Spooky Action Theater closes its 20th anniversary season with a special event, limited run of CIRCUS OF THE SELF: A Show About Queer Joy, Juggling & Identity created and performed by Lucy Eden. The production is presented in conjunction with events celebrating World Pride 2025 in the Nation’s Capital. Directed by Spooky Action Artistic Director Elizabeth Dinkova, the limited 10-performance run will be May 29-June 6, 2025 at Spooky Action’s home at The Universalist National Memorial Church, 1810 16th Street NW.
ABOUT THE PLAY
How do you juggle your past, present, and future selves without dropping the ball?
In her one-woman autobiographical busking show, trans performer Lucy Eden interweaves circus, humor, poetry, and personal narrative to explore identity, gender, and our capacity for transformation. This love letter to the liberating power of performance includes balance, juggling, knives, and unicycles. Circus of the Self is an origin story, chronicling a journey of gradual self-discovery: fear, repression, acceptance, and celebration of the authentic self.
Content transparency: Contains frank discussions of transphobia and mental health; very brief moment of upper body nudity.
FROM CREATOR/PERFORMER LUCY EDEN
“I’m really excited for the opportunity to bring this show to DC for World Pride. I’ve spent so much of my life building the tools and vocabulary to express myself through circus arts, and now it feels more important than ever to use every outlet available to share my personal story of queer trans liberation. Self-acceptance, trans joy, and radical authenticity have been truly transformative forces in my life, and I hope that, through this show, I can help to sow these seeds that have found such rich purchase in my soul with you.”
FROM DIRECTOR ELIZABETH DINKOVA
“When I became an artistic director at Spooky Action, I resolved to create meaningful opportunities for local artists and audiences to encounter the most groundbreaking national and international artists I had crossed paths with. Lucy Eden is a true original. This daredevil does not bat an eyelid at juggling flaming torches, riding 7-ft-tall unicycles, and balancing knives on her forehead. Her skillful audacity as a circus artist is only matched by her astonishing courage as a storyteller. By sharing her own journey of resilience at a time when trans rights are under threat, Lucy inspires us to be our most authentic, unapologetic selves.”
ABOUT THE TEAM
Lucy Eden (Creator & Performer) is a performance artist, unicyclist, juggler and transgender visibility advocate. With a background in street performance, her passion for bringing circus arts to pedestrian spaces has been lifelong. She has performed in solo and ensemble productions across the US. Her shows combine storytelling, physical virtuosity, and unique queer southern charm.
Elizabeth Dinkova (Director), Spooky Action Theater’s artistic director is a Bulgarian director, adaptor, and collaborative creator who explores alternative realities at the intersection of theater, film, and music in pursuit of communal transformation. In 2021-22, she was an Associate Artistic Director of 7 Stages Theatre, Atlanta’s hub for boundary-pushing international theater. She is an alum of the Alliance Theatre’s Artistic Leadership fellowship, the Studio Theatre’s Artistic Apprenticeship, and a recent graduate from the MFA Directing program at the Yale School of Drama, where she served as a Co-Artistic Director of the Yale Summer Cabaret and received the Julian Milton Kaufman prize for Directing. Recent projects include Richard Strauss’s opera Salome with Heartbeat Opera (NYC), Spooky Action’s Professor Woland’s Black Magic Rock Show, Frontiéres Sans Frontiéres, Sonnets for an Old Century and workshop of Syrena, Hamlet and Coriolanus at Shakespeare in the Woods, Rage, a play with music inspired by Stephen King’s eponymous novel, the visual album TIT, inspired by Titus Andronicus and co-written with Jesse Rasmussen, at the NYC Indie Theatre Film Festival, The Seagull at Serenbe Playhouse, and the opera Orfeo ed Euridice at Bel Cantanti Opera Company. Elizabeth has taught acting, directing, devising, and musical theater at the Toronto Metropolitan University, University of California Riverside, Quinnipiac University, and Queens College CUNY. Upcoming: The Berlin Diaries at Theater J.
Running Time: 75 minutes, with no intermission.
CIRCUS OF THE SELF: A Show About Queer Joy, Juggling & Identity is a limited 10-performance run from May 29 to June 6, 2025 at Spooky Action Theater performing at the Universalist National Memorial Church, 1810 16th St NW, Washington, DC 20009. The venue is currently not wheelchair accessible. Tickets are $35, General Admission, with the following discounts available:
**Tickets for the first performance Thurs, May 29 at 7pm is Pay-What-You-Can, available online in advance, and in person the day of the show, depending on availability.
**Student/Senior discounts: Student Admission is $20 with a valid Student ID to be shown at will call. Senior Citizens, 65 years of age and over, will receive $5 OFF full-price tickets.
**Economy tickets: there are a limited amount of 6 tickets available at $15 online for all performances (except May 29).
Purchase tickets online.
ABOUT SPOOKY ACTION THEATER
Spooky Action Theater is an award-winning small professional theater located near DC’s DuPont, U Street Corridor and Logan Circle neighborhoods. Founded in 2004, the company takes its name from a quantum mechanics phenomenon “spooky action at a distance” in which two particles become entangled such that a change in one is instantly mirrored by a change in the other, no matter the distance between them. Spooky Action produces work that creates this kind of deep connection between artists and audience.
