Blue, a gifted trumpeter, contemplates selling his once-vibrant jazz club in Detroit's Blackbottom neighborhood to shake free the demons of his past and better his life. But where does that leave his devoted Pumpkin, who has dreams of her own? And what does it mean for the club's resident bebop band? When a mysterious woman with a walk that drives men mad comes to town with her own plans, everyone's world is turned upside down. This dynamic and musically-infused drama shines light on the challenges of building a better future on the foundation of what our predecessors have left us.

Dr. Bertram and Sandra Cabot invite longtime friends Dirk and Celeste Von Stofenberg to their beautiful Connecticut Gold Coast home in honor of James, the Von Stofenbergs' only son, who has recently been released from an esteemed private psychiatric hospital. The feast promises to be delicious, but when Sandra enlists Dirk to help her change the course of her life, the sky turns a strange color, Canadian geese start crashing into the bay window, and the fate of the evening tilts toward an inevitable conclusion that promises to change the lives of all who come to the table.

Meet Diane, a permaculture gardener dripping with butch charm. She's got supernatural abilities owing to her true identity--the Greek god Dionysus--and she's returned to the modern world to gather mortal followers and restore the Earth to its natural state. Where better to begin than with four housewives in a suburban New Jersey cul-de-sac? In this Obie-winning comedy with a twist, Pulitzer Prize finalist Madeleine George pens a hilarious evisceration of the blind eye we all turn to climate change and the bacchanalian catharsis that awaits us, even in our own backyards.

This collection includes: B-Storm by Ava Geyer - Sex sells. Even when you're selling chocolate syrup to little kids, unfortunately. New York ad execs are forced to confront past wounds and current crises when their new campaign hits a little stickily close to home. Open Venas by Exal Iraheta - In this comedic clash of cultures and generations, only-child Amelia must combat her meddling mother and grandmother when they invade her honeymoon to guarantee that she fulfills her "responsibility" to carry on the bloodline. My Yellow is Yours, Your Red is Mine by Keyanna Khatiblou - Two Iranian-American sisters attempt to celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year, for the first time since their family immigrated to the U.S. Suckers by SP O'Brien - Vacation has ended. All the children are back to school. These three elementary school teachers need a cigarette. Kill Me. Will Be Live by Micah Ariel Watson - Imani, Clara, and Mia bask fully in their womanhood after a party. But in an instant, joyful reminiscence becomes a plea for the value of Black lives. Not Only is Everyone as Wonderful by Celeste Yim - In a near-future department store where any purchase is a voice-automated command away, a young adult going through a breakup is opened to the opportunity of finding love again by the possibility of a shiny new crush.

Oberon Play House's director and leading men are off at war with the Axis. Determined to press on, the director's wife sets out to produce an all-female version of Shakespeare's Henriad, assembling an increasingly unexpected team united in desire, if not actual theatre experience. Together they deliver a delightful celebration of collaboration and persistence when the show must go on!

Mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved... 18-year-old Samantha Brown sits in a hand-me-down car with the keys clutched in her hand. Caught between a yearning for the unknown and feeling bound by expectation, she telescopes back to a time before her world had fallen apart. As she relives her senior year, we meet Sam's well-intentioned helicopter mother Bev and her high school sweetheart of a boyfriend Adam, but it's her painfully alive best friend Kelly that haunts her. Kelly was everything Sam is not - impetuous and daring. She pushed Sam to break rules and do the unexpected. When Kelly's killed in a car wreck, Sam loses not only her best friend but also the part of herself that was learning to be brave. Now, Sam has to make a decision. Will she follow her mother's dreams for her, or will she summon the courage to drive away from her friends and family into a future she can't imagine?

