Katie Hileman's Theatre Madness

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Work Samples

cake, fat, fat positivity, play, performance, i will eat you alive, Katie Hileman, Towson University, Meghan Taylor

sex, cabaret, show, performance, Interrobang

About Katie

Baltimore City

KATIE HILEMAN (she/her) is a fat DIY theatre maker working out of Baltimore, MD. She is passionate about developing and producing high quality, meaningful new works for the stage by local artists on a tiny budget. In her work, she strives to create brave spaces for collaboration, expression, and storytelling to take place with a consent-based, trauma-informed practice, while working to dismantle the Corporate Theatre Machine that favors the white, thin, cis-male, and beautiful. Katie believes that... more

View Katie's Resume

Big Fat Variety Show

Big Fat Variety Show presented by The Interrobang Theatre Company
Hosted/Conceived by Katie Hileman and Hunter Hooligan

A fat positive variety show to kick-off fundraising efforts for a 2021 tour of i will eat you alive. (cancelled due to COVID-19) by Katie Hileman. We are fat. We are here. And we will eat you alive.

What started as an idea for an after-party for opening night of i will eat you alive. where fat positive musician, Hunter Hooligan, would perform live music, turned into a variety show showcasing and celebrating the fat talent in Baltimore. Part poetry reading, part drag/burlesque, part dance party, and part play reading. The evening featured readings from the cast and director of i will eat you alive. (Katie Hileman, Becca Glantz, Betse Lyons, Meghan Taylor), Autumn Rain (poetry), M Lynne Hayward (poetry), Big Titties & Empathy (poetry), Washington Heights (drag), Stealya Manz (drag), Hazel Dereon (drag), Venus Fastrada (drag), Chris Jay (drag), Dr. Ginger Snapz (burlesque), Ophelia Zayna Hart (burlesque), and Hunter Hooligan (music).

Rituals, Baltimore, MD, March 2020
Produced by The Interrobang Theatre Company
Sponsors in Kind: Rituals and Studio 5 Baltimore

i will eat you alive.

i will eat you alive. by Katie Hileman
Directed by Katie Hileman

You are cordially invited to a dinner party to celebrate one fat woman’s decision to lose weight. Join us for a delicious, five course meal examining diet culture, representation, and what it’s really like to be a fat woman+ in today’s society. There’s singing. There’s dancing. There’s even cake. Because we all deserve dessert! (In moderation of course!) Remember: nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, right?

....right?

"i will eat you alive" was inspired by and written after a series of interviews conducted between fat playwright, Katie Hileman, and a community of self-identified fat women+.

We are fat. We are here. And we will eat you alive.

Plans for a Baltimore remount and subsequent 2021 tour cancelled due to COVID-19.

Towson University, Towson, MD, February 2020
Produced by The Interrobang Theatre Company and Towson Theatre MFA Program
Actors: Becca Glantz, Meghan Taylor, and Betse Lyons

i will eat you alive. Portrait and Instagram Project

i will eat you alive. Portrait and Instagram Project
Conceived by Katie Hileman
Photography by Studio 5 Baltimore
Instagram content creation by Kiirstn Pagan
instagram.com/iweyaproject

To prepare to write i will eat you alive., I first wanted to experiment with how to make space and engage with other fat folks surrounding this sometimes traumatic topic - their fat bodies. Inspired by Cindy Sherman's ideas of photography as performance, I collaborated with Studio 5 Baltimore to take simple photos of me nude with a cake. I was interested in exploring how to tell the story I wanted to without having the actual words yet, so I let the photos do that for me. These were also taken in an effort to engage folks - if I dare to show my fat body, if I dare to meet the fatphobic gaze of society head on, perhaps I could encourage other fat folks to be brave and share their stories as well. Perhaps I could show other fat folks that they deserve to take up space too. This photoshoot also marked my exit out of eating disorder treatment, which gives the interaction with food, and bravery to face the camera totally bare, deeper meaning.

