{"title":"Plays Inverse","description":"\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ePlays Inverse Press is an independent publisher of dramatic literature, publishing plays and performance texts based on literary merit rather than production records from new, established, and cross-genre writers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWe believe dramatic literature should be more than just manuals for performance, publishing quality editions intended for a life on the shelf as well as in the hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWe are advocates of radio, collaborative, hybrid, translated, exploratory, digital, experimental, and all other forms of hyphenated drama.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWe believe, along with Faulkner, that \"the aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life,\" and that that, at its core, is the purpose of drama.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWe also agree with Artaud that \"we are not free. And the sky can still fall on our heads. And the theater has been created to teach us that first of all.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWe sometimes believe in ghosts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"last\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e— Tyler Crumrine, Editor\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"how-gross-my-seances","title":"How Gross, My Séances","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHow Gross, My Séances\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJordan Chesnut\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ewith illustrations by Aidan Koch\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e$14.95\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHow does the experience of loss alter the ways that we love? How Gross My Séances is a theatre of the imagination, and it takes place in \"a world of wounds\", a body of grief. The characters are precariously intertwined—memories are animate tattoos (flash sheet included), a chorus of crumbling statues consult and console, and a talk show host interviews our moody antagonist. This is a psycho-drama that interrogates subjectivity, grief and its embodiments, discourse around dispossessed persons, responsibility within and outside romantic love, and the efficacy of language itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTragedy, Verse, Necropastoral\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCast: 3M, 4W, ~10A\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCover art by Lauren Roche\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJordan Chesnut's How Gross, My Séances is a true Necropastoral: nocturnally green and vividly black, tenderly adorned with word play, tattoos, and dance moves, lit up with avatars, frogs, and celebrity appearances, and galactically moiréd with both classical and contemporary trappings of absurdity and grief. An inventive paean for a collapsing world that can't quite reach the end of its catastrophe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e—Joyelle McSweeney\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJust as even fixed ink can generate fluent tributaries, Jordan Chesnut's play in verse, How Gross, My Séances compels us to map our inner labyrinths as it navigates an underworld system of winding canals and sudden switchbacks through a seething murk of febrile decay, its own sorrow fruiting some luminescent hallucinogen like a guide lamp hung from the ferry's prow and leading us ever deeper into the shadow, ever closer to the fountainhead of a vital new mythology.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e—Ken White\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHow Gross, My Séances abstracts and ruminates on loss, popular culture, literature, familial relations, and converts them to the philosophical and metaphysical realm—invariably connecting spirituality to devoutness and doubt to bewilderment. Throughout, this collection constructs an authorial speaker who endeavors to address the inevitable society-based traumas that affect grieving. I admire the poignant discursive descriptions and cumulative interrogation, which are stunning examples of Chesnut's ability to craft dramatic tension.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e—Prageeta Sharma\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727259643989,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/HowCross_MySeances.jpg?v=1700145366"},{"product_id":"trial-in-the-woods","title":"Trial in the Woods","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eTrial in the Woods\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eStephanie Barber\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$14.95\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eOn the morning of the 5th gibbous moon, Ovelia Otter attacks and kills Pennstin the young wolf at Bear Chondra's Mix Flow Get Up And Go exercise class. That same afternoon, Ovelia Otter is brought before a jury of her peers, Judge Bodon Boar presiding. Prosecutor Lynx believes she should be expelled from animal society immediately, while Defense Squirrel S. argues animal instinct ought not to be prosecuted at all. Witness after witness are called to the stand and the forest's animals hang on the trial's every word—most more interested in the spectacle than its outcome. One part crime procedural and one part fable, Stephanie Barber's Trial in the Woods is a bold new play about ethics, the efficacy of punitive justice, and our (human, American) criminal justice system. It's also very, very funny.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eComedy, Fable, Crime Procedural\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: 1 Bear, 1 Boar, 1 Lynx, 1 Squirrel, 1 Otter, 2 Wolves, 1 Elephant, 1 Turtle, 1 Bison, 1 Lizard, 1 Tiger, 1 Hare, 1 Cardinal, 1 Fox, 1 Owl, 1 Macaque, 1 Snake, 2 Deer, 1 Camera Person\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover art by Jackie Milad\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eStephanie Barber's visionary latest, Trial in the Woods, is a philosophical and frequently hilarious dive into violence, blame, truth, communal responsibility, and the absurdity of our institutions. On the surface, this play concerns a crime and a trial, and moves with the deliciously swift pace of a courtroom procedural, but as the interrogations progress the animals at the center of the trial have much to reveal about the essence of human nature. I love the way Barber's work never does quite what I expect, always resists the familiar path, so I emerge from her worlds exhilarated and even changed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Laura van den Berg, author of I Hold a Wolf by the Ears\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIf Eugène Ionesco were commissioned to write a posthumanist spoof of The Stranger and wellness culture while on acid, the result might look something like Stephanie Barber's rollicking and thoroughly enjoyable Trial in the Woods, a play that casts forest animals to act out our (human) legal rituals. With humor and lyricism, Barber uses absurdist allegory to poke holes in the foundational assumptions of social contract theory. Trial in the Woods raises probing questions about the performativity of law and the relationship between abolition and animality, all the while gracefully balancing philosophical insight and madcap wit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Jackie Wang, author of The Sunflower Cast A Spell To Save Us From The Void\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWhen a brutal murder takes place in broad daylight, how hard can it be to pursue justice? With that question, Stephanie Barber's Trial in the Woods takes me to a strange dream, where civic engagement becomes a carnival of death and the excitement of the crowd turns into a collective paralysis. At first it seems so odd how peacefully these wild animals live with each other—I can't help but wonder how much blood was shed to reach that social agreement. And now it's broken. How far and how deep will these talking animals go to examine the contract that they hold together?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Zhu Yi, author of Alien of Extraordinary Ability\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727267180629,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/TrialintheWoods.jpg?v=1700147754"},{"product_id":"an-ice-cream-truck-stalled-at-the-bottom-of-the-world","title":"An Ice Cream Truck Stalled at the Bottom of the World","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn Ice Cream Truck Stalled at the Bottom of the World\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJon Cone \u0026amp; Rauan Klassnik\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ePog sprawls on a couch. Gomey stands by a large globe. Pog sits at the counter. Gomey sits at a table. Two broken lawn chairs, center stage. Pog and Gomey listless in these chairs. Pog and Gomey seated, next to each other, but at different tables. Pog dressed as Punch, or Judy. Gomey dressed as Judy, or Punch. Pog, you know. Gomey, too. In chairs, side by side: Pog and Gomey. Left of center, Pog at a lectern. Right of center, Gomey at a lectern. A post-apocalyptic place, no sign of anyone. Pog dressed in bird mask and long iron sheets. Gomey on stilts. