Don’t let the title fool you… Shit Cake by Marcia Eppich-Harris

Southbank Theatre Company offers world premiere of Shit Cake, August 16-25 at the IndyFringe Festival

INDIANAPOLIS—Southbank Theatre Company commences its fourth season with the world premiere of Shit Cake by Marcia Eppich-Harris. Shit Cake is Southbank’s first entry into the annual IndyFringe Theatre Festival. Tickets are now on sale.  

What: Shit Cake by Marcia Eppich-Harris

Where: Everwise Stage (Venue 2, formerly known as the Indy Eleven Stage).

When: August 16 at 8pm, August 22 at 6:30pm, and August 25 at 6:30pm. (3 performances only!)

Tickets: General Admission: $22, Students/Seniors: $16. Buy in advance online or at the door. Eligible for rush ticketing, 30 minutes prior to performance.

Written and directed by Marcia Eppich-Harris, Shit Cake is about four friends who become entangled with the drudgery of middle age. In their messy pursuit of fulfillment, they face the existential question of modern life: Is this all there really is?

“To me,” Marcia Eppich-Harris said, “Shit Cake is about relationships that we take for granted, along with the societal demands put upon us individually. Each character is frustrated with the world and their place in it, and each addresses their dissatisfaction through sex and infidelity, but it doesn’t really solve anything. In fact, it just makes matters worse.”

Set in Silicon Valley in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Shit Cake is an existential exploration of what it means to be middle class in America, and how keeping up with the Joneses impacts our relationships, our satisfaction with life, and the pervasive isolation of our tech-connected world.

“I lived in Silicon Valley during the Great Recession, and there were a lot of mental health problems that people were dealing with,” Eppich-Harris said. “The stress of the financial crisis impacted a lot of people I knew, and I thought it was maybe a tipping point that caused unhealthy behaviors – cheating, drinking too much, and other risky stuff. That whole era was kind of a nightmare.”

Starring Yolanda Valdivia as Cassandra, Anthony Nathan as Aaron, Brant Hughes as Roland, Alaine Sims as Mimi, and Eric Bryant as John, the cast includes veteran Southbank actors as well as new faces.

“I couldn’t be more excited to work with this cast,” Eppich-Harris said. “They are making both emotional and philosophical connections between these characters that elevate this play beyond its campy title into a true work of art.”

“Don’t let the title fool you,” Eppich-Harris said. “This play has big ideas and big heart.”

Shit Cake will have three performances only at the IndyFringe Theatre Festival: August 16, 22, and 25.

If you wish to review a performance, please request up to two complimentary tickets at [email protected].

About Marcia Eppich-Harris

Marcia Eppich-Harris is the artistic director and founder of Southbank Theatre Company. She holds a PhD in Shakespeare and Dramatic Literature and taught at the college level for over sixteen years. Her publications include plays, fiction, poetry, scholarship, interviews, and reviews. Her writing focuses thematically on politics, philosophy, the arts, gender, family, and culture. Her ten-minute plays have been produced nationwide and internationally, with “Aloha Apocalypse” published in The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2022 (Smith and Kraus). Local performances of her full-length plays include Seneca and the Soul of Nero, The Profession, her musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, for which she wrote the music and lyrics, and Seeking Nietzsche, which was named the most impressive production of a drama by Daniel Shock in 2023. The Profession (2023) and Seneca and the Soul of Nero (2024) were both published by Next Stage Press.