Acclaimed singer/songwriter Jonatha Brooke will present two performances of her one-woman show My Mother Has Four Noses on Monday, December 16 and Tuesday, December 17 at 7:30 p.m at the Guthrie Theater's Dowling Studio in Minneapolis, MN. The new play with music, which played to sold out houses at the Playwrights’ Center in August, is pulled from her experiences caring for her mother at the end of her life as she struggled with Alzheimer’s.
Tickets are $22 and will be on sale beginning Monday, November 25 through the Guthrie Box Office at 612.377.2224, toll-free 877.44.STAGE, 612.225.6244 (Group Sales) and online at www.guthrietheater.org. Seating in the Dowling Studio is general admission.
My Mother Has Four Noses recounts Brooke’s experiences with her mother, Darren “Stoney” Nelson, as she declined into the final stages of Alzheimer’s. The story is told through a series of monologues in which Ms. Brooke portrays both herself and her mother with 11 new songs to complement the performance. My Mother Has Four Noses has played to sold out houses at Playwrights’ Center, at the Warner Theater in Torrington, CT, and World Café Live for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.
“My mom was a character,” says Brooke. “She was a published poet, a Christian Scientist, a clown, and always up for drama. In fact, I used to thank her on stage for all the good material. In her last two years, we shared every human experience on the spectrum. My only instinct? Write it down, sing it, tell it. It was her instinct too: Almost daily she would say, ‘Boolie,’ (my nickname) ‘That’s good! Are you getting this down? We should make a play out of it!’ I did get it down, and I did write a play. It is my songs, her poems, and our stories enmeshed.”
Jonatha Brooke has been writing songs, making records and touring since her early days in Boston with her band The Story, which released two albums, Grace in Gravity and The Angel in the House, on Elektra Records.
In 1995, Ms. Brooke released the first of two solo albums on MCA/Universal, Plumb, followed by Ten Cent Wings in 1997. In 1999 she started her own independent label, Bad Dog Records, and has since released six more albums. Her most recent release, The Works, combined previously unheard, unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics with her own music and arrangements.
Ms. Brooke has written for three Disney films, has had songs included in many television shows and composed the theme song for Joss Whedon's television series Dollhouse. Most recently, she co-penned the song “Choose Your Battles” with Katy Perry for Perry’s latest release, Prism.
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Acoustic Nation is written by Laura B. Whitmore, a music industry marketing veteran, music journalist and editor, who has contributed to Parade.com, Guitar World, and others. She has interviewed hundreds of musicians and hosts the She Rocks Podcast. As the founder of the Women’s International Music Network, she advocates for women in the music industry and produces the annual She Rocks Awards. She is the Senior Vice President of Marketing for Positive Grid, making the world safe for guitar exploration everywhere! A guitarist and singer/songwriter, Laura is currently co-writing an album of pop songs that empower and energize girls.