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. The audience almost gets up to leave. A smell of popcorn. Pog puts on a big floppy hat. Gomey is sniffling. Pog, a man, barely. Gomey, another man, also barely.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIn their collection of collaborative short plays, poets Jon Cone and Rauan Klassnik introduce us to Pog \u0026amp; Gomey—a Waiting for Godot-esque pair for the new millennium. Except our friends aren't waiting for anyone in particular—they might not even be friends. They're just stuck with each other. But the globe keeps spinning. And an audience has come to watch.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eShort Plays, Collaborative Writing, Experimental\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: Pog, Gomey, Others\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover art by Scrap Princess\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eA feverish, glitchy, hysterical collection of short plays, An Ice Cream Truck Stalled at the Bottom of the World is uncannily familiar in its unfamiliarity. It's perverted and naïve. Where \"the tone is unclear\" we're suspended in the New. Theater-makers, rejoice—Cone and Klassnik's comedy of manners-hitherto-unexplored is unlike anything you've read, a gateway drug to a new theatrical idiom. There's no turning back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—The Runaways Lab Theater, Chicago, IL\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eLike Beckett with a particularly feverish bout of food poisoning. Or like a tea-time plague cartoon animated from the ashes of the last library. Or just like Cone and Klassnik, because there are two others who could write so giddily from the depths of our post-internet, pre-universal-Alzheimer's-like psychosis. Eat it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Blake Butler\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ePass me the papal horn and I'll put out the casting call. SEEKING: Pog and Gomey. Men, barely. Sewers for souls. Somewhere between—or far below—Statler \u0026amp; Waldorf and Deleuze \u0026amp; Guattari. Must physically resemble the skeletal remains of Antonin Artaud and Georges Bataille. For the audition, please prepare a wordless interpretation of this stage direction: \"We feel a new emoji should appear. It doesn't.\" Pog and Gomey will speak. The audience will look up Gomey's nose. Lemme in this show, please. I want to be in it and watch it every day.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Darcie Dennigan\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727267344469,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/AnIceCreamTruckStalledattheBottomoftheWorld.jpg?v=1700147877"},{"product_id":"faun","title":"Faun","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFaun\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eBrandi George\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe book flinches like a school of fish, a murmuration, a murder nation, my colonizer's baby handprint on a paneled wall in a farmhouse in Ovid, Michigan. The book unearths burial mounds and flattens them into fields. My ancestors removed the bones, and I removed arrowheads from the creek, and I held them to my heart, and I searched the grass for blood, but all I saw was a starling. She hid her eggs in my chest, and when I drifted to sleep I saw black-winged, nameless shadows.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThis is the Book of Lily.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIn Faun, Brandi George explores the sudden erasure of human and nonhuman populations from her hometown of Ovid, Michigan. Embodying various voices, forms, and media, a young girl named Lily undergoes a series of transformations guided by nymphs, flora, and fauna. A reworking of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Faun also reflects on the themes of sexual violence that often occur in the mythic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFull-length, Poets' Theatre, Play in Verse\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: Robins, Frogs, Deer, Flies, Bear, Fox, Kits\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover art “At the Riverbank” (1918) by Ivan Bilibin\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFaun is a book like no other. Part feminist mythology, part play, part song, this enigmatic and shamanistic text pushes us intellectually, visually and sonically to navigate a world of wolves, bears, foxes, roots, robins, gnats and eyes. Each character, or set of characters, is given a voice to comment on permutations of Lily, the book's incredible heroine. Faun begins with an act of sexual violence and demonstrates how that act ripples and reverberates through the \"moss-multitudes,\" much the way they do in a place like Ovid, Michigan. Steeped in the modernist tradition, George writes beautifully of those on the brink, who \"can barely stay in the world,\" yet survive in order to create new ones.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Sandra Simonds, author of \u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eOrlando\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eBrandi George's \u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFaun\u003c\/em\u003e is a magical reconstruction of a terrible past into an operatic collection of voices that sing together of the natural world imperiled. Ovid's Metamorphoses is superimposed on Ovid, Michigan, and Lily sings through the generations in an aria that gives voice to trees, rivers, fire, roots, stone, ants. Lily travels to the Underworld. Lily becomes a nymph. Lily lives in the present and the deep primordial past. The upper world and the underground world are utterly mysterious and yet all the voices rise and tell a story of immeasurable tragedy and beauty. Faun is driven by its gorgeous language and by George's powerful voice in a poetic tour de force.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Barbara Hamby, author of \u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eBird Odyssey\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIn this fake-book of flinches, I am translated to a post-lapsarian space along the shores of Lake Superior, to Ovid, Michigan, a space of prolapse, where fibrous teratogens pump like wasps in the vein. George's Lily lapses in darkness; goes errant; all creatures voice around her; she imbibes the poison of Poesie; extricates painfully from herself the barb of settler-inheritance; converts Ovidian logic from rape to consent; and thereby becomes the scene of her own crime-against-society—progenetrix of lyric monsters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Joyelle McSweeney, author of \u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eToxicon \u0026amp; Arachne\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727267737685,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/FAUN.jpg?v=1700147990"},{"product_id":"on-romulus-while-abel-sleeps-a-chthonic-song","title":"On Romulus, While Abel Sleeps [A Chthonic Song.]","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOn Romulus, While Abel Sleeps [A Chthonic Song.]\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJustin Limoli\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI told you how I blamed you for so much,\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eyour fist blooming into a prismed silence, a spectral call\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003efor quiet, cheering from the chorus as your fist anoints\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eliquid mercury to my lips, the sign to all that I have\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003esuccumbed to your weight, wordless.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eBrother, if you called for purple, I would give you amethyst\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003efrom my mouth; if blue, water and a sail.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eGuided by Dante, Freud, and a pantheon of other literary and mythical figures, Justin Limoli travels to hell and back in this new play about brotherhood, loss, and what it means to keep writing when all you write about is grief. A stand-alone work as well as a follow-up to Bloodletting in Minor Scales [A Canvas in Arms.], Limoli's latest blurs the intersection of play and poetry even further, creating something both beautiful and wholly unique in the process.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFull-length, Poets' Theatre, Nonfiction\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: Even More than Last Time\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCover design by David Watt\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eOn Romulus, While Abel Sleeps is a powerful reminder—both sobering and surreal—that for every Abel there's a Cain, for every Remus, a Romulus. In an ever-morphing landscape of melting clocks, this chthonic song achieves something extraordinary, tuning our ear to the blood that cries out to all of us, since time immemorial, from underground.