Showtimes & Tickets
Pay-What-You-Can Tickets! The suggested ticket price is $25, but you choose your price. To make live theater accessible, we’re selling tickets for this show through a pay-what-you-can model. Each dollar over $25 helps include someone who can't afford it, while allowing us to pay the artists & staff and cover the cost of running our theater.
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June 24 (Tue) 2025: 7:00 pm
About the Show
An homage to the style and spirit of the Great Age of Vaudeville with slapstick comedy, tight harmonies and celestial charades!
Five versatile players breathe new life into classic old routines, from a ventriloquist’s dummy to a magic act that goes awry, from novelty songs to a puppet Pierrot, a musical saw to waiters juggling meatballs, all with full live “foley” sound effects! This show is teeming with hijinks, harmonies, nostalgic beauty, and physical comedy. Something for everyone and family friendly! Happenstance Theater brings old Vaudeville back!
Featuring: Mark Jaster, Sabrina Mandell, Gwen Grastorf, Sarah Olmsted Thomas, and Alex Vernon.
Enjoyed by all ages 5 to 95!
Ventriloquism, marionettes, humanettes, clowning, music, and hijinks!
Length: 75 min
Language: English
From Rockville, Maryland!
Trailer for Pocket Moxie!
About the Artists
The Washington City Paper says, “Happenstance Theater’s ensemble comedy is a gut-busting kind of funny.” The Washington Post describes our work as “visually striking and whimsical without being precious" and calls Happenstance Theater "DC’s leading peddler of whimsy.”
Happenstance Theater, founded in 2006, is a professional company committed to devising, producing and touring original, performer-created visual, poetic Theatre. Our ensemble has been developing work together since 2012. We are eclectically skilled artists who craft all aspects of our pieces from concept to realization. Under the Artistic co-Direction of Mark Jaster and Sabrina Mandell, we harvest imagery from the past and re-contextualize it in performances that address the universal themes of mortality and the ephemeral. With the simplest means — humor, whimsy, music, silence, text, physical comedy, object manipulation, vulnerability and generosity - we seek to elevate the moment when the performers and audience meet, to lift the encounter beyond the daily and pedestrian into the realms of dreams, poetry, and art. Meaning is often found by happenstance.
In 2016 Happenstance received three Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Ensemble, Outstanding Costume Design and Outstanding Lead Actor. In 2017 Happenstance received two Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Costume Design and Outstanding Musical Direction.
