Hop For Pop
Press Kit
Playwright · Director · Producer
Hannah Ponturo
In 1518 the people of Strasbourg began dancing in the streets and could not stop, and some of them died of it. She wrote it as a straight drama, found it was not working, and made it a comedy.
Based
Los Angeles, California
Works in
Playwriting · Directing · Producing
Known for
1518
Background
Theatre major; honours thesis on women in the Civil War
Interview
45 min · Hop For Pop · 2026
“I make a joke out of everything, because that’s how I cope.”
Hannah Ponturo — Hop For Pop
Ready-to-use copy
Biography
240 words — lift as-is, no rewriting required
Hannah Ponturo is a playwright, director and producer who grew up in children’s theatre, ran her high-school drama club, and took a theatre major — realising somewhere around the end of school that she preferred writing to acting. Her first piece was an abridged Macbeth told from Lady Macbeth’s point of view, recast as a young girl playing with Barbie dolls who stand in for the other characters. It set a pattern: her characters tend to be bright and kind on the surface, with something deeper running underneath.
1518 began as a story a history-major friend told over a college meal — the dancing plague of Strasbourg — which she kept in her back pocket for years. What turned it into a play was watching Portrait of a Lady on Fire during lockdown, alongside her honours research on women in the Civil War whose deep relationships were never labelled as romantic. The result is a historical satire with a love story at its centre: two peasant women, Anna and Catherine, reunited after seven years apart.
She wrote it first as a film, then as a play, and it was meant to be serious until she accepted she could not stay serious for long. She directs and co-produces it, made most of its props, cut its 90-minute script to 50 for Edinburgh, and staged it at the Echo Lodge Theatre in Venice, California before the Fringe.
The part other press kits leave out
What you should know before you book her
Hannah Ponturo is a theatre-maker rather than a comedian, and 1518 is a comedy about a mass death with a love story underneath it. She is also one of the most generous people in this series about where good work actually comes from.
Satire over something genuinely grim
People really did die of the dancing plague. The comedy is her way into it — and her touchstone is Hamlet’s gravediggers, the funniest people in the play, digging graves.
A love story is the load-bearing wall
Cutting 90 minutes to 50 meant losing favourite scenes. The one thing that could not go was Anna and Catherine. That is the show; everything else serves it.
Movement is a language here
Her choreographer mapped the plague’s progression onto four elements — air, fire, water, earth — so you can read what stage each dancer has reached. Two full dance scenes.
She credits the room
No ego about notes: actors regularly find meaning in a line she did not know was there, and she has met the same writers’ group at 8pm every Tuesday for five years.
One person, several jobs
Playwright, director, one of four producers and chief prop-maker. The costumes were built by layering the cast’s own clothes to read as medieval.
Tested before Edinburgh
Staged twice before the Fringe, including a run at the Echo Lodge Theatre in Venice, California, and restaged for a smaller stage with different exits.
For press · cleared for use with attribution
Quotable
01
“At the end of high school I started realising that I actually preferred writing to acting.”02
“No one’s evil from their own point of view.”03
“In my version she was a young girl just playing with Barbie dolls, and those Barbie dolls were the other characters. It was a game to her. Fun, rather than malicious.”04
“My characters are always seemingly bright and funny and kind on the outside, and then usually there’s a deeper something behind them.”05
“Actors will take a line and give it so much meaning, and you realise — I didn’t even think about that when I wrote it.”06
“Someone once said that writers hate to write. They love to have written. And I think that’s so true.”07
“You can’t really have a big ego when it comes to this. Ultimately it is a group project.”08
“If anyone’s saying they did it 100 per cent without anyone’s help, they’re lying.”09
“I have a writers’ group I’ve met at 8pm on Tuesdays, pretty much every Tuesday, for about five years.”10
“It’s a 90-minute script. I had to limit it to 50.”11
“I thought: that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard — but that’s also a play.”12
“I wasn’t planning to make it satire. I wasn’t planning to make it funny.”13
“It’s really hard for me to be 100 per cent serious. I make a joke out of everything, because that’s how I cope.”14
“When I leaned into that part of myself, the play really came alive.”15
“When you first get the dancing plague you’re in a very air-like state. Then it goes to fire, then water, and the last element before death is earth.”16
“Some people have said it’s one of my worst qualities. Some people have said it’s one of my best.”17
“In Hamlet the gravediggers are the funniest characters. They’re silly as they’re digging graves.”
Attribution: Hannah Ponturo, speaking to Hop For Pop, 2026.
Career
Selected credits
Theatre
- 1518 — writer, director and co-producer; historical satire on the Strasbourg dancing plague; Edinburgh Fringe 2026
- 1518 — Echo Lodge Theatre, Venice, California
- Abridged Macbeth from Lady Macbeth’s point of view — her first piece
Writing
Has written 1518 as both a feature film and a stage play. Member of a weekly writers’ group for five years.
Background
Children’s theatre and high-school drama club president; theatre major in college, with an honours thesis on women in the American Civil War.
This kit was produced by Hop For Pop. The interview and quotes are drawn from Hop For Pop × Hannah Ponturo, recorded 2026. Hannah Ponturo and their representatives are free to use any part of this document — the biography, the quotes — for booking, press and promotion, with credit to Hop For Pop for the interview material.
Hop For Pop shines a light on stand-up artists and spreads comedy across the world. Follow at instagram.com/hopforpop.
Message us at instagram.com/hopforpop to get your interview and press kit with us.
See our Instagram post about this interview. Follow Hop For Pop on Instagram at @hopforpop and @thecomicsunseen.