About the Show

Scott’s Role - Writer/Voice over

Made with Theater in Quarantine, Topside was created in the early days of the Covid pandemic in 2020 in Josh Gelb’s East Village apartment closet. Loosely based on Donald Barthelme’s short story, “Game,” this work of digital theater, originally performed in one take via livestream, imagines two men surviving in quarantine for days on end in a military bunker for reasons they do not understand. They spend their time ruminating on the nature of the universe and working on their comedy routines. They eat ravioli. They turn their keys. They ask themselves important questions. Like, have they been forgotten? Is this a test? Are they still being paid? Oh, and of course, the question that haunts them most: why two men but only one mask?

Recently remounted for in-person audiences at Cannonball Festival in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival in 2022.