FRIDAY April 25 @ 7:00 pm

TERRA FIRMA

by Barbara Hammond

About the Play:

Inspired by a real life event, Terra Firma uses an audacious act of aggression, a family’s armed takeover of an abandoned anti-aircraft platform — that is surrounded by land mines and appears to be slowly sinking into the sea — to wrestle with the questions: What is a nation? Who is the enemy? And what price freedom?

Playwright Bio

Barbara Hammond (she/her) is a citizen of both the United States and Ireland, and a proud alumnus of New Dramatists.  The Royal Court Theatre commissioned TERRA FIRMA which had its off-Broadway world premiere with Andrus Nichols’ The Coop  in October 2019 and was published by Oberon Books.  Her research took her into international waters seven miles off the coast of Essex to one of the world’s smallest countries, the Principality of Sealand. Her play, WE ARE PUSSY RIOT OR EVERYTHING IS P.R., published by Dramatists Play Service, was originally a commission for the Contemporary American Theatre Festival and took her to the world’s biggest country, and its courts, cathedrals and counter-culture.  THE EVA TRILOGY had its world premiere at The Magic Theatre in the fall of 2017 directed by Loretta Greco, and will soon be presented at The Glens Centre in Ireland directed by Ray Yeates.  Her play VISIBLE FROM FOUR STATES was produced by The Magic Theatre in July 2019.  Her new play DRIVE explores the ethics of organ donation and the emotional burden carried by survivors.  She and her plays have won recognition, awards and funding from many national and international sources, including the National Endowment of the Arts, PBS, Emerson College, Duke University, the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, VGLAZ, The Venturous Theatre Fund, the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and is a member of ASCAP and the Dramatists Guild.  Playlist: TERRA FIRMA; we are pussy riot or EVERYTHING IS P.R.; VISIBLE FROM FOUR STATES; THE EVA TRILOGY; JAMES; BEYOND THE PALE; NORMAN AND BEATRICE and a collection of three one-acts entitled NEW YORK IN JUNE.  Film: JUNE WEDDINGS. Musical:  YOU AND ME, with composer Marc Chan.

SATURDAY April 26 @ 7:00 pm

Mox Nox

by Patrick Gabridge

About the Play:

In a world of magical realism and rising water, two sisters are reunited at their family home. In a slowly drowning world, everyone is searching for love and higher ground.

Playwright Bio

Patrick Gabridge (he/him) is a playwright, novelist, screenwriter, and producer. He’s the producing artistic director of Plays in Place, a company specializing in creating site-specific work for museums and historic sites. Patrick is also an avid gardener and former farmer and has written a number of plays, both long and short, dealing with environmental and climate change, including Mox Nox, Drift, A Bright New Morning, and Hot Love in the Moonlight.

SUNDAY April 27 @ 7:00 pm

The Tusk Hunters

by Dan Caffrey

About the Play
Two men in the Alaskan tundra search for woolly mammoth tusks as an alternative to elephant ivory. But their most recent discovery causes their employer to pivot from the ivory trade to a more technologically innovative venture as a means of combating climate change. Inspired by the real-life founding of Colossal Biosciences, The Tusk Hunters explores the morality of de-extinction and the toll that scientifically revolutionary ideas take on those who execute them.

Playwright Bio

Dan Caffrey (he/him) is a playwright, musician, teacher, and pop-culture critic who graduated from The University of Texas at Austin’s M.F.A. Playwriting program in 2020. Prior to that, he lived and made new theatrical work in Chicago for more than a decade, where he co-founded the Tympanic Theatre Company (RIP) and served as its Artistic Director from 2007 to 2015. He’s currently based in Brooklyn after a stint teaching playwriting at the Tony Award-winning Alliance Theatre in Atlanta.  

His work draws heavily from wildlife, horror, and various otherworldly elements. He’s interested in how these external, often non-human forces can upend his characters’ views of humanity, pushing them to confront more internal threats such as secrecy, repression, insecurity, and fear. Most recently, his stories have focused on the physical and psychological effects of the climate crisis, including the zero-waste world premiere of his play The Amphibians at Weber State University and River Watchers, an immersive theatre experience on a moving 14-person canoe in Brooklyn’s Newtown Creek.

Dan is a proud member of the 2023/2024 Civilians’ R&D Group, where he developed his play The Tusk Hunters. He has been a three-time O’Neill Finalist and six-time Semi-Finalist, two-time Finalist for Princeton University and The Civilians’ The Next Forever project, Jerome Fellowship Semi-Finalist, shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship’s 2021 Theatre Prize, Semi-Finalist for the Princess Grace Awards Playwriting Fellowship, Resident Artist at Tofte Lake Center, M.F.A. Scholar at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and his work has been published in several anthologies by Smith & Kraus, including The Best Women’s Stage Monologues 2021. His plays have recently been developed/produced by Think Tank Theatre, the Atlantic, Hot Playwright Summer, The Workshop Theater, The Orchard Project, American Records, Mixily Presents, Greenbrier Valley Theatre, JOOK, Jarrott Productions, Kitchen Dog Theater, Hot Kitchen Collective, Genesis Ensemble, and Pegasus PlayLab at the University of Central Florida. His play “A Seed” was part of the 46th Annual Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival, produced by Concord Theatricals. His play “Duckass” was part of the 2022 festival, making it to the final 12. 

Dan has also written for a variety of pop-culture publications, including The A.V. Club, Consequence, Pitchfork, and Vox. His first book, Radiohead FAQ, is currently available from Backbeat Books (an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield). He co-hosts The Losers’ Club: A Stephen King Podcast (recipient of the Silver Bolo Award For Excellence In Horror Media) and Halloweenies: A Horror Franchise podcast, in addition to recording music with Mae Shults under the name Methodist Hospital. Dean of American Rock Critics Robert Christgau hailed their debut album, Giants, as one of the best of 2018.