One of Manhattan's most established play festivals, the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival fosters the work of emerging writers, giving them the exposure of publication and representation. The 44th collection includes: A Small Breach in Protocol at Big Rick's Rockin' Skydive Academy - When a routine skydive jump seems to go awry, Rae and Alicia must face big existential questions about meaning, power, and mortality as they plummet 200 miles per hour to Earth. Tidwell, or the Plantation Play - A storm looms over the Tidwell Plantation just as the slaves of Quarter 5 prepare to clock out. Stay for Dinner - Joe is stuck. Literally. His job as a severed head in a haunted house has its ups and downs. On one hand, he spends time confined under a table. On the other, he gets to spend time chatting with his crush. But how does a guy make his move when he can't...move? Bunkmates - Shelley and Gary have a lot in common. They both love their pets, they both have a strong online presence, and they're both convinced Y2K is going to be our imminent downfall. Cluck Deluxe - Isa is finally bringing her girlfriend home for a Mississippi Thanksgiving, and she did not expect her biggest problem to be fast-food chicken. I Love You St. Petersburg! - Career day can be daunting, especially for musical theatre lovers...and moms.

In this modern morality tale, a vicious killer is on the loose, and the kindhearted Douglass finds himself the target of detectives who need a win at any cost. Desperate to seek justice and clear his name, Douglass escapes prison and sets out on a harrowing, fantastical quest to find the true perpetrator. In this riveting dark comedy, the lines between good and evil blur in a search for redemption.

Miracles abound in Fishtown, PA, on the edge of the Delaware River, home of four-flushers and robbers. A baseball-playing Old Man and his two sons brawl, fight, and love in this dark comedy of the realistic and outrageous. A one-armed grifter and his sister enter this hermetically-sealed world, and passions and violence erupt in life-changing ways. House on Fire is a moving and funny parable of redemption and love.

It's monsoon season in Phoenix, Arizona, and recently-separated couple Danny and Julia are spiraling into chaos. A strip club's flashing neon sign is keeping Danny awake at night, and Julia's Adderall addiction has only gotten worse since her dealer moved in. Danny is suffering from micro-blackouts, and Julia keeps seeing a giant bird in her backyard. Is anyone watching their kid? This romantic comedy for a toxic world comes alive with biting humor and blinding insight.

In this modern revenge play, Brenda Hendricks has her hands full dealing with her son Noah after he is expelled from a prestigious college and unexpectedly returns to their isolated Northern California home. When a mysterious woman arrives on their doorstep, Brenda and Noah find their world turned upside down in ways both intimate and epic.

Ecohorror represents human fears about the natural world-killer plants and animals, catastrophic weather events, and disquieting encounters with the nonhuman. Its portrayals of animals, the environment, and even scientists build on popular conceptions of zoology, ecology, and the scientific process. As such, ecohorror is a genre uniquely situated to address life, art, and the dangers of scientific knowledge in the Anthropocene. Featuring new readings of the genre, Fear and Nature brings ecohorror texts and theories into conversation with other critical discourses. The chapters cover a variety of media forms, from literature and short fiction to manga, poetry, television, and film. The chronological range is equally varied, beginning in the nineteenth century with the work of Edgar Allan Poe and finishing in the twenty-first with Stephen King and Guillermo del Toro. This range highlights the significance of ecohorror as a mode. In their analyses, the contributors make explicit connections across chapters, question the limits of the genre, and address the ways in which our fears about nature intersect with those we hold about the racial, animal, and bodily "other." A foundational text, this volume will appeal to specialists in horror studies, Gothic studies, the environmental humanities, and ecocriticism. In addition to the editors, the contributors include Kristen Angierski, Bridgitte Barclay, Marisol Cortez, Chelsea Davis, Joseph K. Heumann, Dawn Keetley, Ashley Kniss, Robin L. Murray, Brittany R. Roberts, Sharon Sharp, and Keri Stevenson.

The Handbook Research Video is an introduction to a new type of software and publication based on annotated videos. Practitioners and researchers who work with motion data, for example in the fields of performative art, film, behavioral research or sports science, are supported in their work process and have the opportunity to publish content via video that a printed book cannot convey. The handbook not only presents the findings of the Research Video project at Zurich University of the Arts, but also offers a manual for using the software tool. Low-threshold "hands-on" access and the absence of a theoretical superstructure allow users to quickly become familiar with and use the software tool.

