ABOUT CALENDAR TICKETS FLEA TEAM

Two Plays. Two Voices. One Unforgettable Evening.

Step into a world where unspoken truths meet unapologetic courage. Sugarcoated by Jen Ponton and The Longer My Mother is Dead the More I Like Her by Deborah Unger offer a powerful evening of theater that speaks to the heart of what it means to reclaim your voice, your truth, and your power.

In Sugarcoated, Jen Ponton takes you on an intimate, immersive journey through the sweet facade women are forced to wear, only to reveal the raw, untamed humanity beneath. With sharp humor and aching vulnerability, this is a story of trauma, survival, and the liberation that comes when you finally spit out the sugar.

Deborah Unger’s The Longer My Mother is Dead the More I Like Her dives into the bittersweet complexities of a mother-daughter relationship that doesn’t end with death. With wit and poignancy, Unger wrestles with the echoes of a mother’s voice—sometimes hectoring, sometimes haunting—as she reclaims her sense of self in the aftermath of a lifetime battle for love and understanding.

Both plays ask the question: How do you find your voice when the world—and even the people closest to you—demand you silence it? Together, these stories peel back layers of sweetness and suppression to reveal the raw power of women who refuse to shrink.

For anyone who has ever felt unseen, unheard, or unworthy, this is your invitation to witness an evening of truth-telling, heart-mending, and voice-liberating theater. It’s funny. It’s heartbreaking. It’s real. And it’s exactly what you need right now.

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THE FLEA OFF-BROADWAY

The Flea is an off-Broadway powerhouse where bold voices and radical stories take center stage. Celebrating Black, brown, and queer artistry, The Flea curates groundbreaking works that redefine theater’s boundaries. With a fearless commitment to pushing societal norms, The Flea invites audiences to experience performances that provoke, inspire, and ignite conversations long after the curtain falls. **thenewflea.org**

🟢 4,5,6 to Canal Street
🟡 N,R,W to City Hall
🔴 2,3 to Park Place
🟤 J,Z to Chambers St

The Flea is 4-5 blocks north of City Hall on 20 Thomas Street, between Broadway and Church.

THE CREATIVE TEAM

JEN PONTON (writer/performer)

Jen Ponton makes her triumphant return to the New York stage with Sugarcoated, her autobiographical solo show, in its New York premiere. Last seen off-Broadway in Halley Feiffer’s How To Make Friends and then Kill Them (Rattlestick, 2013), Jen has spent the past decade building a vibrant career in film and television. Highlights include Dietland,30 Rock,The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,Orange is the New Black,Law & Order: SVU, and Blue Bloods, among many others. Jen also starred in Ash Christian’s Love on the Run, alongside Frances Fisher, Annaleigh Ashford, and Steve Howey. She has since appeared in Rebecca Miller’s She Came to Me and Todd Solondz’s Wiener-Dog, opposite Greta Gerwig and Kieran Culkin.

Off-screen, Jen is a passionate creator. Her works include the storytelling podcast All the Fucks with co-host Lillian Bustle, a nostalgia-packed puppet sitcom, and her TEDx Talk, “Hollywood’s Fatphobia Problem.” Her collaboration with Sugarcoated director Tessa Slovis began with Tessa’s film Pizza Party, wherein the two found an immediate connection through their commitment to bold activism through storytelling. Explore more about Sugarcoated at jenponton.com.

DEBORAH UNGER (writer/performer)

Deborah Unger’s artistic journey has been as dynamic as it is enduring. She began her career with dreams of musical comedy stardom, crafting and performing cabaret shows in the vibrant Village scene. From there, she transitioned to film and television, debuting in Ragtime and continuing with roles in 911: Lone Star, FBI: Most Wanted, and her personal favorite, Olga, the Penguin’s Russian maid in Gotham. Her film credits include acclaimed projects such as Motherless Brooklyn, Eighth Grade, and the Oscar-winning Birdman.

Now, Deborah has returned to her theater roots with The Longer My Mother is Dead the More I Like Her, a deeply personal work 15 years in the making (with a healthy dose of self-therapy along the way). After its successful debut at the Spark Theatre Festival, Deborah brings this poignant and darkly funny piece to The Flea Theatre for its off-Broadway premiere. deborah-unger.com

TESSA SLOVIS (Director, Sugarcoated)

Tessa Slovis is an Actor, Director and Educator. She is a proud alumna of Barnard College at Columbia University and received her MFA in Acting from the University of Southern California- where she now teaches as a Professor of acting, film and digital media. She began acting professionally at the age of 9, and has performed Off-Broadway and regionally over the past 20 years.

