Theatre alumna stars in world premiere of New Orleans playwright Kate Bailey's "Pleading 894"

Monica R. Harris '07 will star in the role of Camille for the World Premiere of New Orleans playwright Kate Bailey's "Pleading 894" on April 21, 2016 at the University of New Orleans' Robert E. Nims Theatre. For Camille, her home of Louisiana is a complicated association, seemingly the same source and solution for all her present problems. She arrives back to live in Louisiana after living in New York for years with a huge chip on her shoulder about it. Why is she back after all this time? She has to complete court-mandated punishment for a DWI she received the last time she was visiting home. As Camille tries to complete her punishment, she grapples with her relationship to alcohol, as issues of family alienation and deep loneliness bubble to the surface, forcing her both towards alcohol and away from it. She finds a friend in Brittany, a charming and bold girl from Chalmette, who shares Camille’s fondness for fun and drinking. But as she gets further and deeper into the Louisiana drinking lifestyle, can Camille really toe the line between a good time and too much? This universal story is about every young girl who started drinking too early in Louisiana’s lax culture and the emotional consequences of having to accept where you came from while at the same time rejecting the parts that have kept you from growing up.

Monica R. Harris is a SAG-E and Big Easy Award Nominated actor, director, and classically trained singer with a bachelor of arts in Theatre Arts from Loyola University New Orleans. She has performed with The Murder Mystery Company (National), is a promotional model with 24-Seven (NYC), is a freelance event promoter (NOLA), and co-produced and co-starred with fellow theatre artist and actor, Matt Story, in Christopher Shinn's Dying City at the formerly known Shadowbox Theatre in 2014. Monica's directorial debut in 2010 was This Property is Condemned at New Orleans' most historic playhouse, Le Petit Théâtre Du Vieux Carré's then-Muriel's Cabaret (Cripple Creek Theatre Co., Tennessee Williams Literary Festival).

Her credits include, Stage: Abraham Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party (Rockfire Theatre), The Winter's Tale (The NOLA Project), The Cradle Will Rock (Cripple Creek), STRAYS (Generate INK), Red Light One Acts Festival (Drowning in Blue), Tropical Medicine (Second Star Performance Collective, Two For Tennessee), Maria Kizito (Soulographie/ArtSpot), The Mountaintop (Anthony Bean Community Theatre), Clybourne Park (Cripple Creek), Film: Lafcadio Hearn Documentary (Untitled) (Big in Japan Productions), Ultra (UNO Film Festival), Crossroads (UNO Film Festival), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Fox), and TV/Web: Sunken City (CookiePig), The Colony: Season 2 (Discovery), Queen-Sized (Liftetime). When she's not performing or seeing plays, she's selling beautiful one-of-a-kind treasures at the Magazine St. location of Grandmother's Buttons, an independently owned antique button/vintage glass jewelry, apparel, and gifts boutique.