World Premiere

Roots: An Evening of World Premiere Shorts

By Lisa Sanaye Dring, Phinneas Kiyomura, Erik Patterson, Bill Robens

Roots: An Evening of World Premiere Shorts is an evening of four wonderfully strange short plays, written by four accomplished Theatre of NOTE-grown playwrights, which together usher audiences through the complexity of the human condition. In Deadpan, a dark comedy for dark times unfolds at a wedding, which seems to be taking place either in a sitcom or merely a disturbed mind. In The Smell of Something to Eat, a one-night stand takes a Kafkaesque turn. Is this stranger the one? Or just something very strange? Big Ones is a story of people, who probably definitely love each other, as they encounter tectonic distress. Lastly, a young woman escaping Soviet Russia goes on to found modern conservative philosophy before becoming the subject of her own musical theater production in Rand!. Everyone has their own journey, but we all start at our Roots.

May 10 – June 23

Two people meet at a bar. They have a few drinks, they hit it off, they go home
together. Then one of them realizes the other one isn’t who—or even what—they thought they
were. But maybe that’s a good thing? The Smell of Something to Eat explores what happens
when you stop scurrying away from the things you’re afraid of and actually try to connect.

Winchester’s supposed to be getting married today, but she just realized she’s living in
a sitcom—Or she’s lost her mind and is living in complete denial about how bad things really
are–And lemme tell you kids, things are even worse than you think.

Big Ones is the story of people who probably definitely love each other as they
encounter tectonic distress. Set in the hills of Mt. Washington at 3am tomorrow morning, two
siblings and a significant other deal with emergency water supply, old wounds, online dating and
Mom after The Motherfucking Big One hits.

Escaping Soviet Russia as a young woman, she went on to become arguably the most
influential thinker in post-War America. Like it or not, it’s Ayn Rand. Follow her progress from founder of modern conservative philosophy to becoming the subject of her own musical theater production.