Tessa has appeared in recurring and guest star roles on The Walking Dead:The Ones Who Lived, Grey’s Anatomy, New Amsterdam and Law and Order: SVU as well as Cooper Raiff’s SXSW winning feature, Shithouse. During her time as a MFA candidate, Tessa wrote her short film Pizza Party, a magic realist retelling of the night before the Larry Nassar trials began. Pizza Party went on to screen at 25 national, international and academy-qualifying film festivals. It was awarded special Jury Mention at the Ashland Film Festival, the Female Gaze award at the Portland Film Festival, as well as nominations at Academy Qualifying Florida Film Festival, Indy Shorts, Cinequest and Rhode Island Film Festival. Her 3 subsequent films have screened at festivals around the country and she is currently in development to direct her first feature.

Most recently, Tessa directed Luis Alfaro's award winning Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles with the MFA and BA theater students at Cal State Los Angeles. After a hit run at the Denver Fringe Festival this past summer, Tessa is ecstatic to once again be directing actress Jen Ponton in her poignant solo play Sugarcoated at The Flea Theater. She is forever motivated to create art with a strong center in activism. Tessa spends her "off" time developing work with screenwriters and has an insatiable passion for producing and directing female and queer led storytelling. tessahopeslovis.com

DOMINICK LARUFFA, JR. (Director, Mother)

Dominick recently wrapped the Off-Broadway world premiere of ‘TIL Death starring opposite Tony winners Judy Kaye and Robert Cuccioli, just after doing double duty—simultaneously leading the world premiere of Powerhouse (A.R.T NY) Off-Broadway and producing The Kite Runner on Broadway. Dom is most commonly known for his film and television work with more recent credits including Paul on the long running hit CBS/Paramount+ legal drama Bull, a recurring role on Gravesend (Amazon), the Martin Scorsese epic The Irishman (Netflix), and soon to be co-starring in the psychological thriller feature, Abandoned Heights.

His work as a Broadway producer has garnered him six Tony award nominations. Favorites include: All The Way, You Can’t Take It With You, On The Town, Deaf West Theatre’s Revival of Spring Awakening, The Realistic Joneses, China Doll, Six Degrees of Separation, American Son, The Lifespan of a Fact, and Betrayal. bluecollarartiststudio.com

Alex Finger (Producer)

Alex Finger is a producer, actor, singer, emcee, public speaker about body liberation, and is better known as burlesque performer Lillian Bustle! She’s also the co-host of the long-running podcast All The Fucks, a podcast about caring too much, with Jen Ponton.

As a public speaker, Alex has presented on the topics of intersectional feminism, fat discrimination, and body image to institutions across the country. Messages from her TEDx talk “Stripping Away Negative Body Image” have been shared by millions worldwide, and she has been profiled by media outlets like Refinery 29 and People.com. She also teaches workshops that explore movement and body awareness through the lens of Burlesque performance.

With her producer hat on, this gal has been making live events happen since 2014, most recently Bounce House: A Burlesque Celebration of Body Abundance at Lincoln Center.

A late-blooming queer woman with a complicated relationship with her dead mother, Alex feels a special connection with both shows in Maiden Mother Crone. lillianbustle.com

HAYLEY GARCIA PARNELL (Lighting Designer)

Hayley Garcia Parnell (she/they) is a nonbinary Chicana lighting designer for theatre and dance from Colorado, currently based in Harlem. Credits include New York: She Kills Monsters (AADA), The 2 Queers a Lesbian Meets at the Home Depot (A.R.T. NY), Pass Over (14th StY), Más que un Pétalo (The Brick), Keen Teens Festival of New York (Keen Company at Theatre Row), Gidion's Knot (the Chain), and Friends With Amenities (59E59). Regional: Misery, Sanctuary City, Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson #2B (Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble), Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, The Last Five Years (Princeton Summer Theatre). hayleygarciaparnell.com

CHELSEA RODRIGUEZ (Stage Manager)

Chelsea is an NYC-based non-binary performer whose background can best be described as a bohemian artist. A professional dancer with 20+ years of experience, they also take the stage as an actor, shadowcast performer, and their drag persona Cross Beaux. Their most recent production was Starkid's Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizier, working as head choreographer and playing several featured roles to sold-out audiences at the Vino Theatre. They also recently performed in the production of Your Faithful Reader, directed by Miriam Wasmund, which performed numerous sold-out shows at the Teatro LATEA. They are also a board member and Production Manager for Fork the Odds Productions.

DARIELLE SHANDLER (Board Op)

Darielle Shandler is a stage manager, light designer, and playwright. Selected credits: Cabaret Noir (SM, Happenstance Theater Company at Baltimore Theatre Project); The Bridges of Madison County (SM, Texas Shakespeare Festival); Jacqueline Novak’s Get on Your Knees (Sub SM, Lucille Lortel); Canarsie (Director, NYTF SummerFest); Doruntine (SM, Blessed Unrest + Teatri Oda, Secondo Theaterfestival in Zurich, Switzerland). Her original play, Don’t Make It Weird, premiered in Portland, Maine, at Deering High School. Outside of the theatre, she is a proud member of the operations team at the community service nonprofit, Repair the World. www.darielleshandler.com