Stabby Stab Stab was co-produced with the company Special When Lit for the 2022 Twin Cities Horror Festival and remounted for the 2023 Minnesota Fringe Festival. It was built for the Crane Studio for nightly audiences of 40 and featured live music and projections.
The haunting soundtrack is available on our Bandcamp page.
Two pre-teens are compelled to serve a modern monster; an eyeless watcher whose price for loyalty is blood. In the age of electronic loneliness, how far would you go for friendship? Stabby Stab Stab examines recent true-life happenings in nearby Waukesha, Wisconsin.
The haunting soundtrack is available on our Bandcamp page.
Two pre-teens are compelled to serve a modern monster; an eyeless watcher whose price for loyalty is blood. In the age of electronic loneliness, how far would you go for friendship? Stabby Stab Stab examines recent true-life happenings in nearby Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Photo by Ryan Lear. Design by Amber Bjork.
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Featuring:
Kayla Dvorak Feld as Anissa Nissa Nordland as Morgan Musicians: Sam Landman and Derek Lee Miller Written by Nissa Nordland Morgan Directed by Amber Bjork Music direction by Derek Lee Miller Projections and design by Amber Bjork Blood effects by Nissa Nordland Morgan Lighting design, stage management, and general magic by André Johnson, Jr. |
Production photos by Dan Norman |
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critical praise
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Stabby Stab Stab enjoyed a sold-out run during its preimere at the 2022 Twin Cities Horror Fest.
~ Cherry and Spoon calls Stabby Stab Stab "a dark and creepy, yet sad and lovely tale," noting that "written by SWL's Nissa Nordland and directed by TWSO's Amber Bjork, it really is the perfect blend of the former company's wild sense of fun and the latter's meticulous and thoughtful attention to detail." ~ Selected Fringe Audience comments: "I loved everything about this show." "Love to see someone writing a script about a news event while also focusing on themes of adolescence, loneliness, and the internet." 'Kayla and Nissa are PHENOMENAL." "Really good exploration into how fragile and impressionable a young unstable mind can be." "Spooktacular!" "Might be the best Fringe show I've ever seen." "The music was an amazing accompaniment to build the tension." "After the show I read up on the actual story and I become more and more impressed with how Anissa and Morgan were brought to life on stage." "This collaboration couldn’t have worked better." "The acting was spot on and just fantastic." "Tragic, but eye-opening." "This play speaks to the kind of vulnerability and loneliness there simply are not words for." "Great care was clearly taken to try and understand Morgan and Anissa." "Super engaging." "The music by Derek and Sam was perfect and added a gloomy atmosphere to everything." "I appreciated the dignity they gave to these two real people, without excusing their behavior." "Slenderman doesn't have to be real for this story to be haunting." "This show does everything right." "It is lightening in a bottle and you should not miss this amazing show." You can read more Fringe Audience reviews here. ~ "What do you get from the two best Fringe companies in Minnesota? An amazing production of course! Chilling, well acted and written, and definitely a must-see!" -- Brian Stepanek ~ " I closed my Fringe experience by watching “Stabby Stab Stab” at The Crane Theatre in Minneapolis. I saved the best for last. In my thirty six years as an actor and the last 20 years as a playwright, never have I seen anything on the stage so truly authentic, aware and sensitive to rarely spoken matters of the heart." -- Krista Johnson |
Photo by Dan Norman.
A NOTE
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Stabby Stab Stab is based on a true event, “the Slender Man Stabbing”, that happened in 2014 in Waukesha, WI. One of my favorite parts of writing a play is the research process, and it's in the details that I find inspiration. I drilled down into the interviews with the girls, watched the recordings of the police interrogations after the event, researched Bella's survival story, read transcripts of the girls' emails to each other, looked at Morgan’s art, and read snippets of her stories. It became clear that this story was about more than violent preteen crime. Stabby Stab Stab is about the horror of adolescence. It’s about loneliness. Isolation. Delusion and belief. Undiagnosed mental illness. It’s about young friendship, the kind you build your world around, the kind you feel you can’t live without. And yes, it is also about Slenderman.
