Actress Vivian Nesbitt will perform her award winning solo play “The Bark and The Tree” for The Best of the Fest Encore celebrating United Solo Festival’s 10th Anniversary on Friday September 20th starting 7:30PM at Theatre Row Studio Theatre (410 W. 42nd Street). “The Bark & The Tree” received Best Documentary Play and Best Lighting Design for its New York premiere at United Solo in 2013. Lee Kitts directs Vivian’s alternately humorous and profound journey during the play.

Fatherless from the age of 12, Vivian and her sister were the last living descendants of Irish poet and provocateur journalist Mary Eva Kelly who wrote patriotic verse for a revolutionist 19th century newspaper, becoming known as “Eva of The Nation”.The stuff of family legend, Eva resolutely waited seven years for her rebellious fiance to return from imprisonment during Ireland’s Great Hunger of 1848. Considering her more contemporary family history of alcoholism, depression and suicide Vivian was eager not to follow suit. In search of a different legacy she ventures to County Galway Ireland aiming to forge a connection with her feisty great, great grandmother. “The Bark & The Tree” bends time and space allowing Vivian to perceive a future she never imagined.