Barbara Brady
Barbara Brady is a writer, performer and visual artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Father, Daughter and Holy Toast is her first solo play. Brady has performed excerpts at Solo Sundays at Stage Werx and The Marsh, both in San Francisco. She has also performed at the Rogue Performance Festival in Fresno, CA, Orlando International Theater Festival and Cincinnati Fringe Festival.
As a singer, she performs a cappella jazz with The Merlot Notes, a 10-woman ensemble based in Silicon Valley. She spent many years as a professional cathedral chorister and soloist in Cincinnati, OH, where she also produced and performed cabaret and performance art, drawing on an even earlier obsession with modern dance.
Father, Daughter & Holy Toast
Father, Daughter & Holy Toast is a funny, loving portrait of a family under pressure. Dad is an eccentric patriarch, won't move out of his house except "feet first.” Two sisters vie for his affection. They argue over subjects as trivial as where to put the dish soap and as profound as what to do if Dad goes into cardiac arrest.
Barbara, a writer and business communicator by trade, channeled her grief at the loss of her father in a tribute that finds the humor in filial piety and sibling rivalry in a household where the way to Dad's heart is through science. Religion and music figure prominently in the show which also teaches audiences such facts as who invented cruise control and how to properly wind a vacuum cleaner cord.
Growing up, it was "our" house. Now my sister thinks it's "her house." She's acting like an old bottle of dish soap is some kind of shrine, but the real tabernacle of Dad's kitchen is the toaster.