THE VAGRANT TRILOGY consists of three plays: The Hour of Feeling, The Vagrant, and Urge for Going. Each play can be performed individually, or together as the trilogy.
In part one, The Hour of Feeling, (1967) we meet Adham, a hot young scholar back from university in Cairo, readying himself to go to London to give a talk. He marries a girl from the village and takes her with him, and when war breaks out at home, the two near-strangers must decide what to do. The second play in the trilogy, The Vagrant, finds Adham and Abir nearly 20 years later (1982), divorced, him teaching at a humble college in London. Adham’s hopes for professorship are tested when both “homes”—England and Palestine—flare up with political violence, and the compartmentalization he’s built around himself in order to survive starts to crumble. The third play, Urge for Going, finds a completely different Adham and Abir, representing a different fork in the road taken back in 1967. We see them in a modern-day refugee camp in Lebanon, with a daughter (Jamila) determined to break out of the endless stasis of her family’s life.
In this play with broken songs, Shakespeare’s Ophelia rises out of the water dreaming of reclaiming her life. She finds herself in a neo-Elizabethan Appalachian setting where Gertrude runs a brothel, Hamlet is a Rude Boy and nothing is what it seems. In this mirrored world of word-scraps and cold sex, Ophelia cuts a new path for herself.
Kareem, a Black teen, waits for the bus, at night, in a suburban White neighborhood. He is approached by O’Donald, a White police officer. They struggle. A shot rings out. Kareem is dead. O’Donald says he feared for his life. The Police Union’s representative defends the shooting as self-defense. Kareem’s Aunt Janice protests her nephew’s death as racial profiling. There are no witnesses, but the truth will not die. Kareem’s spirit haunts Officer O’Donald, demanding to know why he was killed.
Diana and Max meet at 9 years old, the day their parents start having an affair. In the ensuing decades, they see each other through highs and lows, trying not to make the same mistakes their parents did. A play about trying not to fall in love with your best friend so you end up hating them.
In the year 2050, Latinx people have been assimilated into the (white) majority of the United States, but race issues are far from resolved. In this tricky political environment, Andres Salazar is running for office and must decide whether losing some of his own identity is worth the potential social benefits. When a mysterious stranger appears at his house, Andres’s family must rally around him to save his imperiled campaign.
What kind of future will you have living in these here United States? Remember when you were eleven years old and you had a bike, one that made you dream about a world bigger than the one in which you live? This is that memory. Except it is now. A play for one performer (two, three, or more).
PLANTATION BLACK is a compelling tale that unfolds through two distinct timelines, delving into the history of the Prioleau family. For nearly two centuries, since 1822, the Loch Dhu Plantation in South Carolina has remained under the ownership of the Prioleau family, comprising both White owners and the Black slaves they once possessed. In the year 2017, the White Prioleau descendants reach out to their Black counterparts in an attempt to resolve the ownership of the land and the distribution entitlements. They all have the same last name and share common biological ancestors. However, their bonds are as deep as the paper claiming half of the Prioleau tree as property.
Alix lives in a tiny motel room with her mother and two brothers, scrabbling to make weekly rent. Mason lives comfortably in a grand, empty house while his father runs jobs for the Hong Kong Triad. Until the day his father disappears and Mason has to figure out how to come up with grocery money and dodge Child Services and the INS. Mason and Alex develop the most tentative of friendships, struggling to survive, and trying to outrun the mistakes of their parents. Will they make it out or fall through the cracks? A play about Motel Kids and Parachute Kids raising themselves and living at the poverty line in a land of plenty.
In post-9/11 Newark, NJ, two teenagers who were brought to America as children become one another’s sanctuaries from harsh circumstances. When G becomes naturalized, she and B hatch a plan to marry so that he may legally remain in the country and pursue the future he imagines for his life. But as time hurtles on and complications mount, the young friends find that this act challenges and fractures the closest relationship either has ever had.
A look at the intimacy of male relationships told through the point of view of Machismo culture, The Hombres follows Julián, a gay Latino yoga teacher, as he clashes with the Latino construction workers working outside his studio, particularly the older head of the crew, Héctor, who seeks from Julián something he never expected.
