Heidi Arneson is a multi-disciplinary solo theater artist renowned for hilarious one-woman shows about childhood,
sexuality and American archetypes. Her plays are filled with independent characters, irrepressible passion
and searing poetry. Her comedies about contemporary life have electrified audiences for over twelve years.
Statement
I write, direct and perform my plays and I design and build the props and costumes featured in my work. Solo performance is the core of my art.
My objective is to cultivate freedom of spirit.
“Magic” Cleveland Free Times
My work sparks memory and uncovers passion. I stage the details from personal memory and fantasy. My audience may remember the three hairs growing out of the mole on their first grade teacher's chin, the first time they touched themselves in the bathtub, or the taste of kissing lips through Kleenex.
“Superb. A must-see.” Minneapolis StarTribune
However repressed the passions of my characters are, however insatiable their hungers, my characters still fight for their individual freedom. In their own words:
"Yes, I will talk about my forbidden place. Yes, I will press my naked breasts against the windowpane. Yes, I will fly like a crow over the fields of New Brighton. Yes, I will talk back to the TV. Yes, I will work with blistered fingers. Yes, I'll eat anything: toilet paper, checkbooks, swing sets, family farms and a few small countries. I'll rant on the street, use old tires to resole my shoes, and look right in the eyes of the stranger behind me."
“Uproariously funny” Skyway News
I began my performance work out of necessity: to hack through the forest of issues inside me. My early solo works deal with personal stories, family dysfunction, mercurial sexuality, adolescent ritual, childhood fears and grade school misadventures. As I cleared a path out of my past, my circle widened, and the range of my characters expanded. First I added characters from dream and fantasy, then the voices of people beyond my own life.
“Superb writing, sharp performance and vivid characters&rdquot; Star Tribune
- The Brunette Breck Girl is a piece about an emotionally twisted suburban family, told by a
fictional woman with long hair and silver fingernails, trapped inside a bathroom wall, which I perform naked and chained.
- PreHansel and PostGretel, peopled by edgy storybook characters, investigates what happens
when fairy tale children grow into adults.
- In Homeland Security, marginal Americans speak out on security and freedom: a single mom, a convict, a homeless boy, a speed freak and a voracious eater.
“Technical mastery, hilarious storytelling...” Lavender
Usually, I work alone. However, in the past five years, I've involved other artists in my plays. The collaborations feed back into my solo work by including the energy of other creative minds in my process.
“Her timing is impeccable, her ideas are fresh, & Heidi is hilarious” High Performance
My upcoming plans include getting my plays published. In 2005, an excerpt of my work The Love Shopper will be published in New Monologues for Women by Women, Volume II, by Heinemann Books.
“Every detail is crisp, alternating between hilarious and poignant with frightening speed;
sometimes, it manages to be both at once” City Pages
I envision bringing my Performance Workshops to schools, theaters and prisons across the country, teaching others to tell their own stories onstage, and in doing so, incite a quiet cultural revolution of truth-telling, one story at a time.
“Nobody in the Twin Cities embodies the spirit of independent, do-it-yourself theater more than Arneson” Minneapolis StarTribune
Biography
Heidi Arneson is a multi-disciplinary solo theater artist renowned for her one-woman plays about childhood, sexuality and American archetypes.
She has performed as a featured artist at Franklin Furnace and Dixon Place in New York; N.A.M.E. in Chicago; Cleveland Performance Art Festival in Cleveland; The Bug in Denver; Ace Arts in Winnipeg; Wagon Train Project in Lincoln Nebraska and Legion Arts in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She has also performed at nearly every venue in her hometown of the Twin Cities, including the Weisman Museum, the Walker Art Center, The Southern Theater, the Jungle and Red Eye.
Her plays include The Queen of Block E, Ten Bedroom Heart, Homeland Security, Snake Lady Sheds Her Skin, PreHansel & PostGretel, The Brunette Breck Girl, Degrade School, Heidi House and Mary Margaret Please Appear.
She is a recipient of the Bush Artist Fellowship for Performance Art, Franklin Furnace Emerging Artist Award for Performance (NY), Core Alumna of the Playwrights' Center and 2005 Theater nominee for the prestigious Alpert Award in the Arts (CA). Her work The Love Shopper will be published in the fall of 2005 in New Monologues for Women by Women, (Heinemann Books).
Please follow this link for Ms. Arneson's professional resume.
phone -- 612.333.6816 | email -- heidi at heidihouse dot com