written and performed by Megan Gogerty
April 9 – 12, 2026
The Black Forest Inn
From the playwright of Feast!
When comedian Megan loses her charming, unreliable, alcoholic father, she unearths evidence of her family’s ancestral ties to the founding of the state of Iowa. Were they hearty immigrants making a new life on the frontier? Or a collection of self-satisfied boot-strappers complicit in destruction and erasure? (Why choose?)
As she examines Iowa’s past, she lays bare the secrets that haunt her and her sisters. What do we do with our problematic relatives? With our problematic history? We tell the truth.
Performance Schedule
- Thursday, April 9 at 7:30pm (opening)
- Friday, April 10 at 7:30pm
- Saturday, April 11 at 7:30pm
- Sunday, April 12 at 4:00pm (closing)
The estimated runtime is about 75 minutes without an intermission.
Ticketing
Tickets are pick-your-price: $25 – $45.
Ticket sales only cover a portion of what it actually costs to present our plays.
For ticket sales to completely cover our production expenses, a ticket would cost $35.
You choose your price! If you are able to pay the true cost of $35, we ask you to do so. Or, pay as little as $25, or choose a more generous amount and help support our accessible ticket program.
A limited number of $15 Economic Accessibility tickets are available starting one month before the performance date, for anyone who needs to pay less, no questions asked. Limit 2 per order.
Student tickets are FREE. Limit 2 per order. Available starting one month before the performance date.
All seating is general admission, though we’re happy to make accommodations or handle special seating requests.
Location
All public performances of Fair State occur at:
The Black Forest Inn
1 East 26th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55404
The Black Forest Inn is located at the southeast corner of Nicollet Ave and 26th Street.
All performances will be in the Banquet Hall, which has a separate street entrance about 100 feet east on 26th Street, just past the courtyard.
Free parking is available in the Black Forest lot, south of the restaurant on Nicollet Avenue. Free street parking is also available in the area.
Metro Transit bus routes 11 and 18 run within a few blocks of the venue.
Accessibility
The Black Forest Inn is fully wheelchair accessible. The bathrooms are ADA compliant. Please let us know about any special seating requirements or accommodations.
About the Writer / Performer
Megan Gogerty is a playwright and comedian. A recipient of the Cloris Leachman Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement, her solo show Lady Macbeth and Her Pal, Megan played the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and won the Audience Pick of the Fringe at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. Her play Feast was named as a Critic’s Pick by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Her play Bad Panda (Theatre Without Borders, Beijing; Iron Crow Theatre Co.; WordBRIDGE Boomerang Playwright honoree) is published by Original Works Publishing and was translated into Spanish for a five-month run at Foro Lucerna del Teatro Milan in Mexico City. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution listed her solo show Hillary Clinton Got Me Pregnant in their yearly Top Ten Best Plays. Megan’s musical drama Love Jerry premiered at Actors Express in Atlanta and was produced in the New York Musical Theatre Festival where it won three Talkin’ Broadway Citations and four NYMF Excellence Awards including Excellence in Writing (Book). Her short play Super Hot Raven and Raven II: The Ravening is published in the anthology The Best American Short Plays of 2015 by Applause Books.
Other plays include: Housebroken (Riverside Theatre, Hollins University); Save Me, Dolly Parton (Riverside Theatre, Synchronicity Theatre; named among Best Plays in Atlanta by Creative Loafing).
Megan was a Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellow, a WordBRIDGE alum, and she earned her MFA in Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin. She currently teaches playwriting and comedy studies at the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop and is a regularly returning visiting faculty for the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University.
