Lost Nation Theater launches 2025 season with ‘Too Fat For China,’ April 9-13

April 1, 2025  |  By Waterbury Roundabout

Phoebe Potts in 'Too Fat For China' shares her adoption tale with comedic flair. Courtesy photo

It’s a new season at Lost Nation Theater in Montpelier where the opening production, “Too Fat for China,” runs April 9-13 at the Montpelier City Hall Arts Center.

This first show is an award-winning solo by actor/storyteller/comedian and self-described “professional Jew” Phoebe Potts who portrays with large doses of humor and attitude the rollercoaster ride of trying, failing, and eventually succeeding to adopt a baby. 

From Lost Nation: “Her story chronicles the long, circuitous, journey to adopt her child, one that involves sea turtles, capitalism, and Zoloft. After a U.S. adoption goes horribly wrong, Potts finds herself surprised, disgusted and ultimately resigned to the role she plays as a middle-class white lady in the business of adopting babies. Potts’ tragicomic journey is about looking for more: more love, more life, and more family, and she’ll do anything to get it – including having her morals and values fold in on themselves. She admits it: she did terrible things for love. And she’d do them again!”

It begins in Brooklyn. As Potts tells it: “Not the lavender-infused bespoke headcheese pleasure-dome that it is today, but the dirty, murdery, pee-soaked Brooklyn of the 1970s.” She elaborates: “Brooklyn was a Jewish town then. The cops were Jewish, the teachers were Jewish, the lawyers, the Irish, the Blacks, the Puerto Ricans - everyone was Jewish.”

Potts says she learned to tell stories to get her family to like her and to understand thorny issues and her storytelling continues today. 

Lost Nation’s founding Artistic Director Kim Bent calls Potts’ show remarkable, and one the company is excited to debut in Vermont. “In ‘Too Fat For China,’ Phoebe – a consummate performer – is following in the tradition of Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg, and Eric Bogosian. It’s a wonderful form of theater/storytelling/stand-up comedy – a combination of performance and yarn-spinning, Her visual creations add such a hilariously entertaining aspect to her storytelling.”

Potts developed the show at Gloucester Stage and moved on to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it enjoyed sold-out performances. In 2023, it was part of Broadway’s United Solo Show Festival where it won Best Storytelling Show honors. 

Bent handles set design for the Montpelier iteration. Lighting is by Charlotte Seelig; stage management from Tara Hightower. Producing Artistic Director Kathleen Keenan says the Lost Nation space will make this story all the more personal: “Phoebe’s talking right to you – there is no fourth wall. And here at LNT, it’ll feel like theater in your living room!”

Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, April 9-12. Saturday also has a 2 p.m. matinee; Sunday’s show is 11 a.m. Friday has a pre-performance reception at 6:45 p.m. 

Masks are strongly recommended for in-person attendance, but not required. Due to Montpelier City Hall’s lack of an operable elevator, performances are live-streamed to make them accessible for any audience member who is unable to attend in person. 

Tickets: $15-$41, depending on date and ticket type. Purchase online in advance at lostnationtheater.org, or call 802-229-0492 or email info@lostnationtheater.org. 

The season ahead

This year’s calendar promises a mix of new and old stories, music, dance, drama and even a Pulitzer-prize-winning rock opera. Other upcoming highlights: 

• June 5-15, “The Revolutionists,” a comedic play by American playwright Lauren Gunderson, which deconstructs the French Revolution. The story focuses on four women (a writer, a spy, an assassin and a queen), blending history with fiction, art and activism, politics and puppets.

• July 17-August 3, “The Drowsy Chaperone” five Tony Award-winning musical that celebrates musicals takes the stage. Directed by LNT-veterans Eric Love and Taryn Noelle, who both have starring roles.

• Oct. 2-19, brings the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning musical “Next to Normal,” to the Montpelier stage. This soaring rock opera centers on a mother’s struggle with bipolar disorder and its impact on her family. 

Look for Lost Nation’s usual additions to mainstage shows with special events, workshops, youth theater programs and trainings. 

More online at lostnationtheater.org.