Edited versions of these photos, along with prompts were posted to an Instagram (@iweyaproject). This Instagram became a place to engage people with ideas surronding fat liberation that were running through my head while writing i will eat you alive. Again, this was an effort to make space for myself and other fat people to share in a world where we are told we don't deserve space because we already physically take up "too much".

instagram.com/iweyaproject
Instagram, June 2019 - March 2020
Produced by The Interrobang Theatre Company

Modern Witches

Modern Witches by Katherine Kopajtic
Directed by Katie Hileman

Recently single actor Kate is given an opportunity to play Virginia Woolf. As she struggles to make a self-tape audition in an uprooted life, she finds guidance, wisdom, and inspiration from various witches that she meets along the way. Their magic seeps into Kate’s creative process with surprising results. Modern Witches is a multi-character solo show inspired by the life of Virginia Woolf that examines the characteristics of women beneath the label of "witch".

Escape from New York Festival
Barbershop Theatre, Nashville, TN, January 2020
Produced by Tres Brujas Productions
Actor: Katherine Kopajtic

Charm City Fringe Festival
Maryland Art Place Underground, Baltimore, MD, October 2019
Produced by Tres Brujas Productions
Actor: Katherine Kopajtic

All photos and promotional material by Kiirstn Pagan

The Alibi Play

OLGA Presents: a Stand-Up Show!!! (or The Alibi Play) by Jen Diamond
Directed by Katie Hileman

Comedy duo OLGA is super psyched to perform for you a brand new night of stand up comedy!!! Well, they would be psyched – except Jen’s boyfriend just broke up with her in a frozen yogurt shop. And Pam is unemployed and unable to buy a Bitcoin. And something really, really bad happened just a few hours ago and it might just change both of their lives forever. Half stand up, half theatre, The Alibi Play is a comedy that kaleidoscopes reality, fantasy, and friendship to figure out what it means to be a truly Good Person.

The piece was a recipient of the 2019 Maryland State Arts Council Creativity Grant. The show was named one of the “Best Things To Do in Baltimore” by Baltimore Magazine.

Baltimore Theatre Project, Baltimore, MD, June 2019
Produced by OLGA
Actors: Jen Diamond and Pamela Hugi

All photos by Kiirstn Pagan

Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels

Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels by Katie Hileman
Part of Rapid Lemon Production's "Variations on Myth" 10-Minute Play Festival
Directed by T.P. Huth

"Where political commentary had been a blade slashing in a single direction earlier in the evening, Nothing Taste as Good as Skinny Feels by Katie Hileman allowed us a sample of the pain our insecurities inflict on us, regardless of our weight, whether we are victimized for it or a victimizer. As serious as this sounds, I enjoyed the surprise of seeing our first case of the amazing use of a prop, as Before (Mani Yangilmau) scarfed down a slice of cheese pizza, in an erotic fit of caloric passion." - Mandy Gunther (TheatreBloom)

Two women named Before and After meet in a gym. They talk about their own bodies, each other's bodies, and fight over a slice of pizza. Does nothing really taste as good as skinny feels? Or is that just a myth fed to women to get them to hate themselves and each other?

Baltimore Theatre Project, Baltimore, MD, May 2019
Produced by Rapid Lemon Productions
Actors: Christine Demuth and Mani Yangilmau

Chlamydia

Chlamydia by Katie Hileman
Directed by Katie Hileman

Mae is single and ready to tingle... Based off of a story from a close friend of her contracting chlamydia from a Tinder hook up, Chlamydia reimagines Tinder as a game show host, leading Mae through different dates with The Fuckboys. The Fuckboys were all played by women, and their spoken text was taken from real screenshots provided to me by my close friend, and others, of their actual interactions with men on Tinder. Mae dates, she fucks, her vagina sings the cha-cha slide, but ultimately she learns that men are, and always will be, trash.

