When four friends become entangled with the drudgery of middle age, their messy pursuit of fulfillment leads to comic calamity in Shit Cake! Adulthood never tasted so bad.
Cassandra and Mimi are friends. Cassandra is married to Aaron and sleeping with Roland. Mimi is married to Roland and sleeping with Aaron. Each woman deals with existential questions of womanhood — Cassandra feeling empty because her twin children are now at college, and she feels abandoned, while Mimi is in early motherhood and feeling like she’s lost her sense of self. Each woman tries to fill the void in their lives by having affairs, but more harm than good follows. And then there’s the men. Aaron didn’t follow his dreams, so he pines for Mimi — the one that got away — and Roland feels trapped in the provider role. Each man takes his dissatisfaction out through sex. Everyone is using each other, and everything gets complicated.
Marcia Eppich-Harris is the artistic director and founder of Southbank Theatre Company in Indianapolis. She holds a PhD in Shakespeare and Dramatic Literature and taught at the college level for over fifteen years. Her publications include plays, fiction, poetry, scholarship, interviews, and reviews. Her creative writing is influenced by the literature and history of the ancient Greeks and Romans, the British Medieval and Renaissance periods, and current events. Her writing focuses thematically on politics, philosophy, the arts, gender, family, and culture. Her ten minute plays have been produced nationwide and internationally, and 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.
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