THE BARK & THE TREE Selected For Best Of Fest Encore At United Solo Festival 2019

Actress Vivian Nesbitt will perform her award winning solo play "The Bark and The Tree" for The Best of the Fest Encore celebrating United Solo Festival's 10th Anniversary on Friday September 20th starting 7:30PM at Theatre Row Studio Theatre. "The Bark & The Tree" received Best Documentary Play and Best Lighting Design for its New York premiere at United Solo in 2013. Lee Kitts directs Vivian's alternately humorous and profound journey during the play.

Fatherless from the age of 12, Vivian and her sister were the last living descendants of Irish poet and provocateur journalist Mary Eva Kelly who wrote patriotic verse for a revolutionist 19th century newspaper, becoming known as "Eva of The Nation".The stuff of family legend, Eva resolutely waited seven years for her rebellious fiance to return from imprisonment during Ireland's Great Hunger of 1848. Considering her more contemporary family history of alcoholism, depression and suicide Vivian was eager not to follow suit. In search of a different legacy she ventures to County Galway Ireland aiming to forge a connection with her feisty great, great grandmother. "The Bark & The Tree" bends time and space allowing Vivian to perceive a future she never imagined.

Vivian Nesbitt is a third generation actor with theater credits that include Candida at Roundabout Theater, The Diary of Anne Frank at George Street Playhouse, The Steward of Christiandom at the Pittsburgh Public, Dancing at Lughnasa at The Barnstormers and most recently as Kent in King Lear for Saratoga Shakespeare Company. On television she's had co star roles on Breaking Bad, Longmire, The Night Shift, Manhattan,Law and Order: SVU and The Messengers.

Her short film Leverage was an official selection of the NMWIF Film Fiesta garnering her an award for best performance. In 2016 she was invited to perform "The Bark & The Tree" for the prestigious Los Angeles Women's Theater Festival. Vivian is currently touring Si Kahn's musical "Mother Jones in Heaven" in which she portrays the legendary labor organizer and activist Mary "Mother" Harris Jones.

Director Lee Kitts theater career spans over forty years. In addition to "The Bark & The Tree" her recent directing credits include Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing and Arian Zeller's The Father at Vortex Theater and Burn This at Aux Dog Theatre Nob Hill. She is slated to direct a revival of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls in the summer of 2020.

The Bark & The Tree will be presented as part of United Solo Festival 2019 at Theatre Row Studio Theatre (410 West 42nd Street between 8th and 9th Avenues). Tickets are $45. For tickets go to www.telecharge.com or call (212) 239-6200. Also go to http://unitedsolo.org/us/2019-thebark/ for further information.