About the Show

Julie (Darcy Miller) and Jeff (Jason Rouse) are your ordinary Portland couple, except do-gooder and lovable neurotic Julie is obsessively driven to help those in need and ends up stumbling through her own misconceptions in the process. As she tries earnestly to help friends and neighbors dealing with issues like homelessness, poverty and mental illness  — yet misses time and again — she has to wonder: is it even possible for one person to make a difference? The world of “One Bird” features a range of relatable, offbeat, kind-hearted characters: hapless Jeff and Julie, her over the top friend Gena (Ayanna Berkshire), needy therapist Dr. Helfmann (Dana Millican), their homeless neighbor Frank (Patrick Green), an old classmate who’s fallen on hard times, Lizzie (Jana Lee Hamblin), kind but faltering James (Victor Mack), and many others, (including Rocco the dog, who sees Jeff and Julie through every hurdle).

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Director's Statement

Darcy Miller is a writer/director/producer from NYC who currently lives in Portland, Oregon. After realizing politics was not the career for her, she went on to receive her graduate degree from the London Academy of Dramatic Arts, and studied writing at Yale and the New School. Among her directing and producing work are the short films “180 Degrees” (Portland Film Festival), and the upcoming “Rise." Her company, See in the Dark Productions, uses the medium of narrative film to shed light on those things that are easy to miss in a busy world. Most recently, the script she co-wrote, an adaption of Edwidge Danticat's "Caroline's Wedding," won the Grand Prize in the American Zoetrope competition.

The title comes from Charles Bukowski’s quote — “'You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.” That’s where we start. How do you save the world, when it's full of craziness, neuroses, and uncertainty? One Bird finds comedy seamlessly in its plot and characters — which, in a world where we are all honest about our loonyness, isn’t that hard to do. Everyone here is out of place. Yes, we understand: a synopsis that talks about homelessness and addiction — and then calls itself a comedy — touches a few nerves. Well, all we can say is, you gotta see it. As I hit 40 and recently had my first child, I realized that, as the world gets darker, humor is more important than ever. It allows us to explore the worst things and feel it all — the ugliness, the sadness, the absurdity, the hilarity, the reality – equally.