Chlamydia has received two staged readings thus far:

Featured act in One Night Stand Fells Point Corner Theatre, Baltimore, MD, February 2019
Produced by The Interrobang Theatre Company
Actors: Aladrian Crowder Wetzel, Cara Hinh, Shubhangi Kuchibhotla, Rae Hample, and Meghan Taylor

Towson Theatre MFA 2020 Cohort's Playwriting Showcase
Towson University, Towson, MD, December 2018
Actors: Alex Shade, Rae Hample, Shubhangi Kuchibhotla, Hannah Kelley, and Caitlin Weaver

One Night Stand

One Night Stand presented by The Interrobang Theatre Company
Hosted by Katie Hileman and Kiirstn Pagan

“This night was SO MUCH fun, I can’t even contain it on a page. It will be talked about forever in the mythical circles of ‘I was there’… I think what I appreciated the most about the evening was not just the energy and fun, but the tribute to non-standard sex and people. I am not a prude, but that was my first time seeing some of these things in person and on stage.” —Baltimore Independent Theater Review (BITR Sisters)

One Night Stand was a love/dating themed, sex-positive, one-night-only cabaret. It premiered to a sold out, standing room only crowd. This began as an idea for a variety show fundraiser for Interrobang, but turned into a huge sex-positive celebration of local performers. Kiirstn and I hosted the evening, and presented our performers, along with several comedic bits featuring sex toys from our sponsor, Sugar.

Featured acts in the show included: the band Forx; drag performances from Vagenesis, Majic Dyke, and Blaq Dinamite; burlesque performances from Sylvia Trash and Tequila HoneyBee; comedy from Violet Gray and Jessica Murphy Garrett; a rope suspension performance featuring Bobby LaBottom, FrayedFox, and Mockingbird Kinbaku; and a reading of my short play, Chlamydia, starring Aladrian Crowder Wetzel, Cara Hinh, Shubhangi Kuchibhotla, Rae Anna Hample, and Meghan Taylor.

Plans for One Night Stand 2 were cancelled due do COVID-19.

Fells Point Corner Theatre, Baltimore, MD, February 2019 Produced by The Interrobang Theatre Company
Sponsored by Sugar and Smacked Shop
Sponsors in Kind: Studio 5 Baltimore, Eggspectation - Ellicott City, and Jailbreak Brewing Company

American Heifer

American Heifer By Katie Hileman
Performed by Katie Hileman

In January of 2019, the Towson Theatre MFA 2020 Cohort made a trip to study abroad in South Africa. Left mostly to our own devices on the trip, we, of course, came up with a last minute cabaret performance at a local cafe called The Drawing Room. Each cohort member presented a short piece. This was my piece inspired by my time spent in South Africa in a fat body (at the height of my eating disorder with a recently broken heart). This was one of the first pieces I ever shared publicly about my fatness, and set the course for my writing work moving forward.

This was a one night only event open to locals and other students on the trip. Very casual and stripped down. The title of the cabaret, American Heifer, was an inside joke amongst the cohort, but as I thought about what I wanted to present, the title seemed to resonate with me further than something just light-hearted, so it became the title of my monologue as well.

The Drawing Room, Observatory, South Africa, January 2019
Produced by The Towson Theatre MFA 2020 Cohort

the cable.

the cable. By Katie Hileman
Directed by Katie Hileman

Connected by jumper cables for the entirety of this 10-minute play, a couple navigates the overwhelming electricity of their relationship and connection to each other by jumping through time and form and a gas station.

There were no other set or props used to tell the story besides the jumper cables. Originially conceived as part of Single Carrot Theatre's 24-Hour Play Festival. This play was part of a one night only, sold out variety show called Charm City Nights on the Fringe.

Baltimore Theatre Project, Baltimore, MD, June 2015
Produced by The Interrobang Theatre Company
Actors: Jessie Poole and David Brasington

All Photography and Video by Kiirstn Pagan