by Sierra Camille

It is almost time for Rogue Festival again–it will be taking place March 6-14 in the Tower District of Fresno. Throughout the month of February we will be publishing many Rogue Festival performer preview articles, and this the second one so far. This year we have added a special category where you will be able to find all of our Rogue Festival articles. During Rogue we will be reviewing shows as usual, and we also have a Rogue Festival event page with more information!

Sierra Camille is thrilled to be bringing her solo performance of The Miss American Dream Show to Fresno as a part of this year’s Rogue Festival starting on Friday, March 6, at the Vista Theater. Sierra hails from Oakland, California, and began writing and devising this original solo work with Dan Griffiths in the Spring of 2019 in San Francisco’s Clown Lab basement.

Sierra Camille has been doing two things since she was very little: enticing people to watch her and bringing people together. Now in her adult years she has taken on two identities that commonly describe these things: professional performer and community organizer. Sounds pretty fancy, right? Another fancy title Sierra holds is a BFA in Theater Performance from Southern Oregon University alongside a Certificate in Nonprofit Management. The Miss American Dream Show is Sierra’s way of bringing these two passions together, weaving hilarious physical performance with political satire. The Miss American Dream Show is Sierra Camille’s debut of an original full length solo performance, and it’s certainly not the last you’ll be seeing of her!

Sierra Camille

Here’s what she has to say about the show.

It’s no secret that America’s political climate at this moment in time is outrageous. With a racist (to put it nicely) president, a new member of the Supreme Court who’s a sexual offender, and mass shootings becoming the norm, our country has many reasons to not be quite in solidarity with each other. The Miss American Dream Show invites audiences to laugh at the absurdity of our current world while also thinking about what is actually going on.

It was said to me once by a director, “political theater isn’t created to change people’s minds; it’s created to bring people together and encourage them to rise up and use their voice.” This could not ring more true for me. Upon performing one small section of The Miss American Dream Show in Texas, half the audience loudly left mid-performance. It was a jarring experience, but we stuck it out onstage and finished the show. The remaining audience, who had sat through the painful moments of truck doors slamming and loud phone calls, thanked me profusely for the performance. They were clearly embarrassed by the other audience members, trying to quickly separate themselves, assuring me those folks “weren’t from around here” mentioning how they certainly “had never seen them before.” I witnessed as these people, the ones who were united in their beliefs and their desire to create a welcoming world, grew instantly close. They felt more confident in their own views not only because I had represented them onstage, but because they had sat together in the audience and now become friends.

The Miss American Dream Show exists because we all need to laugh. There’s no other way to cope with the constant bombardment of extreme news alerts and unnerving direction the world is drifting towards each day. We also need to learn. We must take time to understand what’s happening, how our world is being controlled, and what is making it turn.

It’s not new to create a dystopian story. Artists have been creating worlds of ultimate despair for centuries, but they are being updated all the time. Miss American Dream is able to relate our current woes of feeling helpless and confused from a contemporary standpoint that involves social media and the constant bombardment to do more now.

I hope this show provides audiences with a bit of relief and release from the daunting politics we unknowingly hold in our brains every minute. With that release, I encourage people to speak up and reach out about topics that are important to them. If we can laugh together, we can act together.

You can learn more about Sierra Camille at www.sierracamille.com and more about the Rogue Festival at www.fresnoroguefestival.com.

See The Miss American Dream Show at The Vista Theater Friday, March 6, at 10 p.m., Saturday, March 7, at 5 p.m., Sunday March 8, at 3:30 p.m., Friday, March 13, at 5:30 p.m., Saturday March 14, at 8 p.m.

If you love local theatre, be sure to check out Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast, which features mysteries read by local actors. You can find the podcast on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Play, and also on Podbean.

Check out more theatre reviews & other local entertainment articles in our Arts & Entertainment section.