Pre-show Audio:
NOBODY’S BETTER, (We don't care if you're a woman, a dog, a cat or a...)
Featuring:
You Were A Mistake, 2015
Healer, A Wounded Mythology, 2019
You Pretend Not To Know That I Am Watching You, 2017
Post-show Audio:
QUIVERING
Featuring:
Untitled #5, 2017
Untitled, 2016
On Cats and Dogs and Other Family Revelations
written and performed by Ella Veres
part of the 2024 New York City Fringe Festival
April 3-21 at 14Y Theater
The performance will run one hour.
Each show is a different iteration, repeat attendance is advised.
A compilation of the entire stories
is available in autographed booklet format
that you can purchase for $15 cash,
or through zelle: ellaveres@gmail.com or venmo: @ellaveres or at our brand-new bookstore: vermilllion.com
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 using her dog and cat as reference points.
The cast features 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.
This production was enriched by the:
Pre/Post show Soundscapes by Lauren Covey
Portrait of Pandele by Tanya Nickolan
Signature coat Magic Cat paintings in collaboration with Angela Rogers
Bios:
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.
@vermilion.nyc www.ellaveres.com
John Lance Harrison is a light designer and a Broadway stage electrician, harried by people asking him constantly for comps for Broadway show. He’s an avid supporter of indie performers.
@lancewerkz www.lancewerkz.com
Lauren Covey is a multidisciplinary artist with an MFA in Sound Art from Columbia University. Covey combines her artistic practice with her background as a peer counselor in the mental health field, recognizing the significance of sound in maintaining mental well-being. She is currently working on her 'Sonic Portraits of New York' project that uses sound as a therapeutic tool to support marginalized communities affected by mental illnesses and incarceration.
Angela Rogers is an artist who has exhibited for many years at the Outsider Art Fair and has shown at venues including Andrew Edlin Gallery, Gallery at HAI, and Art on A Gallery. Angela has been a reader of Tarot cards for over 40 years, which has informed her work.
She created several original Tarot decks and a feminist comic book titled No One Likes a Woman. She is a performer and co-founder of the bands Lone Vein and Ash Negative. Angela’s paintings have been featured in films such as Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects, and What Maisie Knew. She takes commissions for coat paintings. @angelajrogers
Tanya Nickolan is a Brooklyn-born artist. She studied at School of Visual Arts and at LaGuardia Community College, which awarded her an AS degree in Fine Arts. She works primarily in the mediums of pen and ink, pencil, watercolor, acrylic, and oil. Fascinated by faces, Tanya often focuses on portraiture, and also makes pieces in styles including abstract, still life, and collage. She'll gladly make your pet portrait. @tanyanickol
Buy our autographed story collection
Audience Testimonials:
'On Cats and Dogs and Other Family Revelations' by Ella Veres is worth your time seeing. It's a tender chronicle. Heartwarming, then twisted fate of loss. The trials of Romania as a child interwoven by the pets. The Cats and Dogs will enchant you and leave you thinking. Her stories are tapestries of love of oneself and love emitted to the cats and the dog. Wistful and triumphant. Ms. Veres is a veteran to the downtown performance art scene, her bio reads like a who's who of impressive spaces she's performed at. Go!
-Lance Harrison, IATSE Local One Broadway Technicians
Ella’s (aka Vermillion) show was a joy. The love for her sweet cats and dogs was expressed poetically, intimately and full of humor. Bravo Ella!
-Karen Gourmandy, Artist, Fountain House Studio Director
Friends living outside of NYC or homebound?… Love pets? Love stories? Love to laugh?
I HIGHLY recommend streaming this show written and performed by Ella Veres…you will not be disappointed!!
A master storyteller, Ella seamlessly weaves funny, poingnant, and heartwarming (yes sometimes bringing a little tear) stories of relationships between pets and their humans, between pets themselves, and how they skillfully bridge humans to each other, teaching us to find the love deep in our hearts.
Ella captures it all and shares it intimately with her audience.
-Heidi Russell, Fine Art Photographer
Founder and Director of International Women Artists Salon
Thank you for a wonderful evening. You created such a lovely rapport with the audience. It was so moving, sad, funny at different points throughout the hour.
-Beth Stubenbord, LCSW
Senior Director of Programming and Housing, Fountain House
It was a beautiful and stirring show, Ella. It moved me very much.
-Becky Wilkening, Fountain House Gallery and Studio Coordinator
What a great way to return to the theater post-COVID!
I am so grateful that you encouraged me to attend the show. It warmed my heart. You were a natural, and your storytelling evoked great memories of so many themes: belonging, community, family, aging, humor, personal conviction, adventure and, of course, "Pandele".
-Cheryl Savage, Fountain House Executive Assistant
Ella Veres likes to talk. It’s a casual, laid back, reflective kind of sharing. Just sitting comfortably on an ottoman in front of an audience. When she is telling dog stories, her devoted Pantele is by her side, being caressed by her stroking hand. On another night when she is telling cat stories, there is no cat with her…they are stories of other cats that have crossed her path. And that is at the heart of it…the humorous, gripping, painful, odd, weird, stories that weave through Transylvania, her birthplace to Harlem. From all the places and people and animals in between. And you can tell the effect that these stories are having, by watching the reaction of the audience. A “theater” completely enthralled, and shocked, and amazed. Laughing out loud to the poetic ease of Ella’s Romanian tinged English, her second (or third) language. And did I say that Ella’s self designed and handmade “costumes” are in fact her daily attire?
This is an experience, not to be missed.
-Wendy Snyder, indie performer supporter
Omg, I loved the show! I vividly imagined every single scene you described. Your dad stood out the most to me. Even though some scenes were dark, I still felt the love you had towards your father. I like the whole Pufi and Pandele saga. From when your dad first introduced Pufi, to your current dog Pandele. That whole latter part of the performance was epic.
-Sam, Wall Street Budget Analyst
Ella Veres's show is delightful – by turns hilarious and moving. Her down-to-earth style fosters a strong connection with the audience as she weaves a narrative about her much-loved animal companions and her recollections of family life in Romania. Unusual and heartfelt. See it!
-Camille Tibaldeo, Fountain House Gallery Communications Advisor