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Adam Seelig\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWe've come to an impasse, Justin. I loved reading On Romulus and I hate myself for it. Everything about this book caused you so much pain. I was knocked over by your words \u0026amp; your music \u0026amp; the dreamy logic of your poetics. I felt crushed by your touching surrealism; I felt crushed by The Can. Justin, Bloodletting made me cry, and this sequel is just as sharp. What have they done to us poets, so that we should compulsively mine tragedy for art? That we should make ourselves so vulnerable? I feel guilty for loving this bloodied book, but how couldn't I? It is truly one of the best things I've ever read.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—M. Forajter\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eOn Romulus, While Abel Sleeps [A Chthonic Song.] is a tragicomedy of multiple errors, a lyric tragedy of smart-ass animated objects, a subverted surreality of non-eventual non-catharsis, a mythopoetic mitochondrial masterpiece, a map, a magic, a moon, and a staggeringly heartbreaking follow-up to Justin Limoli's first book, Bloodletting in Minor Scales [A Canvas in Arms.]. I was entranced once again by the outrageous interplay among Limoli's characters—both living and inanimate. I was spellbound by his language play, offbeat humor, and his inevitably heroic quest for truth and resolution. This is a rare, vulnerable, crazily-creative, journey to (self) love and forgiveness. I recommend it to aficionados of theater and poetry, both and all. It is unforgettable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Maureen Seaton\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIt takes every last drop of Justin Limoli's blood, humor (\"Blood being Blood, well, bleeds\"), gall, and virtuosity to re-take the stage of his Freudian Mental Ward. The result is poetry, a remarkable poetics (stated and applied), and a unique sequel—especially miraculous because it's so familiar. \"Suffering always repeats itself,\" as his Hera says. Bloodletting was a rush—this wrings out by force of will what bears repeating: the endlessly spiraling \"why?\" trauma importunes. With petulance to be expected in such a rehab from hell, he talks smack with gods and Great Poets. Yet, from \"soiled cries,\" his insistent art produces a new orchid hybrid. Line of dialogue from Dear Brother the addict, with stage direction: \"[Takes a syringe full of alphabet soup.] Not guilty.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Magus Magnus\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727267835989,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/OnRomulus_WhileAbelSleeps.jpg?v=1700148092"},{"product_id":"the-last-thing-ill-ever-write-part-one","title":"The Last Thing I'll Ever Write (Part One)","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Last Thing I'll Ever Write (Part One)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAdam Lauver\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$14.95\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eYou feel The Spiral unfurling within you. You're moving carefully, carelessly (take your pick), past a window or a tree or a person, and in the back of your head suddenly you hear the voice of the Spiral wheeze:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"Onward and upward and outward, this is growth, this is evolution. You are in this city and I am here too, with you and without you. I'm here to connect you with the outside, with what's been trying to get in, trying to get you on and up and out. Take my hand and you can be as elastic and as flexible as me. I'll stretch your insides thinner and thinner until finally you'll be able to expand, extend, expend yourself onward and upward and outward, and you'll escape this city, you'll escape that window and that tree and that person, every person that you feel such love\/hate\/indifference for (take your pick) and you'll grow thinner and paler and ever more transparent, but you'll be taller and longer and your eyes will be clearer and your imaginary embrace will encompass not only this city but all cities, all worlds, and your compassion will exceed even that of God's by virtue of your complete, utter, perfect inability to act on it, to spend it, to waste it on anyone at all. You'll finally be able to keep your love to yourself, untouched, untapped, pure and deep and preserved by your own inevitable valueless hate. And together we'll continue to unfurl, carefully, carelessly (take your pick), until we cover so much space that regardless of what we look like to others we'll know that we've discovered something we can finally un-call Truth.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAnd you say:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"Fuck off Spiral, I have shit to do.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eA full-length debut on communication, intimacy, and despair as told through poetry, dreamscapes, and scenes from an existential sitcom, Adam Lauver's The Last Thing I'll Ever Write (Part One) will lovingly reach down your throat and pull out a series of vaguely Jurassic noises you can't quite identify as a laugh or a sob.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eComedy, Tragedy, ¯\\_(ツ)_\/¯\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCast: 6A\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover Design by Rayne Klar\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAdam Lauver's The Last Thing I'll Ever Write (Part One) is like Prometheus Unbound rewritten by Samuel Beckett—a fever dream about a desperate search for meaning and connection in a world defined by violence and solitude. Alternating between satirical realism and mystic abstraction, between bawdy humor and lyrical solemnity, Lauver playfully experiments with competing apocalypses in this five-act closet drama.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Carrie Shanafelt\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThis play invites us to fall into a dream logic bordering on Lynchian esotericism. Cutting between moments and scenes, characters are undefined, then defined, then obliterated. Religion cannot help a believer cope with the heaviness of depression, yet human intimacy and connection feel equally absurd in moments of hopelessness. Desperate to communicate, The Last Thing I'll Ever Write (Part One) is an urgent existential plea in the face of contemporary despair.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Joshua Young\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eViscerally bare and hauntingly vulnerable, The Last Thing I'll Ever Write (Part One) is every inch a liminal space you'll want to spend the rest of your life wrestling with, and every bit an embodiment of why we admire the nostalgia within ourselves. As much as it is wise, it is young. As much as it is yearning, it is at peace. Adam Lauver's voice is one so inviting and so honest, you won't want anyone else to confront and caress oblivion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Ayla Sullivan\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eA play \u0026amp; a dream journal, whimsical \u0026amp; insightful, filled with social horrors \u0026amp; delights, The Last Thing I'll Ever Write (Part One) is a wild ride of dialectics, all clamoring to speak. Concepts, archetypes, forces of nature, gods, and shapes work through gestures of intentionality \u0026amp; order, unified by the need to tell of—to make some sense of—our disarray. Adam Lauver buries insight in the fertile dirt of silliness, from which sprouts joy \u0026amp; wonder.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Mathias Svalina\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727267901525,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/TheLastThingI_llEverWrite_PartOne.jpg?v=1700148201"},{"product_id":"a-failed-performance-short-plays-scenes-by-daniil-kharms","title":"A Failed Performance: Short Plays \u0026 Scenes by Daniil Kharms","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA Failed Performance\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eShort Plays \u0026amp; Scenes by Daniil Kharms\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eTranslated by C Dylan Basset \u0026amp; Emma Winsor Wood\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$19.95\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e People disappear without explanation. The government takes hostages. War and death occur without reason or meaning. The cycle of poverty and deprivation proliferates. A Failed Performance is a collection of bizarre and darkly humorous plays and scenes from the Russian avant-garde writer Daniil Kharms. This collection—the first volume in English dedicated entirely to Kharms's dramatic works—includes his major stage plays Elizaveta Bam and Lapa as well as lesser-known sketches and hybrid poem-plays, most of which were never published or performed during his lifetime.