In this play, you will hear a blend of my words with quotes from Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weir. It was important to me to have truth in their voices. For example, Morgan wrote a short story about the Grim Reaper meeting the love of his life, a female murderess with rainforest green eyes. I didn’t have the full story; I read a quote about the Grim Reaper feeling “dizzy in the chest” after meeting the murderess. So I used that information as a prompt and wrote a story. Many have tried to simplify this event by demonizing Anissa and Morgan. However, I find it much more powerful to embrace them for who they were, the good and the bad, and navigate their descent into darkness. Though I don't condone what they did, Anissa and Morgan were not evil. They were children. And that is the most horrific part. In 2021, Anissa was conditionally released from prison. She is 20 years old. She could be sitting beside you. --Nissa Norland Morgan THANK YOU: Brian Hesser, Ryan Lear, MJ Leffler, Derek Lee Miller, Jenny Moeller, Zach Morgan, Liz Neerland, John Nordland, Shawn Biggins, Dan Norman, Crane Theater, Shakespearean Youth Theatre, Cherry & Spoon, Twin Cities Horror Festival, and Minnesota Fringe. |
bios
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Amber Bjork
Director/Co-Producer/Projection Designer Amber is the founding member of The Winding Sheet Outfit as well as a Twin Cities-based actor and director. She has directed almost all of the productions in TWSO's history, as well as several productions for Theatre Pro Rata (i.e. By the Bog of Cats, Elephant's Graveyard) as well as companies like Sandbox Theater, Theatre Unbound, Freshwater Theatre, Tedious Brief Productions, and others. She has performed with all of these companies as well as Transatlantic Love Affair, Nimbus Theatre, Guthrie Theatre, and others. Amber was a 2018 MN Theater Awards Honoree in Exceptional Performative Direction for TWSOs The Memory Box of the Sisters Fox and was named one of the 2019 Artists of the Year by CityPages for her work with The Winding Sheet Outfit. But in 2020, Shanan Custer named her a "magical person" and Amber considers this her greatest honor to date. This is her sixth year directing TWSO for Fringe (The Memory Box of the Sisters Fox, Blood Nocturne, You Are Cordially Invited to the Life and Death of Edward Lear, The Darger Project aka The Darger Project, Årsgång: What You Follow Follows You) and she is excited to remount this first collaboration with Special When Lit!!! Upcoming, she'll be directing TWSO for their fifth Twin Cities Horror Fest production (And What Alice Found there, When Your Love Sets You On Fire, Blood Nocturne, Stabby Stab Stab), a remount of the show she helped to create with Derek Lee Miller and Sandbox theater for the 2014 Minnesota Fringe: Marie-Jenne Valet Who Defeated La Bete du Gevaudan. Weird or Nerdy thing you were obsessed with as a kid: I watched Sesame Street through high school. What can I say? I was obsessed with Muppets. Still am. Favorite monster: Cookie Monster. Nissa Nordland Morgan Morgan/Writer/Co-Producer/Blood Captain Nissa Nordland is an actor, writer, producer and musician in the Twin Cities. She is the Artistic Director of the Twin Cities Horror Festival; founder of Special When Lit; company member of Theatre Pro Rata; member of the Playwright's Cabal and an alum mainstage cast member/writer of the Brave New Workshop. She has had the pleasure of performing with many wonderful companies in the Twin Cities and is represented by Nuts LTD and Ruggiero Models and Talent for on camera work. She is so happy to perform this spooky beauty with all of these talented artists again. Nissa wrote and performed in "The Fae", "Incarnate", and "Stabby Stab Stab" as part of the Twin Cities Horror Festival. She also wrote and acted in "Xena and Gabrielle Smash the Patriarchy" (Winner of the Theatre in the Round venue award and TC Arts Reader Critic's Choice Award in 2019) and co-wrote "Finger Lickin’ Good" with Heather Meyer for the Minnesota Fringe (Minnesota Fringe Artist Pick Winner in 2022). Nissa wrote audio horror plays "Nisse-Natten", "Possible Burger", and "Christmas Spirit: The Ghost You Want to Haunt You", which were featured on the Dead North Horror Podcast and in the Atlanta Fringe Audio Festival. "Possible Burger" won the Atlanta Audio Fringe Critics’ Choice Award "Honorable Mention for Best Writing" in 2022. She was also a Finalist for the McKnight Fellowship for Playwrighting (2023). *** Nissa lives in Minneapolis, MN