Tellin’ Tales Theatre returns to Fillet of Solo for a sixth smash year with Potholes on the Path to Enlightenment. Four solo performers meditate on roads traveled and lessons learned against a backdrop of Hollywood Beach, a funeral, Sesame Street and Chicago’s Boystown. Tekki Lomnicki, Rob Schroeder, Maia Morgan and Matt Kerns tell tales of saints, painful estrangements, cephalopods and 4am bars. Tellin’ Tales flooded the Live Bait stage with 2001: A Wedding Odyssey, Blurred Vision, Blurred Vision: The Relapse, Body Language and Shrink. For more information go to www.tellintales.org.

SAINTS AND SINNERS—Tekki Lomnicki
Tekki Lomnicki scoffs at her mother's novena-crazed brand of Catholicism until she finds herself reborn on Hollywood Beach at the hands of a heavily tattooed John the Baptist.

OPEN CASKET—Rob Schroeder
Saying goodbye is never easy, especially when there are unresolved issues. Rob Schroeder gets a chance to come clean after a long estrangement.

AND NOW...THE OCTOPUS—Maia Morgan
Maia Morgan fearlessly investigates phenomena submerged beneath an ordinary day, including but not limited to cephalopods, Sesame Street, LSD, Ram Dass, quantum physics, Clash of the Titans and Esther Williams.

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE—Matt Kerns
A young man from a provincial upbringing wants one thing and one thing only, to get his freak on! Fast cars, gay bars and a hearse. Matt Kerns lives his dream to the fullest as a bonafide city boy, but what is that itch in the back of his brain?

Tekki Lomnicki is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Tellin’ Tales Theatre, a company dedicated to building community through storytelling. She co-wrote and starred in their first production, When Heck Was a Puppy: The Living Testimonies of Folk Artist Edna Mae Brice, Honor Thy Mother, Alchemy, Tall Tales & Small Miracles, Honor Thy Father, 2001: A Wedding Odyssey, Sibling Revelry, Detours Blurred Vision, Blurred Vision: The Relapse, Body Language and Shrink. Now in its eleventh year, her annual project Six Stories Up pairs six well-known storytellers with six middle school children in a mentoring program and subsequent production. Tekki also teaches drama to kids with and without disabilities for the After School Matters Connections Program and solo performance to adults at Victory Gardens. She most recently completed The Miracle, a film by Jeffrey Jon Smith and received an Illinois Arts Council Artists Fellowship in New Performance Forms.

Rob Schroeder returns to the stage after a five-year absence during which he completed his Master’s Degree in teaching. Currently, he is on faculty and co-lead educator of the Fine and Performing Arts Academy at Roberto Clemente Community Academy where he directed Marvin’s Room and adapted and directed two original works: Voices of the Fallen and Our Dreams, Our Words, Our Voices for which he won an Oppenheimer Incentive Grant. Regionally, he has appeared on stages in Utah, California, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri and Michigan before settling in Chicago. He has appeared on Chicago area stages with Theatre at the Center, Drury Lane Oak Brook, Lifeline Theatre, Porchlight Music Theatre and Victory Gardens.

Maia Morgan is delighted to be taking her magical third turn with Tekki, Tellin’ Tales and Live Bait’s Filet of Solo festival. She wrote and performed We Got Spirit!!! for last year’s Shrink and Looking at Naked Ladies for Body Language in 2006. A founding member of the theater company Running With Scissors, Maia appeared in The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon and Lysistrata and wrote as well as appeared in Breathing Underwater. Other writing credits include The Twelve Dancing Princesses for Evanston Children's Theater, and Sister, Sister, a collaboration with Ann Boyd, which was nominated for a Ruth Page Award. Maia has also performed with Redmoon, Collaboraction and Powertap Productions and collaborated with Tekki and others in Tellin’ Tales’ perennial Six Stories Up series.

Matthew Kerns is the Chair of the Theatre Program at The Chicago Academy for the Arts. He holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in performance theatre from Eastern New Mexico University. Recently, Matthew was featured in the original play, The Last Judgment by Michael Bassett playing Issac for 13Carat Productions. His solo credits include: A Quest for the Altar at the Dunes Resort, Christian Growth with Father Curver in Body Language and Chicken in Shrink, both with Tellin’ Tales at Live Bait. Matthew would like to thank Tekki for her friendship and artistic fellowship as well as his Mom, Dad, Sister, and the boys. He feels truly blessed.