity in the arts and equal representation in media. I

A one-woman show is certainly not a one-woman task. Thank you so much for your support-- and welcome to the pizza party.

PRESS