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eHybrid, Avant-Garde, Translation\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: Kings of Breath Mints, Queens of Dog Hair, Etc.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover Art: \"Suprematism\" (1915) by Kazimir Malevich\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eREVIEWS\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/daniil-kharms-blank-message\/\"\u003e3:AM Magazine\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eKharms's writing for me is like molecules that combine and re-combust an expected time creating another world. That is on one hand real and on the other unreal. It is its duality that gives his brilliant text power.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Robert Wilson\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eReading Kharms relieves us of the burden of making sense of the senseless. I lose my head reading these plays, but for this exact world, I'm better off without it. Maybe there'll never be a time not to read Kharms, but now is not one of those times.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Zachary Schomburg\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIt's hard to read these rescued short plays and scenes by Kharms and not think of his vulnerability as a writer living under Stalin and the irrational state. The date of each piece tells us the time running out on his destiny. He is brave; every mention of food is heartbreaking; you hope he was consoled by the sheer act of writing, by continuing to create for as long as he could. Russian culture and literary history thank the friend who saved his papers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Darryl Pinckney \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727268196437,"sku":"","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/AFailedPerformance.jpg?v=1700148324"},{"product_id":"in-which-_______-and-others-discover-the-end","title":"In Which _______ and Others Discover the End","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIn Which _______ and Others Discover the End\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eRachel Jendrzejewski \u0026amp; SuperGroup\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$14.95\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e Emerging from a densely layered collaboration between performers, audience, visual environment, and sound, In Which _______ and Others Discover the End grapples with the current generation's collective, unconscious anxiety that the world may in the foreseeable future be uninhabitable for humans. Taking inspiration from scientific discoveries (the identification of a new knee ligament, a new class of mathematical shape, the previously unknown mating spot of the blue whale) that are continually updating what we think we know, In Which asks us to acknowledge that we live in a world of uncertainty through an expansive rumination on the ways we embody polarity, mystery, mortality, discovery, and change.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e In Which _______ and Others Discover the End is a collaboration between performance collective SuperGroup and experimental playwright Rachel Jendrzejewski. This publication includes illustrations of the original performance, music notation, and a foreword by Lara D. Nielsen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFound Text, Ensemble, Poetry, Dance\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: 7A\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover photo by Theo Goodell\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eRachel Jendrzejewski \u0026amp; SuperGroup have the very difficult task of \"trying to tell a story with no chance of success\"—that of the Earth's future and our own. In a story in which we may too easily succumb to helplessness or fear, this play takes a compassionate approach that examines our discomfort and calls us into \"running and jumping and recognizing each other.\" Through dance, music, visual art, and a participatory audience, the performers seek to bring us back into conversation with our body, with other bodies, with the body of the Earth. A physical score for movement guides each potential iteration of this performance to allow for mourning, for embarrassment and admission, for growth. The piece is a celebration of our togetherness, an acknowledgment of all we do not know. Why even call it a performance? This is an act of living. \"You can take a minute to tune in. Listen.\" And you should. Just long enough to awaken your body, awaken your voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Abigail Zimmer\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThis visionary, exemplary book feels like the lovechild of Caryl Churchill and Deborah Hay. A document that is at once a dance, a play, an epic poem and a graphic novel, it provides a new way of thinking through performance at the beginning of the end of the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Miguel Gutierrez\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWords and image hover in a suspense of whimsy and joy, with the understanding that whimsy is also a form of mortal anxiety and theodicy is joy's visa. The printed event is spacious, generous, and playful—also beautifully instrumental in the ways it is framed and illuminated. One smells the Flapjacks of Creativity in the traces here of process: love, compassion and fellowship reading clearly. A process of making comes alive and provokes more making in responsive ripples.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e Politically, the piece is clear eyed about rut peel parches and the squandering ooze, while ultimately praising the glory of dappled things in their dappling, dappling, dappling. Esthetically, here is smart, electric instress, recalling a strong inscape and calling for new.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eNotes:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe document is a lake's capture of a leaf on its tension, and the delicate tremors radiant therefrom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIt is all highly personal. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThere are ligaments.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Erik Ehn\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727268360277,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/InWhich_____AndOthersDiscovertheEnd.jpg?v=1700148431"},{"product_id":"your-healing-is-killing-me","title":"Your Healing is Killing Me","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eYour Healing is Killing Me\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eVirginia Grise\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$14.95\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eYour Healing is Killing Me is a performance manifesto based on lessons learned in San Antonio free health clinics and New York acupuncture schools; from the treatments and consejos of curanderas, abortion doctors, Marxist artists, community health workers, and bourgie dermatologists. One artist's reflections on living with post-traumatic stress disorder, ansia, and eczema in the new age of trigger warnings, the master cleanse, and crowd-funded self-care.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCapitalism is toxic but the Revolution is not in your body butter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eManifesto, One-Woman Show, Memoir\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: 1W (3 Possible)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover \u0026amp; illustrations by Zeke Peña\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWith humor, gravity, and hard-won insight, Virginia Grise delivers the dazzling but bittersweet dispatches of a journey through the rocky landscapes of healthcare and self-care—the folly and wisdom it takes to arrive at the body's best spiritual medicine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Rigoberto González\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eVirginia breaks the heart open with the poetic force of this work. Ceremoniously \/ transgressively she calls out the Truth—the Ancestors know that we are all in need of healing, so they've prayed all that we need inside of our blood and bones. This book is the topography of that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/53rdstatepress.org\/Bridgforth-bull-jean-dem-dey-back\"\u003eSharon Bridgforth\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIn Your Healing Is Killing Me, Virginia Grise weaves the fabric of her life as an artist with threads from Chairman Mao's 4 Minute Physical Fitness Plan, traditional healing rituals, ancient recipes for the heart and skin, and memories emerging from past suppression—both personal and colonial. This Texicana priestess-poet heals herself and us with these alchemical deconstructions of the pain that comes from picking at the scars of human survival. One remedy: read this book. Just remember to breathe while you do so.