VITAL SIGNS is a one-woman theatrical show, written and performed by Alison Whittaker.  It is a frank and funny vivisection of life on-the-job in a modern hospital in wildly diverse San Francisco.  Equally comic, tragic and touching, it reveals what really goes on behind-the-scenes in a bustling medical center where patients, nurses, and families try their best to make the most of some very difficult, and at times utterly ridiculous, situations.  Playing nearly two dozen characters, Alison is hoping to raise your blood pressure, have you in stitches, and give you a probing, insider’s x-ray view of the hospital setting and the people who valiantly cope with it. 

Alison has performed VITAL SIGNS at the Marsh in San Francisco, the 2012 Rogue Festival in Fresno, the 2011 San Francisco Fringe Festival, the 2011 Boulder International Fringe Festival, the Marsh  (Marsh Rising series), San Francisco Theatre Festival, Solo Sundays at StageWerx, Women On The Way Festival, Dominican College, for the Michigan Burses Association, and an encore run at Shotwell Studios in San Francisco. She is currently preparing for a run of Vital Signs at the Victoria Theater Fringe Festival in British Columbia, opening August 22, 2013.

Alison was born in Toronto, Canada and raised in New England. She moved to California in the aftermath of the Sixties, enthusiastically exploring the human potential movement, community living, and saving the planet. She currently works as a registered nurse in San Francisco.