On Cats and Dogs and Other Family Revelations wraps big ideas in focused stories about Ella’s pets, offering glimpses of her human family and life in her place of birth, Transylvania, Romania. With her dark humor and heart, Ella takes audiences from her childhood under communist rule, to her present quirky experiences in East Harlem, using her dog and cat as reference points.
The cast will feature Ella Veres and her companion dog, Pandele, who said she's in it not for fame, but to pay her vet bills. Rosamunda, her cat, was asked to perform but declined. She’d rather lounge under the sofa than be in the limelight.
“Being from Transylvania, is expected of me to be creepy, so I oblige, from time to time, albeit not in Hollywood style,” said Ella Veres, lead performer and director of On Cats and Dogs and Other Family Revelations. “The war in Ukraine riled my memories up, and urged me to point out how much there is to lose.”
The performance will run approximately one hour. Each show is a different iteration.
Content Warning: This show contains dark humor, discussions about death, and rape. This show is not recommended for children.
Ella Veres is an independent performer and writer who has been active in the New York City cultural community since 2001. Her work has been presented at the Immigrant Theater Festival, Galapagos Art Space, Manhattan Theater Source, IWAS,The Field, Theater for the New City, The Moth, Stage Left, Bowery Poetry Club, Chashama, and her present incubator, Fountain House Gallery. For several years she focused on her visual art, but in 2022, serendipity made her act in Stories From My Mother at the Theater for the New City, and thus reminded her how lovely it is to be in front of a live audience.
Her current solo storytelling show, On Cats and Dogs and Other Family Revelations, was shaped during her 2023 Fountain House Gallery summer residency on Governors Island and in Adam Wade’s Magnet Theater Solo Workshop, and premiered successfully at the 2024 NYC Fringe Festival.
