EELPOUT
by Paul Kruse
directed by Rachel Wolther
Eelpout is a fast-paced, surreal farce, where friends are lovers, fish can talk, and life’s mysteries beckon from the bottom of a frozen lake. Sven Svensen and Ole Olsen have been best buds since kindergarten, but all that changes on the morning of Ole’s ice-fishing bachelor party. Could they be something more than friends, or is Sven destined for something even more wild and strange. This fantasia on Midwestern masculinity invites us to consider the limits of Queerness. Naturally, this includes a dream ballet Eelpout Orgy!
Paul William Kruse (playwright) tells Queer love stories. As a playwright and media artist from Western Wisconsin, his work flows from his Catholic roots and ever-evolving experience of family. Paul often writes collaboratively, drawing from his years of experience as a videographer and documentarian. He is a cohort member of Audible’s third Emerging Playwrights Fund. His work has been produced by Adjusted Realists in Brooklyn, NY; Quantum Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA; the Vortex Theater in Austin, TX; and in high schools around the country. Paul recently completed his MFA at UT Austin where he was a fellow with the Michener Center for Writers. He was resident playwright with Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective from 2012–2022, which he co-founded with Adil Mansoor and Nicole Shero. www.paulwkruse.com
Rachel Wolther (director) is a writer and director, featured as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Her upcoming feature film THE FRENCH ITALIAN, a comedy starring Catherine Cohen, Aristotle Athari, Chloe Cherry and Ruby McCollister is currently in post production. Rachel’s screenplay NOBODY NOTHING NOWHERE brought her to the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and appeared on both the Black List and Hit List. Octavia Spencer, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Lucy Liu attached to star for a 2023 production. Outside of film, Rachel directed episodes of the radio-drama podcast THE MESSAGE, which was number one on the charts. She often collaborates with comedians, creating comedy shorts including SNEAKERS with Amy Zimmer, which premiered at the NYTV Fest, and PEP TALK with Meghan O’Neill, which premiered at the Cucalorus Film Festival. Rachel directed the absurdist dance comedy SNOWY BING BONGS starring Sunita Mani,Tallie Medel & Eleanore Pienta, an adaptation of their live performance, which premiered at BAMCinemafest and screened at Rotterdam, BAFICI, AFF Wroclaw and others around the world and is now available to stream on mubi.com. After many years using live performance as source material for film and videos, Rachel is truly excited to reverse the process with EELPOUT.
Neon Caviar (Sarah Todes, producer) is a Brooklyn-based multimedia production company that produces formally inventive, exuberant work with a strong visual component, helmed by Sarah Todes. Current projects include GAMP, a dark comedy TV Pilot written by Sarah Todes and directed by Rachel Wolther that is the proud recipient of a NYFA Women’s Fund Grant, and Lemons, a devised personal narrative/ cultural criticism co-created by Sarah Todes and Sarah Hughes about social media and grief that has received support from Roxbury Arts Group and the LPAC Rough Draft Festival, and is a finalist for the Drama League Next Stage Residency. neoncaviar.com