Written, Drawn and Performed by Phoebe Potts, Directed by Christopher Griffith
October 6 – November 24, 2026 (8 performances)
New York (August 25, 2026) – Following a 12-city tour of the U.S., playing theaters, synagogues, and a burlesque hall, Too Fat for China comes to Brooklyn, New York! Written, drawn and performed by Phoebe Potts, her critically-acclaimed, award-winning one-woman play is a comic look at the agonies of adoption. Winner of United Solo’s “Best Storytelling Show,” and BroadwayWorld’s “Best Solo Show (2025),” eight performances will now be staged on Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m., October 4 through November 24, 2026, at the RAT NYC, 68 Jay Street, Suite 117 (Storefront) in DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Christopher Griffith directs.
A darkly funny, brutally honest, and riotous journey through the absurdities and ethical minefields of the international adoption industry, Too Fat for China follows Phoebe Potts, comic storyteller and professional Jew, as she tries, fails and eventually succeeds to adopt a baby. After a US adoption goes horribly wrong, Potts finds herself surprised, disgusted and ultimately resigned to the role she plays as a middle-class white lady in the business of adopting babies in the U.S. and internationally. Potts’ tragicomic journey is about looking for more love, more life and more family and will do anything to get it, including having her morals and values fold in on themselves.
“It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a mortgage to adopt a baby,” shared Potts.
Performances for Too Fat for China are Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m. on October 6, 13, 20, and 27; and November 3, 10, 17, and 24.
The runtime is 60 minutes with no intermission.
General admission tickets are $25 (includes fee). For tickets and more information, https://www.theratnyc.com/event-details/too-fat-for-china-2026-10-06-18-30
In addition to the show’s United Solo and BroadwayWorld awards, it was named an “Official Selection” at both the Modern Works (Boston) and Logan Solo (DC) Festivals in 2025. Theater companies have rave “a beautiful, funny, whip-smart telling…” (Alex Levy, Artistic Director at 1s Stage Theater, VA); “Your show (and you) are wonderful. Everyone who came raved about it.” (Catherine Carr Kelly, Managing Director at Central Square Theater in Cambridge Mass.); and “Five SOLD OUT performances! Would you come back for a BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND run?” (Summer Dawn Wallace, Producing Artistic Director at Urbanite Theater in Sarasota).
Artwork and Set Designer: Phoebe Potts; “Crankie” Fabrication: James Lemieux; Costume Designer: Jen Greeke; Original Music: “Dinkenesh in the Sky with Diamonds” composed and recorded by the Abysinna Music Group, Ethiopia; produced by Tom Beatz.
Phoebe Potts (playwright, illustrator, performer) is a native of Brooklyn, where everyone was indignant before breakfast, Potts learned to tell stories to get her family to like her and to understand thorny issues. In Too Fat for China, Potts uses humor and honesty to tell the irreverent story of the terrible things she did for love. Her comedic theater performance is a sequel to Potts’ graphic memoir, Good Eggs (Harper, 2010), which charts her travails with infertility and the endless rounds of treatments and miscarriages she and her husband endured. Roz Chast, the New Yorker cartoonist, called Potts’ memoir “sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but always honest, intelligent, and completely involving.” Potts’ day jobs have included union organizing, public art after school programs and teaching and learning Torah with children and adults through “Visual Midrash.” Potts lives with her family in Gloucester, Massachusetts. PhoebePotts.com
Christopher Griffith (director) (he/him) is a theater producer, director, and arts executive whose work spans new play development, contemporary premieres, and institutional leadership. Over the past decade, he has produced more than 50 professional productions and led nonprofit arts organizations through periods of artistic and financial growth, raising $7 million in support of creative work and capital projects. Selected producing credits at Gloucester Stage Company include multiple Elliot Norton Awards for Best Production, The Hombres by Tony Meneses, Wish You Were Here by Sanaz Toossi, Wipeout by Aurora Real de Asua, Stew by Zora Howard, The Thin Place by Lucas Hnath, Paradise Blue by Dominique Morisseau, Grand Horizons by Bess Wohl, and Too Fat For China by Phoebe Potts.
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