Dietland

This act is inspired by Sarai Walker's 2015 novel Dietland, which was the basis of the AMC series by the same name. Dietland is the story of Plum, a 300 pound woman who ghostwrites advice for a teen magazine and waits for her gastric bypass surgery so she can live the life she’s always wanted. Then she’s pulled into a rebellion that includes a feminist collective hidden in the West Village, a warehouse of lipsticks, a plot to overthrow the beauty industry, and a group of women who call themselves Jennifer and exact violent revenge on rapists and misogynists. Dietland has a message of radical self-acceptance and fat positivity; it reminds us that if we spend all of our energy making sucking our bellies in and checking our lipstick, there’s little bandwidth left over to exact real change in the world.

In this act, I'm not playing Plum or any other specific Dietland character; this act is more about the spirit of the novel.

This act premiered at Bibliothèque Burlesque's January 2020 show, "I've Been Meaning to Read That!" at the Red Room at KGB Bar.

Photos and video clips by Andreas Allica.