What do Batman, Doctor Who, quantum physics, Oscar Wilde, liberalism, the second law of thermodynamics, Harry Potter fanfic, postmodernism, and Superman have in common? If your answer to that was "Nothing" then...well, you're probably right. But in this book Andrew Hickey will try to convince you otherwise. In doing so he'll take you through: How to escape from a black hole and when you might not want to The scientist who thinks he's proved the existence of heaven and what that has to do with Batman What to do if you discover you're a comic-book character Whether killing your own grandfather is really a bad idea And how to escape from The Life Trap! An examination of the comics of Grant Morrison, Alan Moore and Jack Kirby, Doctor Who spin-off media, and how we tell stories to each other, Sci-Ence! Justice Leak! tells you to look around you and say: "This is an imaginary universe...Aren't they all?"

This book is an introduction by leading experts in the field to the fascinating subject of translating audiovisual programs for the television, the cinema, the Internet and the stage and the problems the differences between cultures can cause.

Situated at the crossroads of performance practice, museology, and cultural studies, live arts curation has grown in recent years to become a vibrant interdisciplinary project and a genuine global phenomenon. Curating Live Arts brings together bold and innovative essays from an international group of theorist-practitioners to pose vital questions, propose future visions, and survey the landscape of this rapidly evolving discipline. Reflecting the field's characteristic eclecticism, the writings assembled here offer practical and insightful investigations into the curation of theatre, dance, sound art, music, and other performance forms-not only in museums, but in community, site-specific, and time-based contexts, placing it at the forefront of contemporary dialogue and discourse.

Stuck at home in a state of shocked limbo, Julie and Zander, two thirteen-year-olds, try to make sense of the chaos they've witnessed, their awkward crushes, and an infinitely more complicated future - but the grown-ups are no help at all. An urgent response to our times, This Flat Earth is a startling and deeply felt story of growing up in our confounding world.

Smack-dab in the middle of America in Winnetka, Illinois, four women enter a Betty Crocker cooking contest in hopes of changing their lives. What they get is much more than they bargained for. Little did they know that it would take a zoologist from Indiana University, Alfred C. Kinsey, to really get them "cooking"! In an age when people believed the way to a man's heart was through his stomach, the four women discover that the way to a woman's heart is through her best friends.

Set in San Diego, this gripping, time-bending story sheds light on a little-known chapter in medical history during the onset of the AIDS crisis. While navigating through the complexities of the medical establishment, Roz and Ray tells a profound story of love, trust, and sacrifice that grapples with the messy process of healing the human heart.

Based on over seventy interviews conducted around the world by playwright Paul Lucas, Trans Scripts, Part I: The Women is a compelling exploration of the lives of trans women, as told in their own words. These unique and compelling stories are honest, funny, moving, insightful, and inspiring, but most of all, they are human, shedding light not on our differences but on what we all, as humans, share.

As lines between characters and actors - as well as observers and observed - blur, a dizzying series of vignettes builds to a climactic moment in which performance and reality collide, highlighting the absurdity of anti-Blackness in our society. Through facilitation and dialogue we must decide how to cope, resist, and move forward.

Karma's foster brother, Terrell, has gone missing, and she's trying to find him amidst the inner city chaos that is The Oblong - but his teacher can't remember his name, his foster mom is still cashing his reimbursement checks, and his ex is glad he's gone. Where's the police, where are the reporters? Karma seems to be the only one who cares, but the more she looks, the more she realizes that in The Oblong, caring only means trouble.

When Onegin, a dashing but jaded aristocrat from St. Petersburg, inherits his uncle's estate in the country, his arrival sets hearts afire and stirs the embers of jealousy. Even the reclusive young Tatyana falls hopelessly under the spell of the aloof Onegin and professes her love for him. Will playing with lonely Russian hearts reap heartbreak or romance?

An estranged bi-racial couple must confront their feelings about race and bias after their son is detained by the local police following a traffic stop incident. Their disparate histories and backgrounds inform their assumptions as they try to find out what happened to their son.