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Migdalia Cruz\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727268655189,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/YourHealingisKillingMe.jpg?v=1700148636"},{"product_id":"psalms-for-the-wreckage-three-plays-by-joshua-young","title":"Psalms for the Wreckage: Three Plays by Joshua Young","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePsalms for the Wreckage:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThree Plays by Joshua Young\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$19.95\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ePsalms for the Wreckage collects Joshua Young's trilogy of scripts in verse—To the Chapel of Light (Mud Luscious Press, 2012), When the Wolves Quit (Gold Wake Press, 2012), and a third, previously unpublished play in verse This is the Way to Rule—in a single edition. Exploring faith, dogma, and the politics of power, Psalms for the Wreckage is a stunning collection of poetic, epistolary playwriting as well as a fascinating look at one author's evolving relationship with genre.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFull-lengths, Trilogy, Tragedy, Verse\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: BROTHERS, SISTERS, SURVIVORS\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover design by Ryan Spooner\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWho are the characters in Joshua Young's Psalms for the Wreckage? Probably places. Probably ghost towns, silos or churches, probably \"just the stretch of highway and grain, and maybe dead grass\" that \"leads to sin or Arkansas.\" The survivor sounds of these sites travel, \"Memphis-bound and gagged,\" by wrenching epistle and sundered imagism through a landscape of ongoing apocalypse. There's an \"ark in a middle of a field stacked full of rocks and newspapers.\" There's a place where \"you might wave a cigarette around like a roman candle or a fishing pole.\" In reminding us that the interior may be everywhere, that all scenes might already be deleted, Young's plays offer a travel guide to \"parts of America no one gives a fuck about\" and to the unquiet beauty that washes its creases with dust.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Zach Savich\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"These are the places the road sometimes swallows\"—so writes Joshua Young of North American hunger, its cruel and unseemly habits figured here in series of \"scenes,\" \"backdrops,\" and tableaux. Yet Young's methods are restless: this whopping trilogy draws on the conventions of the screenplay, the verse play, prose poem, and epistolary address; vernacular forms like the ballad, sermon, obituary; genres including the western, gothic, mystery. He writes a kind of pastoral noir as well as something like the fantastical mosaic literary-historical mode pioneered by another Young—Marguerite, fellow Midwest eccentric and logorrheic crank, who once said such writing \"is about the recognition that there is no single reality. But the beauty of it is that you nevertheless go on, walking towards utopia, which may not exist, on a bridge which might end before you reach the other side.\" Joshua Young's Psalms for the Wreckage is a beautiful, scary trip across \"this middle ground between closure and myth.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Hannah Brooks-Motl\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eOne of the few books not already made superfluous by the late hour of our species, Joshua Young's Psalms for the Wreckage may be the sort of nightmare we require in order to wake transformed. This much is certain: The West is a smoldering pile. The West is a smoking gun. The West is done. \"We are all the way west \u0026amp; there is nothing more than cities cratered or shoved into the sea... \u0026amp; someone keeps talking about the way things were.\" Through a \"popcorn of concrete \u0026amp; glass,\" we follow a \"trail of wreckage, city after city, landscape after landscape\" where soldiers set more fires \"though there is nothing left to burn,\" as our Leader plugs his ears and repeats, \"i am not listening because i cannot hear you \u0026amp; i cannot understand you.\" (And hey: \"after all we put him there.\") If there is good news for readers: in Psalms there are survivors. And ghosts. And maybe the DJ from the film, The Warriors; but in a made-for-TV movie, à la The Day After; using the last working mic in McCarthy's novel, The Road; with all of it distilled to poetry via a possibly unstageable play. The endless scenes of death enact the death of scenes, the death of acting, the death of narrative itself—in Young's Psalms even the notion of genre, driven to desperation, explodes itself in the marketplace. Luckily for readers there remains a publisher like Plays Inverse to catalog the pieces.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Christian Peet\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727269146709,"sku":"","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/PsalmsfortheWreckage.jpg?v=1700149074"},{"product_id":"arcadia-indiana","title":"Arcadia, Indiana","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArcadia, Indiana\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eToby Altman\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$14.95\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eArcadia, Indiana is a mutant tragedy, a five act-sonnet sequence, staged in the trash-choked landscape of pastoral fantasy. It plays with narrative, labor, sexuality, and form, starting with a murder in an Indiana steel factory and ending with the Sphinx refusing all of Oedipus' solutions to her riddles. This play is a Renaissance tragedy in contemporary drag, destabilizing literary boundaries to develop a poetics of trash, in which the repressed and discarded parts of (literary) history return to strangle their point of origin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eTragedy, Verse, Sonnets, Necropastoral\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: ~12M, ~3W, ~1.7kA as of 2014\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ePhoto by Ben Altman \/\/ Cover design by Ryan Spooner\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.publishersweekly.com\/978-0-9914183-8-1\"\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe factories were once the future, then they became the \"rustbelt,\" the ruins of that future, then it turned out—with the economic meltdown and the Republican power take over—that it had been the future all along. In Toby Altman's marvelously precise, vertigonously playful and formally volatile Arcadia, Indiana, the comma of the title is the star, the true title, the space in time where the play takes place: In that space, this necropastoral play reveals that Indiana was always based on arcadia, and arcadia always had a toxic Indiana seeping through its beautiful—pre-dead, un-dead, super-dead—bodies. With this potent, maximalist work, Altman joins a language-saturated tradition of drama as poetry, or poetry as pageantry, which might also include Heiner Muller, Suzan Lori Parks, Joyelle McSweeney and Mac Wellman. At times this work reads like a crucial report from the poisoned heart of America. At other times, it reads like an ecstatic source book for how to destroy\/remake theater.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Johannes Göransson\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eToby Altman's Arcadia, Indiana, a dizzying concoction of virtual theater, wordplay, carnivalesque characters, sex, parody, profound linguistic disorder, and sheer exuberance, is unlike anything else I've read. There's more sheer inventiveness in it than a reader can register. One character says, \"I find I am a great many people \/ each one networking with the wind,\" and these lines characterize Altman's ability to create his remarkable panoply of speeches and verses and commentaries in this drama of the mind. In it, we encounter industrial ruin, internet-era chaos, deranged Shakespearean sonnets, innumerable allusions to other texts, and all manner of wonderfully bizarre, strangely ominous, surreal, and rococo utterances and flourishes and turns of action, setting, mood and phrase. Arcadia's manner is ceaselessly playful and startlingly dark. \"Happily, language is made of uneasiness,\" Altman writes, and yes, this is the paradox, and Arcadia is the proof. Through its many voices, Arcadia often characterizes and comments on itself: \"I want a verse that hurts the thing it says.\" Altman's Arcadia, like Sir Philip Sidney's, takes us on a wild ride and a rising wildness, but it's far more rambunctious than the model and will also welcome a reader who is wild. (And don't miss the Deleted Scenes, the Note on Performance and the third paragraph of the Acknowledgments!).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Reginald Gibbons\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThis is the tragedy of hapless citizens in an age of cheap metal carports and expensive window frames fabricated by Arcadia Steel.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWho do not connect as they pass each other in the echoing factory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWho are the last in their lines and have no families.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWhose amusements are stoked by resentment and pursued in rage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWho suffer from incurable wounds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWho indulge in savagely self-regarding Eros.