Hello! I'm Amy Schwabauer... Here’s my artist statement…

The loneliest moments of my life always seem to happen in rooms full of people. The longing to be seen by others as our truest selves in all our raw, ugly, mediocre, beautiful, and complex glory is the heartbeat behind my work.

For me, the experience of laughter and loneliness go hand in hand.  Comedy is my way of building a relationship with my audience.  Laughter is essential in my process and performance as it creates a safe space for both imaginative play and mourning. I give the audience the freedom to laugh and the security to cry as I address dark topics such as death, grief, addiction, and mental illness . 

I am a comedic actor, playwright, solo performer, and toy theater creator.

My work is inspired by curiosity, vulnerability, laughter, whimsical ephemera, ancestry,  and play. My productions vary widely in form, scale, and process, ranging from the miniature to the full proscenium stage.

I create and build miniature worlds of nostalgia for toy theater productions.  I use improv to develop characters and write plays. I also write from my personal experience of loneliness and grief to create vulnerable realities for my solo performances.

My hope is for my audiences to see the universality in the “dark” moments of all our lives. That they recognize no one is spared the pain and feelings of being human. Most importantly, that despite all the darkness, we can survive the hardest moments of our lives and still find magic in this world.  

Recent projects…

Kicking off 2025 at Cleveland Public Theatre, I had the amazing opportunity to work with Ray Caspio on his amazing performance art show “The Bucktoothed Faggot or the Nijinsky Incantation” —breathtakingly beautiful. Ray is a master performer and painter, I’m so grateful I got to help curate his art for this installation and support his performance by managing the space and playing ‘Tessa’ his caretaker.

The Dobama Playwrights’ Gym held their annual “Gym Shorts” play readings, my latest short script “An American Experience” was read by two lovely Cleveland actors Kat Bi and Tasha Brandt.

Earlier in 2024….

At the BorderLight Theatre Festival, I performed my latest solo show: “I Wear My Dead Sister’s Clothes” directed by Ray Caspio, Carrie Williams, and myself. Tech support from Kristin Jones. Dramaturgy by Errol McClendon.

My show won the Char and Chuck Fowler ‘Audience Choice’ Award! And we sold out every show— BorderLight generously added seats and those sold out too! It was incredible and I am so grateful for all the support and love surrounding this show! I am very proud of this play and the performance run it had at BorderLight.

Christine Howey from Cleveland Scene also wrote a lovely blurb about my show in her BorderLight festival summation series.

Some other stuff I’ve been up to…

Summer of 2022, I co-wrote and co-performed in “Bell, Book and Late Night Drive Thru”, with my favorite gal, Carrie Williams for the 2022 Borderlight International Theatre and Fringe Festival. Originally, performed at Cleveland Public Theatre’s Pandemonium 2021.

Also at Borderlight 2022, co-created and co-performed with the lovely Jill Levine in our toy theater show “Coco and Gigi”, that won the CAN Journal award for “Best Visual Theatre”.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with the very talented Jo Roueiheb and Tom Kondalis, on their film “Love Possum” which premiered March of 2023.

And I’m also doing this…

Teaching playwrighting workshops with Dobama Theatre’s Young Playwright’s Program. I am also a teaching artist for the Disney Musical’s in School’s program through Playhouse Square.

This fall I will be doing a full production of my new solo show: I Wear My Dead Sister’s Clothes”.

SYNOPSIS: I Wear My Dead Sister’s Clothes, written and performed by Amy Schwabauer, is a dark comedy framed around the process of cleaning out her dead sister’s house. Based on her own experience, Amy explores what it means to grieve a difficult person and the limits grief takes us to, and the dangerous struggle of grief when it takes you too far. From caretaking, to the death, to the funeral and the haunting aftermath that follows Amy finds the comedy even in the darkest moments and readily admits she still wears her dead sister’s clothes.

