Too Fat for China is a one hour comedic storytelling performance about adoption, race in America and making a family by any means necessary. It’s just Phoebe and her traveling crankie – a giant roll of mural sized comix.
“RIOTOUS AND RAW” –NPR’s Morning Edition
Too Fat for China is a hilarious, introspective, and poignant glimpse into one woman’s journey to motherhood – warts and all. Phoebe is an immensely talented storyteller who can take your breath away with one sentence and leave you laugh-crying the next. She weaves a masterful and compelling narrative of the unavoidable trauma, tragedy, and commodification that surrounds the adoption industry, along with the groundswell of primal love -from both birth and chosen family – surrounding the process.
TOO FAT FOR CHINA
Written, drawn, and performed by Phoebe Potts
August 7 – 10, 2025
Presented by Central Square Theater
Estranged from his wife and son during the pandemic lockdown, Frank accepts a job as a content moderator for the world’s largest social media company. As he evaluates a never-ending stream of questionable content, the work takes an emotional and psychological toll. However, everything changes when Frank sees an opportunity to help a stranger and save himself in the process. Drama Desk Award-winning playwright Ken Urban (A Guide for the Homesick), and two-time Obie Award Winner director Jared Mezzocchi create a haunting, enveloping technological mindscape that explores the essence of human connection.
THE MODERATE
by Ken Urban
directed by Jared Mezzocchi February 5 – March 1, 2026 A Catalyst Collaborative@MIT Production
An English estate is haunted by its former mistress who has recently passed… or, has she? Two actors wear a caboodle of wigs, perform umpteen lightning-speed costume changes, and create a fantastical cast of characters including a sympathetic werewolf, a vampire, and a mummy. Elliot Norton winning director David R. Gammons (Vanity Fair, Frankenstein) reunites with fellow award-winner Paul Melendy (Vanity Fair) in this camp spoof of Gothic melodramas. Written by Charles Ludlam, the creator of New York’s subversive and iconoclastic Ridiculous Theatrical Company, The New York Times praised The Mystery of Irma Vep as “Far and away the funniest two hours on a New York stage!”
THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP – A PENNY DREADFUL
by Charles Ludlam
directed by David R. Gammons May 28 – June 21, 2026
Alan Turing was hailed by Winston Churchill as having made the single biggest contribution to Allied victory in the war against Nazi Germany for breaking the Enigma code. By 1952 the eccentric British mathematician’s security clearance was revoked and he was barred from British intelligence work after being convicted for “gross indecency” – homosexual acts. Breaking the Code is Turing’s pioneering story of scientific achievement – the father of the computer and artificial intelligence. Eddie Shields (Angels in America) is Turing in a new production helmed by Elliot Norton winner Scott Edmiston (Constellations).
BREAKING THE CODE
by Hugh Whitemore
directed by Scott Edmiston April 2 – 26, 2026 A Catalyst Collaborative@MIT Production
1976. An Ohio college town. The second wave of feminism is cresting. Two very different women are thrown together through a faculty babysitting co-op and an unlikely friendship forms between Diana, a fiercely iconoclastic artist, and Alice, a free-spirited yet naive young housewife. Written by Pulitzer winner David Auburn (Proof) with Paula Plum making her CST directorial debut, Alice and Diana bring us directly into their memories and the small moments that change the course of their lives in this funny and poignant play The New York Times praises as “sharply observant…subtly, insistently feminist.”
SUMMER 1976 by David Auburn
directed by Paula Plum November 6 – 30, 2025