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWho whip themselves toward grief.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWho find themselves already dead: \"'Listen,' says Grief, 'This is the season of your unstitching.'\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eYet Altman the poet is generous in his enjoyment of all the mixtures and turnings of language to which (as offspring of the Elizabethan sonneteers, French surrealists, Samuel Beckett, and Christian Bök) he is heir.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eToby Altman is acute in capturing our era's ominous greed; he is also astute in personifying the body's organic sediments, which perform under the name \"The Abominations . . . dressed in tax.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eOne reads him with breath held in admiration, then gasping from it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Mary Kinzie\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727270555733,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/Arcadia_Indiana.jpg?v=1700149284"},{"product_id":"medea","title":"MEDEA","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMEDEA\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCatherine Theis\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$14.95 \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThrough a mix of sound-poems, dance, and traditional scenes, Catherine Theis attempts to jostle Medea from her traditional, male-defined narrative in this modern retelling set in the mountains of Montana. A 2015 Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Performance Writers finalist, MEDEA features a Chorus of Flames, choreography for The Milky Way, and a collection of palate-cleansing satyr plays to be performed after. Grappling with both love and language, Theis' Medea \"wants to join with the world, to meld with it. Let's let her do that—see what falls away.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFull-length, Tragedy, Poetry, Greek, Adaptation\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: 2W, 1M, 1A, 2 Choruses\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover design by Megan J. Pryce\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.full-stop.net\/2017\/06\/27\/reviews\/lauren-friedlander\/medea-catherine-theis\/\"\u003eFull Stop\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/entropybook.wordpress.com\/2017\/05\/22\/medea-by-catherine-theis\/\"\u003eBeatrix Turán\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"Catherine Theis' lyrical riff on the Medea myth locates Medea and cheating Husband sometime after the accidental poisoning of her children. In the mountains of Montana, the title character rises far beyond her prosaic husband with her bond to her sister, heaven, and earth. Woven with classical references, this Medea dances with the Milky Way and a Chorus of Flames to a compelling imagist beat.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Diane Rayor\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"Keeping all the themes—passion and betrayal, loyalty and revenge—intact, Theis transposes Medea and her comrades-in-tragedy into a vibrant lyricism in which sounds ricochet, layer, and multiply, casting language as the central character within and against the background of the myth's multi-millennial history. From the vividly impossible stage directions (An orange tree realigns its arm toward the sun) to her re-deployment of the satyr plays, Theis engages the ancient in ways that make us re-theatricalize our own present. Thanks to the immediacy of her writing, the page is the perfect stage for this play and its aftermaths.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Cole Swensen\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"Two visions of what translation should be: 'a performative gesture altering space' (Erín Moure); 'lebendig' (Hölderlin)-meaning it renders both source and reader living again. Catherine Theis' überlively version of Euripides' Medea fits both bills. Venturing to the very Shrub of Fate, with only stray Mars bars for sustenance, this Medea awakens us to all the old monstrosities-patriarchy, language, embodiment in time. It's as stylish as an Alfa Romeo, the perfect tonic to our Gold-Leaf Age.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—John Beer\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727271866453,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/MEDEA.jpg?v=1700149421"},{"product_id":"exit-pursued","title":"Exit, Pursued (PDF)","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eExit, Pursued\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eDalton Day\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$14.95\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e A one-act play in which apologies must be made to Chekhov. A one-act play in which there is a blueprint, \u0026amp; that blueprint is ignored entirely. A one-act play in which a decision is made, but it is unclear by or for whom. A one-act play in which the wind has the smallest hands, no, even smaller than that. Over the course of 41 one-act plays—most of them starring the characters ME and YOU—Dalton Day investigates grief, love, anxiety, and loss in this stunning collection of dramatic poetry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eOne-Act Plays, Poetry, Not-Quite-Comedy, Not-Quite-Tragedy\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: 2A, 2 Dogs, 1 Moon, 1 Audience\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover Design by Emma Dajska\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thesmallpressbookreview.blogspot.com\/2016\/12\/review-of-dalton-days-exit-pursued.html?spref=tw\"\u003eSmall Press Book Review\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/entropybook.wordpress.com\/2016\/11\/21\/exit-pursued-by-dalton-day\/\"\u003eBeatrix Turán\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"Dalton Day stole my Neo-Futurist heart. Don't just read this book. Stand and perform this book. Revel in its stage directions. Embody the densely packed dialogue. Imagine ME and YOU safe and huddled beneath the proscenium. Exit, Pursued is four-dimensional poetry, and its tiny plays are giant with impossibilities and contradictions.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Jeffrey Cranor\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"Take a program, take a seat, and prepare yourself for these sparkling and sublime plays. In Dalton Day's theater, however, you won't stay in the audience for long. These short pieces find you and bind antlers to your skull. Soon enough, you are in the woods.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Amelia Gray\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eM: Oh thank god for this\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eM: lithe and electric and dangerous and funny\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eM: and beautiful collection of plays—\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eM: they will be produced and directed by\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eM: Edward Albee and Frank O'Hara and Dada in heaven, or\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eM: if you're lucky, in your own hometown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eM: Oh\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eM: Dalton Day!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Matthew Dickman \u0026amp; Michael Dickman\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727273766997,"sku":"","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/Exit_Pursued.jpg?v=1700149543"},{"product_id":"the-mystery-of-the-seventeen-pilot-fish","title":"The Mystery of the Seventeen Pilot Fish","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Mystery of the Seventeen Pilot Fish\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eMike Kleine\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$14.95\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e It's the end of the end of the world and the house that holds together our universe is quietly falling apart. The Mystery of the Seventeen Pilot Fish is as much about a detective solving his final case as it is the definitive who, what, why, when, where, how \u0026amp; how much of just about everything you have ever imagined.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFull-length, Existential, Comedy, Horror, Bizarro\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: 2M(?), 1W(?), ~3A, 1 Michael Jordan\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover Design by Austin Breed \/\/ \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Af6fL3UsKU0\"\u003eBook Trailer\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/culturedvultures.com\/the-mystery-of-the-seventeen-pilot-fish-by-mike-kleine\/\"\u003eCultured Vultures\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/entropybook.wordpress.com\/2016\/08\/29\/the-mystery-of-the-seventeen-pilot-fish-by-mike-kleine\/\"\u003eBeatrix Turán\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWild, nonsensical, possibly cursed, and almost certainly unperformable, Mike Kleine's The Mystery of the Seventeen Pilot Fish reads like a transcript of Raymond Roussel's deathbed confession or a fever dream taking place somewhere just outside the frame of a David Lynch film.