Some other less recent projects include…

In Fall 2019 I played Virgil/Satan in Maelstrom Collaborative Arts production of The Inferno. Earlier in the fall of 2019, I was a featured writer in  Cleveland Drafts  and presented a new draft of a 15-minute play, Divine Intervention, I wrote specifically for Allen Brandstein and Carrie Williams who graciously performed a fantastic staged reading of the piece!

In July 2019, I had the privilege of revisiting my solo show, This is Not About My Dead Dog, at the BorderLight International and Fringe Theatre Festival, I’m happy to say it did very well and I sold out the majority of my performances.  Lucky for me, Toronto based director Karin Randoja was in town and was dramaturg extraordinaire for this iteration of This is Not About my Dead Dog, which was originally developed in 2017 by Playwrights Local, originally directed by Dale Heinen.

Funny story… creator, performer, and artist Ray Caspio asked me to make a guest appearance in his BorderLight Fringe Festival show, Uncle Toots’ Pasta Dish—I got to play Sally and Sal Incesta, Attorney’s at Law, MD; Ray’s show is interactive, audience members sit at a dining room table with him and have a pasta dinner, a T.V. plays gameshows in the background with this commercial break:

In June 2019 I got to return to Prince Edward Island and the River Clyde Pageant, the Pageant brought me and my artistic collaborator Mike Geither in town to do theater workshops and present new work. Sadly, our dear friend Ker Wells, River Clyde Pageant Co-Director passed away soon after our latest visit to PEI. Please consider donating to the River Clyde Pageant in his honor. In early 2019, I read for The Barnhouse Journal in their reading series, ‘this episode is not on Netflix’.

Now, some old stuff I’ve done…

In 2018, I spent a vast majority, touring “The Events of the Warren County Fair as Observed by a Young Astronaut” a toy theater show collaboratively written, produced and performed by me and artistic collaborator Mike Geither. We developed the show in Toronto with the awesome Karin Randoja our director and Dramaturg, we toured the show in Toronto, all over North East Ohio, to Pittsburgh, and of course to Prince Edward Island as part of the River Clyde Pageant and to Halifax, Nova Scotia to perform for Zuppa Theater Company.

Over the summer of 2018, I had a thrilling time with The Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, playing ‘Feste’ in their production of “Twelfth Night” directed by Anne McEvoy. In September 2018 I had the opportunity to create a piece for Cleveland Public Theatre’s Pandemonium; “Ariadne’s Closet” was my solo performance installation, an interactive performance, taking place on the night before Ariadne’s wedding to the god Dionysus.

In 2017, I had the opportunity to develop and perform my one-woman show, This is NOT About my Dead Dog, (spoiler alert: the show is, in fact, about my dead dog) directed by Dale Heinen and produced by Playwright's Local.  My performance in Dead Dog won the Cleveland Scene Magazine Best of Cleveland Award for Best Actress. This Is Not About My Dead Dog, made local theater critic Bob Abelman's Top Ten Most Memorable Moments in Cleveland Theater 2017 and the show also made critic Christine Howey's list for Best of Cleveland Theater 2017 under the category: Best Risks.  

Other Recent Credits include: Pandemonium 2017: Performed and wrote the comedy sketch "Release your Cracken", done in performance with Michael Randall. The Junkyard, featured on "Kickin it with Kenny", an interactive installation created completely from recycled materials at the International Children's Theater Festival 2017 hosted by Playhouse Square. The Junkyard was conceived and directed by Melissa Crum. Written and performed in collaboration with Melissa Crum, Eric Perusek and Ananais Dixon and me, Amy Schwabauer. Tingle Tangle, a cabaret style show, exploring sexuality and gender norms; conceived by Ray Caspio and directed by Jeremy Paul. Playing Pope Joan and Joyce in Top Girls Directed by Jaime Bouvier, produced by Mamai Theater. Playing Kilbride in Snake Oil written by Arwen Mitchell, Directed by Sarah Greywitt, produced by The Ohio City Theater Project.

 In 2016, I spent time in Chicago studying sketch comedy at Second City in their summer intensive writing program. I graduated from Cleveland State University's Dramatic Arts Program with a specialization in Theatre Performance.