Us. Here. Now. The New American Drama Series

Professional actors collaborate with students from DSU’s Department of Theatre under the direction of Kathryn Syssoyeva in this series of staged readings presenting cutting-edge, award-winning drama by contemporary American playwrights. Ranging from realism to the absurd, pathos to dark comedy, these plays engage some of our most urgent social concerns – the demise of industry, the vanishing middle class, race relations, social fragmentation, global warming…. Each reading is preceded by a presentation on the playwright and the play, and followed by a conversation between audience, cast, and director about the themes of these rich new works, and their relevance to our own social and political realities. October 11th 6:30-9:30 PM: Global Warming (2013), by Charles Mee A (very) dark comedy about drowning in denial with Varlo Davenport, Richard Hill, and advanced acting students of the DSU department of Theatre. Directed by Kathryn Syssoyeva Playwright Charles Mee is the recipient of (among many honors) two Obie awards and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Not a ‘political play’ in the usual sense, Global Warming emerges, like all of Mee’s work, from his belief “that human beings … are the product not just of psychology, but also of history and of culture, that we often express our histories and cultures in ways even we are not conscious of, that the culture speaks through us, grabs us and throws us to the ground, cries out, silences us.” Content advisory: adult language and themes.