Last Gasp has been selected for the 2020 Mid-America Theatre Conference in Chicago. I’ve had fun working on this play, an apocalyptic dark comedy about an imagined climate-change end game. I try hard to keep the audience guessing about what what and who they are watching. That is all I will say. No spoilers here!
MATC is a development conference, so it will give me a chance to work some kinks out of a script that owes a debt to The Twilight Zone, and that some have found confusing. I may need to weave in a bit more exposition, but I don’t want to make it too easy to follow; it’s meant to be a play that makes you wonder and think.
Are there really people in this world who believe that humans are not to blame for climate change and, therefore, we should not try to do something about it? Okay. Fine. Enter four dinosaurs and a cockroach, who are facing a potential extinction event, themselves. Or maybe two dinosaurs and a cockroach. Or even four dinosaurs, a cockroach, and a rat. I have three versions of Every Creeping Thing.
As I write this post, Every Creeping Thing been produced twice. The first production was the small-cast version at Oldies but Goodies, a festival of five-minute play Festival presented by Playwrights Round Table and Valencia College in Orlando, Florida (Daniel Garces, director; Cast: Katia Avalos, Josh Hernandez and Alexis Vazquez). The second, featuring the full cast, was at ArtsBonita’s Funny Shorts Live! Festival in Bonita Springs, Florida (Janina Britolo, director; Cast: Melissa Henning, Carolyn Bronson, Luis Pages, Kristin Voit, and Janina Britolo.) I realize that two productions of one climate change satire is not even strong anecdotal evidence; nonetheless, they seem to be thinking about climate change in Florida. Go figure.
The picture below is from the Bonita Springs production and, yes, that beach ball with rainbow polka dots is meant to be an asteroid. Actually it’s meant to be the asteroid. They had fun with this play. I had fun writing it, and I hope it makes people laugh. But I also hope it makes them think, and act. Because satire is not the same as comedy, and climate change is no joke.
The cast of Every Creeping Thing at Funny Shorts Live!, presented by ArtsBonita (September 2019). From left: Melissa Henning, Carolyn Bronson, Luis Pages, Kristin Voit, Janina Britolo, who also directed the performance.