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—James Tadd Adcox\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAny attempt to stage Mike Kleine's The Mystery of the Seventeen Pilot Fish might trigger the apocalypse. Kleine has accomplished something rare with this book: the page itself becomes a kind of theatre, a dadaist take on the drawing room play juxtaposed with lists that would make Rabelais jealous, menacing prophecies, and characters so unstable even their names won't stay in place.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Christian TeBordo\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIn The Mystery of the Seventeen Pilot Fish, stuff explodes without a sound, morphing into bits of coloured paper. Nothing is where it belongs. Nothing is where you expect it to be. Black men appear out of the sun then disappear a moment later. No one remains who they are for very long. Characters constantly change their names. Stage directions include occurrences that no one can see. You'll come away believing—and even hungering for—the stuff that has always been right there in front of you, stuff that you'll never see or hear or touch or feel, stuff you can only imagine, stuff whose very power lies in its intangibility.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Ken Sparling\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eImagine a metaphysical domestic drama performed amidst an apocalyptic invasion of mythical beasts, celebrities, bad vibes, and landlocked marine life where God himself is a disgruntled audience member. You don't have to. This is it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Simon Jacobs\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eMike Kleine makes you question both the reality of who his characters are in relation to each other and your own sense of truth. In The Mystery of the Seventeen Pilot Fish the scope of his world is both epic and historically sweeping and quite small and awkward. The minutia of detail keeps the story on the edge, and the discoveries made in the moment are like just letting go on that one roller coaster that always scared you as a kid, but now, as an adult, you're like—fuck it, why the hell not—this is probably what it's all about anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Trish Harnetiaux\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727275405397,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/TheMysteryofthe17PilotFish.jpg?v=1700149724"},{"product_id":"the-shapes-we-make-with-our-bodies","title":"The Shapes We Make With Our Bodies","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Shapes We Make With Our Bodies\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eMeg Whiteford\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$14.95\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eHoney, our protagonist, is on the run from both her past and her present; avoiding questions about love, bodies, language, and the extents of all three. But her friends—the impish Maenads—refuse to just let her escape. The Shapes We Make With Our Bodies is a feminist, queer, maximalist piece—spanning caves, hills, courtrooms, and kitchens—about a woman torn by her desires, unwilling to bend to the needs of men, yet hesitant in the face of her wildness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFull-length, Comedy \/ Tragedy, Immersive\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: 5W, 1M\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover Design by Adriana Lafarga\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eMeg Whiteford, a bold new voice, moves us forward by returning us to a theatre that isn't afraid of dramatic poetry, shapeshifting characters, plots motored by comic metamorphoses, and endings vibrating with tragic loss. She is a 21st century risk-taker, inspired by the daredevil predecessors that startled previous centuries into recognizing the stage as a fluid dream.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Charles McNulty\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe Shapes We Make With Our Bodies is a guide for a brutally funny flesh-and-blood cartoon that is, in part, about recovery. Yoga, therapy, shrooms, witchcraft, Tarot, sacrifice: Meg Whiteford slants each into off-kilter rituals that, like her rich and wily stage directions, member and dis-member the play's world, along with our heroine Honey's sense of self. In this way, the play itself plays Maenad, even as there are Maenads in its pages—tearing through a lurid country of horror film references, broken memories, puns, remixed Herculean labor, and spas—lyric, wild, and murderous.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Douglas Kearney\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eMeg Whiteford is a master of poetic diction, with turns of phrase and leaps of language that are spellbinding. This text carries echoes of Anne Carson, Kathy Acker, and even Allan Kaprow, yet despite these powerful influences it speaks in an original voice (voices, more properly) and represents the impasse of gender and desire. It's lodged in the mode of tragedy, with hubris, flaws, and unknowingness, but the outcome is a text of the 21st century. She's got a keen eye for a theatre of her own making—polyphonic, choral—and for balancing the tragic with a knowing comic quality. I expect great things from this.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Matias Viegener\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIn The Shapes We Make With Our Bodies, Meg Whiteford pulls us deep into wild environments birthed from her own urgent imagination, hovering between the lines of poetry and theatre before rocketing off into the stratosphere. From sensory and earthy to heady and intellectual and back again, the play takes over our brains in kaleidoscopic fashion before depositing us, gently enough, in a nowhere-place that looks suspiciously like the Catskills.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Katie Pearl\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727277240405,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/TheShapesWeMakeWithOurBodies.jpg?v=1700149895"},{"product_id":"the-invention-of-monsters-plays-for-the-theatre","title":"The Invention of Monsters \/ Plays for the Theatre","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Invention of Monsters \/ Plays for the Theatre\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eC Dylan Bassett\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$14.95 \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eSomewhere between monologue and stage direction, the one-act plays in The Invention of Monsters \/ Plays for the Theatre center around what it means to be ill-cast in life. How it feels to wear a costume, a body, a face. How sex can be both transformative and nightmarish. Each scene-poem is the tip of an iceberg, evoking a larger performance rather than operating as a conventional script. A new kind of theatre text, these plays\/poems beg to be performed, with exactly how depending entirely on the reader.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eOne-Act Play Collection, Prose Poetry, Prompts for Devised Theatre\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: 1A-?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover design by Chelsea Majuri\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thediagram.com\/15_5\/rev_bassett.html\"\u003eDIAGRAM\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThese are ravishing performance texts—concise prose poems that invite active interpretation. How are they to be brought to the stage—as monologues, as dialogues, as stage directions indicating a mise-en-scéne—or as a combination thereof? Alternately playful, sexual, and moralistic in the best sense of the word, these plays deserve an audience.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—David Greenspan\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCunningly exploiting the prose poem's genre problem to explore the gender problem, C Dylan Bassett's moving sequence examines icons and clichés of male identity with a bemused, rueful, tender, estranged eye. In frequently gorgeous and often uncanny 'scenes,' restlessly paratactic sentences coexist in isolation, echoing the structural loneliness of gender construction. These songs of experience still remember innocence, but know sex cannot help us avoid the masks culture insists on imposing on our faces, “mirrors” in which “other faces come and go.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Donna Stonecipher\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eUsing the simple machine of the sentence, C Dylan Bassett builds an intricate and hypnotic mise-en-abîme. The Invention of Monsters surveils the world's impulse to police itself with a re-sequenced form of seeing. The moving parts of each prose diorama refuse the logic of prefabricated projection. This book is best viewed through a compound eye.