The Drifts Live at the Hollywood Fringe Festival

Los Angeles, CA, May 16, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Author and actor Thom Vernon brings his theatricalized version of his acclaimed novel The Drifts to the Hollywood Fringe this June 8 and 9, and June 14 through 16. You won’t want to miss this live version of a novel Canada’s national newspaper called “a great contemporary twist on the Southern Gothic tradition.”

In the harrowing and humorous theatricalized excerpts from his novel, The Drifts, actor/novelist Vernon (Seinfeld, The Fugitive, General Hospital, etc.) brings an Arkansas blizzard of gender, history and memory to The Complex Theatre as part of the Hollywood Fringe 2012. In this one-hour live performance, an unhappily expectant mom, a man in love with a cow, a woman who looks like a refrigerator and a trans-dad fight like hell to get what they want.

Lauded by the Globe and Mail as “magnificent”, The Drifts has also been compared favourably to the work of Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, Carson McCullers and others. Vernon has a long history of bringing literature to life on-stage as part of The Piven Theatre Workshop, where he initially trained as an actor. Since going into exile from the U.S. with his Zimbabwean partner, The Drifts became intensely personal for Vernon, who understands all too well the challenges of being stranded on the periphery. His personal and professional experiences have also inspired several published critical articles exploring the unique collusions of gender, history and memory in contemporary creative work.

“My life has been filled with displacement,” says Vernon. “But there are hundreds of thousands of queers still stuck in the States, and in even worse straits in other parts of the world. The Drifts comes out of my own experience, though it is more about internal displacement.”

Also an actor whose roles have included “The Fugitive”, “Seinfeld”, “General Hospital” and “Grace Under Fire”, Vernon began writing The Drifts while studying under Hubert Selby, Jr., author of Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream. He credits “Cubby” Selby with encouraging the unique voice of each character in The Drifts to emerge textually, creating a highly subjective, emotional and expressionistic reading experience.

“If you appreciate Carson McCullers’s classic debut novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, you must read Thom Vernon’s The Drifts!” – Globe and Mail

See the live version of The Drifts at the Hollywood Fringe this June.

The Drifts Live
Part of the Hollywood Fringe 2012
Starring Thom Vernon
June 8, 9, 14, 15, 16 7 p.m.
6470 Theatre at
The Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd.
(Show runs 60 minutes.)

For more information on The Drifts Live or to arrange an interview with Thom Vernon, please contact: Carole Lowe, publicist, at 757.710.1218 or carole.lowe@verizon.net

About Thom Vernon:
Thom Vernon has worked in film, television and theatre since 1989, including appearances on Seinfeld, General Hospital and The Fugitive. He has been the Actors’ Gang Youth Education Program director, and has worked extensively with at-risk people, including as an arts educator at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People. His screenplays and fiction have placed in various competitions, including Paramount’s Chesterfield Writer’s Film Project and the Open Door Contest. He is also a critical writer taking on the place of creativity and gender in contemporary culture. A former Angeleno, he hails from Michigan. He and his partner live in exile in Toronto. The Drifts is his first novel.