The long and bumpy road to happiness – Lori Hamilton unpacks her family baggage

May 31, 2022

The long and bumpy road to happiness – Lori Hamilton unpacks her family baggage

These days New Yorker Lori Hamilton is a happy woman – but it’s been a bumpy road, especially with all that family baggage on board.

Being known by your mum as “the child who ruined my life” wasn’t a great start and things slid downhill from there. But now it’s OK. She found her own way in life, and has now created an autobiographical one-woman show all about the journey.

North Star (or what I listened to instead of my intuition) will be premiered at the 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August.

Lori said: “Like many writers and performers I’ve dreamed of going to Edinburgh and being part of the world’s largest performing arts festival. This will be my third attempt, because it didn’t matter how much I wanted to be there COVID said ‘no’.”

North Star is fun, packed with laughter, music, song, dance and lots of insights about wrecking your own life, letting other people trample you and then – after far too long – waking up to reality and fighting back.

Lori also introduces lots of different characters including her mum, her eccentric Bohemian great grandmother and her very own guardian angel. Wow, a guardian angel, that sounds helpful. Well, Lori’s is on probation due to a poker problem.

Lori said: “Mum called me ‘the child who ruined my life’ and took a vacation to Hawaii with the money my pain-killer addicted dad left me for college fees. So it seemed pretty clear I was on my own. Given the option to sink or swim, I did both. 

“North Star is about navigating dysfunctional families, personal tragedies, professional mishaps and lousy lovers. It’s not been graceful or elegant, but it’s all been very real.

“I’m certain that lots of people will find that the songs and the show have strong echoes in their own lives – after all, most of us are weighed down by a ton of family baggage that it would be great to offload.”

The show is directed by Sean Daniels, Artistic Director of the Arizona Theatre Company, and writer of the award-winning musical The Lion, which he will be taking to London this year.

As a creative pairing they are ideally matched – both specializing in tackling tough issues in a way that’s engaging, often amusing but is unsentimental and refuses to suggest that life’s challenges have easy solutions.

Lori is an accomplished performer, writer and creator of animated shorts. Since 2020 she’s won 19 awards for short films, done 17 online shows, hours of rehearsals, overcome injuries and managed to her my cats to stop interrupting… most of the time.  

The show also features music recorded by an accomplished group of Broadway musicians such as Latin Grammy winning flautist Domenica Fossati, pianist Keith Burton (Music Director of the Boys Choir of Harlem) and Nathan Koci (Vocal Arranger for the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of Oklahoma!).

Critical praise for Lori

  • Atlanta Press described Loris as “Brilliant … comical … inspirational”
  • Denver’s Go Go Magazine said she is “…one heck of an actress – the girl could dance … this girl could sing too.”
  • North West End UK praised her performance in The Corporate Knobs as “very funny”. 

-Ends-

For media information contact Lori at [email protected] or Matthew Shelley [email protected]. 

Listings details

Find out more from the show website at https://northstar-theshow.com and from https://thelorihamilton.com.

About Lori Hamilton

Lori grew up just outside of Northern California and attended UCLA, where she studied Linguistics and Modern British Drama. She studied Opera at The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory and Mannes College of Music. After a singing with the Boston Symphony and the Atlanta Opera, she went on to do comedy, writing and performing. Lori has written and produced over 150 short films, created and performed four one-woman shows, including a much-lauded tour with the National New Play Festival in the United States. Her talents have earned her 37 awards for creative and writing excellence, including five Best of Shows. Her cats did not help at all, although they take credit for providing with her constant, much needed supervision.  Lori’s work extends from Project Spudway (a take-off of Project Runway with animated potatoes) to Landalor Industries (a serious corporate satire) to dozens of short films, comedy bits, TV pilots and feature film scripts. Other projects have included The Silly and Unnecessary Variety Show, streamed live from her home as part of TheSpaceUK’s 2020 online Edinburgh Fringe programme.  

About Sean Daniels

Sean is an internationally known theatre director, writer and artistic director. He’s been a NYTimes Critic Pick as a director and a writer. Sean has directed at Manhattan Theatre Club (The Lion, Drama Desk Award and Theatre World Award), 59e59 (NYC, I and You, nominated for Outer Critics Circle) Lynn Redgrave (NYC) The Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), and St. James (West End, London – The Lion, winner of Best New Musical), Sean has been named one of the top up-and-coming artists in the US by American Theatre magazine. As a playwright, his work has been produced in multiple theaters over the country including a commercial Off-Broadway run of his sober comedy The White Chip which was produced by Tony Award winner Tom Kirdahy.  

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