About the Featured Pieces

Necrosis Theater: A Role-Playing Game / created by Sitara Ahangari

From the playwright and game master: 

BOY OH BOY DO WE HAVE A SHOW FOR YOU! In just under 45 minutes (the precise festival limit), our Performers and their Game Master shall unfold a world of magic, monsters, and mayhem before your very eyes. The dead shall rise! Spells shall be cast! And the show WILL. GO. ON.

Necrosis Theater, inspired by tabletop roleplaying games everywhere, is a (mostly) improvised experience. The Game Master has written some messy notes and keeps a vague plotline in her head, and each of the performers have written their characters. But what happens on stage is up to momentary impulse, audience interaction, and a few rolls of the dice. WARNING! At some point, the Game Master will ask for audience participation. If you are so inclined, you may be welcomed to the stage.

Keep your fangs retracted, your claws lowered, and please stow your cursed objects at concessions. Welcome to Necrosis Theater! 

Zugzwang / written by Ian Hopkins

From the playwright:

If you could go back in time and watch yourself make your most regrettable choices, how would you respond? Would you be kind to yourself and understanding, or would you be screaming at yourself, hoping you could change the past? These are the questions I wanted to explore with Zugzwang. Zugzwang is German for “compulsion to move”. I initially found the term through chess, but realized it has many real-life applications. There have been many times in life when I wished I could just pass my turn and wait for things to happen around me, but that’s impossible. Regardless of the situation, you have to move, for better or for worse.

Scenes from Asshole! / written by Louise Wade

From the playwright:

Asshole! is a dark comedy about four estranged siblings who come home to find their alcoholic father on the brink of death. In returning to their hometown, each sibling must reckon with their relationships to the past, their father, and each other. Asshole! is both biting and heartwarming in its exploration of grief, addiction, betrayal, and forgivingness.

Perfectly Odd / written by Ali Cady

From the playwright:

In 2023, I stumbled across a YouTube video essay from the creator Veritasium where he did a deep dive into the historical search for an odd perfect number, or a proof for one not existing. This concept of perfect numbers, specifically the concept of a possible odd one, scratched something in my brain. I was invigorated, comforted, and terrified. Similar feelings I’ve experienced in relation to my gender identity and presentation. My show is an integration and marriage of so many aspects of myself: the analytical and mathematical, the performer and the creator, the shame and the pride.

Human + Robot / written by Sitara Ahangari

From the playwright:

Human + Robot is a play about learning to be a person. A human brings home a robot. They are both more alive than they think, they both have so much to teach each other, and they are both so new to learning.

This play is not a romanticization of generative AI, such as Language Learning Models. LLMs are plagiarism machines which destroy the environment and tell you what you want to hear. This play is, however, a romanticization of the beautiful living things in this world and how we make sense of life together.

I love androids. They are born on the outside looking in, trying to make sense of a world without reason. This play could not exist without the instruction of texts such as: After Yang, Ex Machina, Cyberpunk 2077, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep?, and Her.

I love this play. I hope you will, too. Special thanks to Dr. Nina K. Martin & Pluto Shea.

TOT’s Production of Autophagy / written by Lilly McGee

From the playwright:

When I was a kid, a friend of mine told me that if you threw up pink, that meant your body was eating itself from the inside out. This is not true, I’ve since learned, but the image of something bright and artificial coming out of my body haunted me. The process I think my friend was trying to describe is called ‘autophagy’ which roughly means self-devouring. I wanted to explore my childhood fear and the concept of someone who was ‘self-devouring’ in this show!

About Theatermakers of Today

We are Theatermakers Of Today, or TOT! We are a new theater production company that was founded this year. We plan to produce shows that have been written by student/newly graduated playwrights who have never seen their work done on a professional level before; we plan to provide a platform for these playwrights that they might not find elsewhere.

TOT was founded by Giuseppe Piccirilli. Giuseppe graduated from Connecticut College in 2025 after majoring in Theater. Giuseppe is an actor, director, and producer. Giuseppe serves as TOT’s executive producer and is directing TOT’s upcoming show, Autophagy, written by Lilly McGee. theatermakersoftoday.com