If you love coffee, red heads, and “showiscals,” you will fall in love with Confessions of a Red Headed Coffee Shop Girl. Directed by Michael Rubinstein, the solo show starts in a cute coffee shop in the Toronto area. Acclaimed Canadian performer, Rebecca Perry plays a feisty, yet lovable red-head named, Joanie Little, a twenty-something graduate working as a barista to pay off her debt.
We’ve all been there, but instead of letting the rude customers, drug addicted co-workers, and a micro-managing boss get the best of her, Joanie decides to embrace the learning experience. She has customers yelling at her about their lactose-free lilac lattes, passive aggressive co-workers leaving notes, and then there’s the boss’s brother who thinks he can get away with everything. Joanie seems to take it all in stride, documenting everything like her favorite anthropologist, Jane Goodall. My favorite part is when Joanie gets into that all too familiar situation when you see your ex coming, so you run and hide.
To break up the dialogue, Joanie breaks out in song, singing a few of my favorite hits from Ella Fitzgerald and Rufus Wrainright. Her voice is charming and it adds the perfect amount of emotion to the show. Everything comes to a head with Joanie when her crush, who’s been leaving special notes for her, leaves a final note.
Confessions of a Red Headed Coffee Shop Girl left me reminiscing about my journey to New York to pursue my dream. It’s an entertaining look inside the after-college life when you have to learn to compromise but not settle.
Confessions of a Red Headed Coffee Shop Girl is part of the Frigid New York Festival and playing at Under St. Marks. Please visit www.FRIGIDnewyork.info for show times and ticket info.
