Lotus, a college senior slogging through her third semester of COVID university, feels like she is slowly losing her mind. Whether staring down virtual med school entrance exams or the endlessness of the same day, every day, the walls of her small bedroom are closing in. A one-woman show written, directed, and performed by Gigi Cammaroto, Lotus: A Quarantine Story at this year’s District Fringe Festival gives audiences a lot to think about and even more to perceive.
From the perfectly on-theme seats of University of DC, the audience takes on the part of classroom witness and sometime
s lecture participant as Lotus struggles to keep up with the intellectual demands of her course load and the mental toll of the quarantine living treadmill — one where life was so repetitive and the future so just out of reach. A combination of spoken word, movement, and song, this short one-act play delivers a captivating performance. Cammaroto’s storytelling creates a rhythm of life that draws you in, layering the audio from her professors’ lectures with the music from her alarm clock and the spinning monologues of her mind.
For Lotus, the forced isolation is a blessing and a curse. It gives her distance from her future of medical school and graduation, but also from her mother and her social network, including her boyfriend. As the story unfolds, all good and bad seem to slip further and further from her grasp, even as she learns more — taking notes on a large whiteboard and even predicting the lessons of her teachers.
An interesting, intimate retrospective on the isolation and borderline insanity of our collective but separate COVID experience, Lotus: A Quarantine Story is a multi-sensory experience. Asking the audience to look, to see, and to perceive, this small but mighty one-act leaves you considering what you brought with yourself when we were all able to walk out the door again.
Lotus: A Quarantine Story
A solo performance by Gigi Cammaroto
Running Time: 45 minutes
Dates and Times:
- Saturday, July 12, 7:00p
- Sunday, July 13, 4:00p
- Friday, July 18, 9:15p
- Sunday, July 20, 4:15p
- Sunday, July 27, 5:30p
Venue: Phoenix – UDC Lecture Hall (44A03)
Tickets: $15
More Info and Tickets: Lotus: A Quarantine Story
Genre: Solo performance, drama
Written and performed by Gigi Cammaroto.
The complete 2025 District Fringe Festival schedule is online here.
The 2025 District Fringe Festival program is online here.
