Synergy Alert!

When “Olizzia” Met Intro to Lock-Picking

We at Knowledge Commons DC were thrilled to find out that playwright John Bavoso included us — specifically our Intro to Lock-Picking class — in his Capital Fringe Festival play “Olizzia.” In it, two straight BFFs, Lizzie and Olivia, surprise themselves by sleeping together while on vaycay. This raises many questions for them, of lust, love, sexuality and soulmate-hood. We talked to John about KCDC’s cameo, which is among the many good reasons to see his show!

How does Intro to Lock-Picking fit into the plot?
“Olizzia” takes place entirely within a hotel in Rio de Janeiro. Lizzie and Olivia have had something very important taken from them and, being the headstrong ladies they are, decide to take it upon themselves to go searching for it, using the lock-busting skills one of them learned at a KCDC class. You’ll have to come see for yourself how that works out for them!

How did you hear about KCDC? Are there any KCDC classes you particularly enjoyed?
I found out about KCDC a while back from a friend who went on a walking tour and posted all of his photos on Facebook. Then I started taking classes and was totally hooked, and have been spreading it around to everyone I know — I work in the Editorial department at LivingSocial, and have alerted quite a few of my editors to your writing/editing classes.

The class that sticks out most in my mind is a class on political theatre led by John Feffer — who is bringing his sixth show to Fringe this year — that I took long before I’d even considered writing or a producing a play (“Olizzia” is my very first for both), so you could definitely say that KCDC has played a major role in getting me to this point!

If you could pick any lock in the world, what would it be?
Oh man, that’s a tough one! I’m going to cheat and pick two: First, I just saw the incredible play “Buyer & Cellar” at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. It’s about the crazy, real-life basement that Barbra Streisand built under her Malibu home to hold her extra tchotchkes and is set up like a mall, so now I’m extremely curious about that. Second, as I’m an avid unicorn fan (hence the name Unicorn Wrangler Theatre Company), I would say the door to Lisa Frank‘s headquarters.