CA Alum Phoebe Potts ’88 Brings Humor and Honesty to Solo Show
Artist Phoebe Potts ’88 delivers a thoughtful meditation on motherhood in Too Fat for China, a one-woman multidisciplinary performance that blends comic art with live storytelling. Now on a seven-city tour after a sold-out run at Gloucester Stage Company, performances at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and a 2023 United Solo Award for Best Storytelling, the show expresses values Potts traces back to her time at Concord Academy.
“At CA, everyone was into something and had the time and space to try things,” Potts recalls. “My endlessly patient printmaking teacher, Abbie Read, let me try all sorts of work and encouraged my early comic book style.”
Potts’ work draws from CA’s tradition of creative experimentation. “I remember other students’ chapels as these concentrated set pieces of personal stories, theater, and music,” Potts says. “The bravery and creativity of my fellow students were inspiring, and the mash-up of mediums and humor seemed effortless.”
Too Fat for China explores Potts’ and her husband’s journey to parenthood after unsuccessful attempts at in vitro fertilization—-an experience chronicled in her 2010 graphic novel Good Eggs, published by HarperCollins.
“When I was doing book talks for Good Eggs, I noticed how much I liked performing the comic book panels for people,” Potts says. “I liked having witnesses to my struggles and humiliations. Plus, I was making people laugh, which would give me this power surge that would stay with me on the drive home.”
Though she began drafting a sequel as a graphic novel, Potts found herself craving more direct connection with an audience. She joined Fish Tales, a group storytelling program in Gloucester, Mass., where she resides. After a year of sharing personal narratives, she wove the stories into a solo stage show that became Too Fat for China.
Most recently, in August 2025, Potts presented Too Fat for China at Central Square Theater in Cambridge, Mass. The show features a simple yet striking set: Potts’ artwork on a giant newspaper scroll she humorously dubs The Complainer. The first image depicts cartoon animals as journalists. Potts walks on stage and explains that she imagines her consciousness as that newsroom. Using a pulley system, she moves through the scroll, each frame presenting a comical headline.
Throughout the show, Potts analyzes the trials prospective parents face in navigating the adoption process, from invasive interviews to exorbitant costs. She describes the heartbreak of a failed domestic adoption and the unexpected barriers of international adoption.
In one instance, she was deemed ineligible to adopt from China due to her body mass index and use of antidepressants. Potts highlights the irony that many antidepressant medications are manufactured in China. “What do they think we’re using medication for, if not parenting?” she quipped onstage. The audience hummed with laughter.
In her show, Potts strives for equity in presenting her story—another direct tie to CA’s mission. She confronts the privilege entwined with adopting, acknowledging how systemic inequities have contributed to generational advantages for some hopeful parents and disadvantages for others. She also critiques the inequity in adoption costs for children of different races.
Ultimately, Potts and her husband adopted a baby boy from Ethiopia, a choice that prompted deep cultural reflection. To connect her son with his roots and her family’s Jewish heritage, Potts turned to stories from the Torah set in Africa. She illustrated the union of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, as well as the story of Moses’ adoption, weaving both cultures into the fabric of the show.
The performance concludes with a slideshow of photos of her son as a baby. As the final images play, Potts pulls out a handmade “microphone” crafted in her signature cartoon style and delivers a rendition of Etta James’ “At Last.” The fitting emotional finale celebrates the power of love, shaped by the experience of raising her son, now a 15-year-old.
“Adoption is a wonderful way to make a family, and the business of adoption is fraught with ethical concerns,” Potts shares. “For me, it was an exhilarating struggle to weave these narratives together into something that people would relate to, no matter what their family makeup is.”
Through both laughter and tears, Too Fat for China invites audiences to reconsider what it means to become a parent and how stories told honestly can build bridges across cultures and time.
