Candy simmons

Candy Simmons is a professional Twin Cities-based theater artist with an 18-year performance career. As lead performer and Artistic Director of Minneapolis-based theater company SunsetGun Productions she has spent the last 8 years performing, producing, and touring original works across North America. Candy was awarded Best Female Performer Award at the Victoria Fringe Festival, and she and SunsetGun have been the grateful recipients of multiple arts funding awards, including three Metropolitan Regional Arts Council awards (MN) and a 2011 Artists Initiative Grant from the MN State Arts Board, which supported the development of one-woman play EXPIRATION DATE. Her most recent solo work BLUEPRINT, premiered to Minneapolis audiences November 2015. 

Lauded for her emotionally evocative performances and strong character work, Candy seeks to create theatrical works that are highly tour-able, enabling work to move with ease into a variety of community settings and venues. She believes that by providing a platform for audience and artist to engage we encourage all participants to see themselves a bit more clearly. She believes people are funny, ridiculous and fascinating, and that everyone has a story to tell if given the opportunity. Outside of her work with SunsetGun, Candy is an accomplished actress and has worked with theater companies such as: The 92nd Street Y (NYC), Emerging Artists Theatre (NYC), Abingdon Theater Co. (NYC), Carolinian Shakespeare Festival (NC), Red Eye Theater (MN), Alan Berks & Co. (MN), Gremlin Theatre (MN). Candy received her BA in Theatre from Florida State University.

Candy is currently developing two new works for 2017-18, a theatrical duet with D.J. Mendel that explores women and poverty, and a spectacle-filled solo piece tentatively titled THE ELVIS PROJECT.  ELVIS follows a young woman's rise to fame as a trapeze-flying Elvis tribute artist.  You can follow her trapeze training and other developing aspects of ELVIS here.
"Simmons's performance is chilling, heartbreaking and rarely less than fascinating."
-- MINNEAPOLIS CITY PAGES
"Candy Simmons is simply a great actor. Watching her work solo for 70 minutes is an acting class in a box."
-- VANCOUVER PLANK MAGAZINE
"Even in front of a sold-out crowd, [Simmons] seemed to make a connection with every audience member, never faltering in her accents or her flawless delivery."
-- WINNIPEG SUN