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Eric Baus\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727278714965,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/TheInventionOfMonsters_PlaysfortheTheatre.jpg?v=1700150022"},{"product_id":"bloodletting-in-minor-scales-a-canvas-in-arms","title":"Bloodletting in Minor Scales [A Canvas in Arms.]","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBloodletting in Minor Scales [A Canvas in Arms.]\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJustin Limoli\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$14.95 \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eA mother attempts suicide and fails. Life goes on, but as her family picks up the pieces, gratitude mixes with sadness \u0026amp; anger at the attempted departure. In this dream-like play in verse, blood becomes a character, hearts are fed to the stage, and Dialogue delivers a monologue as Justin tries to determine whether he can truly forgive or forget what has been done.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFull-length, Poets' Theatre, Nonfiction\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: 7M, 3W, 23A\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover design by David Watt\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/tskymag.com\/2015\/02\/justin-limoli-m-forajter\/\"\u003eTarpaulin Sky\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thesmallpressbookreview.blogspot.com\/2015\/04\/review-of-justin-limolis-bloodletting.html\"\u003eThe Small Press Book Review\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.full-stop.net\/2015\/11\/27\/reviews\/magus-magnus\/bloodletting-in-minor-scales-justin-limoli\/\"\u003eFull Stop\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eINTERVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/realpants.com\/making-bloodletting-minor-scales\/\"\u003eReal Pants\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWhat a gorgeous, intense, original work. As the feral offspring of Samuel Beckett and Jack Spicer, and as his glorious, sincerely hilarious self, Justin Limoli navigates territories of love, family, and survival, and approaches the realms of verse and drama (tender, wise, absurd) with his powerful first book, Bloodletting in Minor Scales [A Canvas in Arms.]. This book is pivotal, a suspenseful exploitation of a single life-changing event and the surprises that hide in the psyche. It is as much about inventing form as abiding it, as much about healing as performance. It is a remarkable narrative of perception presented in fractals. The verse play as we've known it is done.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Maureen Seaton\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAn intricate knife puzzle of words and ideas, as seen through a shattered syntax mirror. One thinks of the painting by James Ensor entitled Masks Fighting Over a Hanged Man.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Kris Saknussemm\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe language is rich and rousing, with echoes of the convoluted closet drama of Dylan Thomas, Edith Sitwell, Arthur Kopit, and the French surrealists, and its picture of a boy beset by his mother trying to kill herself of course brings echoes of Long Day's Journey into Night or Tiny Alice—or earlier, pre-modernist plays of the classical era. Justin Limoli writes dialogue fresh as country air, and yet it is the dark, nightmarish, and precise atmosphere he can conjure up with a single noun, like 'copper,' that you will come out of the theater remembering.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Kevin Killian\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI read Bloodletting in Minor Scales [A Canvas in Arms.] and I re-read it. I do not know what to do with this book. Take it in or refuse it? Either way, reading is happening. Thus, this is extreme poetry—it faces and evades, creating a scaffold in the tradition of poets theater around a narrative '...more like sifting when you try to hold it.' A failed suicide, a mother who is beloved, difficult rooms, details that most would prefer to shun. Blood knife anger forgiveness and back again. Justin Limoli writes it all. What is poetry for? This. Admit that life is staged via language and we are all murmuring, teetering at the edge of a drama begging to be redacted. Such power from book-sized pages, and as I open, agreeing to read on and again, the lyric pulls me back from a precipice called 'impossible.' Such wide-angel I mean wide-angle beauty.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Jill Magi\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727280222293,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/BloodlettinginMinorScales.jpg?v=1700150183"},{"product_id":"the-holy-ghost-people","title":"THE HOLY GHOST PEOPLE","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTHE HOLY GHOST PEOPLE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJoshua Young\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e$14.95\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e It's easy to dismiss the Holy Ghost People. They travel door-to-door in white sheets spouting pseudoscience about time travel, wormholes, and a new galactic gospel. Most of the town has already laughed them away. But when the Holy Ghost People start to perform \"miracles,\" denial becomes difficult, and conversation quickly shifts to what ought to be done.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFull-length, Mystery, Science Fiction\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCast: 2 Choruses, 2M, 1A\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCover design by Ryan Spooner \/\/ \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/87539570\"\u003eBook Trailer\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/therumpus.net\/2014\/08\/15\/the-holy-ghost-people-by-joshua-young\/\"\u003eThe Rumpus\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/coalhillreview.com\/book-review-the-holy-ghost-people-by-joshua-young\/\"\u003eCoal Hill Review\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/ghostoceanmagazine.tumblr.com\/post\/83812732705\/the-world-is-already-a-suicide-a-look-at\"\u003eGhost Ocean Magazine\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.com\/2014\/04\/drew-reviews-holy-ghost-people.html\"\u003eThe Next Best Book Blog\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eLike Samuel Beckett, Joshua Young's brilliant play in verse captures the 21st century struggle to manifest truth when “God's justice implodes in the stardust.” Young's Speakers and Holy Ghosts express a weary but hopeful skepticism about the soul in this exciting new work of eschatological theatre.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Carmen Giménez Smith\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWhen a poet writes a play I'm there! What I love about Joshua Young's poems being off-center I love about his play THE HOLY GHOST PEOPLE. Yes, you want to see it performed, but reading it creates a stage no theatre can live up to. Come drink from the same water; Joshua Young is a remarkable Virgil to chaperone our sorry asses to where the real world is the written.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—CAConrad\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eTHE HOLY GHOST PEOPLE is Our Town meets Waiting for Godot. The familiar world of parking lots, farmers' markets and dive bars is transformed by a new kind of stranger. The Holy Ghost People remind us of the serious questions about the afterlife and memory, ghosts and nonbelievers, science and illusion. In alternating choruses with the skeptical Speakers, the play invites us to question easy binaries. What is proof of the holy? Of the profane? What happens when love turns to pity? Is faith an illusion? A drug?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Connie Voisine\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJoshua Young is one of the most ambitious and exciting writers out there, and THE HOLY GHOST PEOPLE is his most daring work yet. In his exploration of the cosmic crossroads of faith, science, dogma, and community, Young gifts us a profound, disorienting, and darkly comic play in verse.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Nick Courtright\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWith THE HOLY GHOST PEOPLE, Joshua Young introduces the bombast and fervor of Jesus Christ Superstar to the frantic lyrical inventorying of Jubilate Agno. While the players argue about the nature of belief and reality, we fall more in love with our crowded, profane world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e—Madeline ffitch, of The Missoula Oblongata\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plays Inverse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40727281893461,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/8949\/files\/TheHolyGhostPeople.jpg?v=1700150355"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookshop.53rdstatepress.org\/collections\/plays-inverse.oembed?page=2","provider":"53rd State Press","version":"1.0","type":"link"}