with her husband Zach, her super senior cat Delilah, and her orange chaos kitten Ozymandias. UPCOMING: Writing, performing and producing KIN at Twin Cities Horror Festival XII (Special When Lit) October 19-29. Dramaturg for Theatre Pro Rata's Bernhardt/Hamlet. *** Weird or Nerdy thing you were obsessed with as a kid: When I was around 7, I started making a Candy Inventory at Halloween, where I noted the type of candy and the number I received from Trick or Treating. I wouldn't eat any of it until I completed the inventory. I was and am still in love with Xena: Warrior Princess and anything Lisa Frank. Favorite Monster: Werewolf Kayla Dvorak Feld Anissa Kayla is shaking with excitement to perform Stabby Stab Stab for you all. She has previously worked with companies such as Daleko Arts (RIP), Theatre Pro Rata, Hero Now Theatre, Yellow Tree Theatre, among others. Kayla also started a company with a group of dope-ass people to teach organizations how to de-escalate through scenario-based training (check it out: www.crisisactorsmn.com). When Kayla isn't performing, she likes to spend most of her free time sleeping, hanging with her husband Jon, and singing songs of adoration to her stunning dogs Mira and Peewee. Coming up, Kayla will be directing for Special When Lit's KIN in the upcoming Twin Cities Horror Festival. Weird or Nerdy thing you were obsessed with as a kid: MY LITTLE PONIES. ALL DAY. EVERY DAY. Favorite Monster: Kraken! Derek Lee Miller Music Director Derek is an actor, writer, designer, builder, puppeteer and musician. He has previously performed with The Winding Sheet Outfit in Blood Nocturne, When Your Love Sets You on Fire, You Are Cordially Invited to the Life and Death of Edward Lear, The Darger Project, and Årsgång (in addition to providing them varied and sundry sets, puppets, contraptions, illustrations, and audio/video editing). Other past Fringe shows include Sandbox Theatre's June of Arc; Transatlantic Love Affair's Ballad of the Pale Fisherman, Red Resurrected, Ashland, These Old Shoes, and 105 Proof; Perpetual Motion Theatre Company's The Depth of the Ocean; and his own one-man shows Know Your B-Movie Actors and The Banana Wars. Derek is also a founding ensemble member of Transatlantic Love Affair and the illustrator of the children's book, The Princess in the Clouds. You will next be able to see him onstage and behind a shadow puppet screen for The Winding Sheet Outfit's Marie-Jeanne Valet, Who Defeated La Bete du Gevaudan at the Twin Cities Horror Festival. To see all of the things that Derek has gotten up to in the past, please visit derekleemiller.com. Sam Landman Voice of Slenderman/Drummer & Sound Effect Technician for Yeoman Purser Beyond his role in last year’s TCHF production of Stabby, Sam’s previous appearance onstage was as a scantily clad Col. Sanders in Special When Lit’s 2022 MN Fringe show, “Finger Lickin’ Good.” But he’s written/performed for many festivals and theaters over the years, from his one-person “Sam of All None” to the improvised grief show, “Wish You Were Here,” while also somehow making it onto the stages of History Theatre, Park Square, Yellow Tree Theatre, Nimbus Theatre and Sandbox Theatre. He’s recently written a They Might Be Giants jukebox musical, in the early stages of writing a horror script about a Goth band and is currently writing/shooting sketches for a “comedy” group tentatively called Plaza del Mall. He also DJs under the handle of GustAvocados. As a kid, he was a little too obsessed with his J.J. Armes action figure (please Google this), and his favorite monsters are all the people commenting on the Fornicus, Lord of Bondage & Pain page on “The Cabin in the Woods” wiki (please don’t Google this). Andre Johnson Jr Stage Manager/Lighting Designer André Johnson Jr. is a theater maker in the twin cities working mainly in the area of stage management. In his seven years in the twin cities, André has worked on many new and devised works as well as countless classical works. The process of creating has always been exciting to him. Getting to see a project start from a simple idea and work its way into a beautiful and unique piece of art is why he continues to work on such things. Outside of theater André is always creating via writing, mask making, drawing, or creating strange costume and clothing pieces. Weird or Nerdy thing you were obsessed with as a kid: I was obsessed with video games and really really wanted (and still do want) to make a video game. Favorite Monster: Mothman |
SLENDY ALWAYS WINS.
