NOW SHOWING
ABOUT THE SHOW:
Melanie is a very funny woman. Her job is literally to write the jokes, as a late-night TV writer. Oh, and by the way, her mom just died. Burning Mom follows one woman through the biggest gig of her comedy career…her mother’s sudden death. Will this comedian find the funny in navigating a parent’s death?
Coming to the 2025 IndyFringe, 20th Anniversary festival, is Indianapolis playwright, Casey Ross’s first solo play! This new play also marks Catalyst’s fourteenth IndyFringe original play. We are thrilled to return to IndyFringe and celebrate this milestone of Fringe with a show that hopes to be an exciting and welcome depature for our company.
Burning Mom premires at IndyFringe 2025 with 6 shows, August 14th-24th. Showing at The District Cabaret / IndyFringe Venue 3.
MORE TO COME!
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT:
Casey Ross is an Indianapolis-based theatre producer and playwright, most known for her Fringe festival one-act plays. An alumna of Hanover College, Ross also works as a theatrical director and designer. Her most notable Indianapolis directing credits inculde: Starmites (2023), A Streetcar Named Desire (2023), Taming of the Shrew (2017), Sam Shepard’s Tooth of Crime (2017), Coriolanus (2016), Equus (2016), and The Diviners (2016).
As a student, Ross earned notice at Hanover College’s President Honors the Arts Awards for her accomplishments in playwrighting, inculding the selection of her play, Here’s To…, as part of Louisville’s site-specific theatre company, Specific Gravity’s Elevator Plays Project (More Info). She was also a receipient of the Dr. Tom Evans Emerging Artist Grant, allowing her to produce her first IndyFringe play, Gallery. Shortly after graduation, Ross was invited to return to Hanover’s Campus for the premire of her full-length play, Slaying the Dragon – a trip made possible through a generous sponsorship from one of Ross’s favorite playwright’s, fellow Hanover graduate, Jim Leonard, Jr.
Recently, Ross has enjoyed critical acclaim for her play, Bat in the Wind (Or A Recent Study on Depression & Addiction). Bat in the Wind first premiered at the 2023 IndyFringe Festival, and later returned, in 2024, at the IF Theatre, as an extended 90-minute version. “It’s a performance that I will long remember for its honesty in portraying characters keenly fleshed out by homegrown Ross, who has the potential to become one of the leading voices in the American Theatre.”, wrote ‘On the Asile’s,’ Tom Alvarez. Ross has also been spending time as a speaker, activties director, and panelist for a wide variety of organizations inculding: The Indiana Drama Club, Indiana Playwright’s Circle, The Shawnee Summer Theatre’s Children’s Theatre Camp, The Orchard School, and more.
Other plays by Ross inculde her Geeky Press published trilogy of plays – The Gallery Trilogy, Copyright/Safe, The Tortillo! Trilogy, and Hell’s 4th Ring [The Mall Musical] – a musical-comedy penned with Catalyst Repertory co-founder, Dave Pelsue.
