During the Chinese Exclusion Act, Harry Chin, a Chinese national, entered the U.S. by buying forged documentation. Like other “Paper Sons,” Harry lived the rest of his life keeping secrets—even from his daughter. Told through the eyes of a middle-aged Chin, THE PAPER DREAMS OF HARRY CHIN reveals the complicated loves and regrets of this Chinese immigrant. Through dreamlike leaps of time and space and with the powerful assistance of ghosts, the story of the Chin family reveals the personal and political repercussions of making groups of people “illegal”.
Genre: Drama
295N
Six young Northern Virginia students find themselves thrust into a complex world, a world made of poetry, reenactments, the guiding words of Frederick Douglass, and the personal experiences of the students themselves. The heart of this complex world is the death of Freddie Gray, an event that forces each of these students to confront their own relationships with issues of race. As one young African American student, Jasen, finds himself compelled to seek justice, the others are forced to confront how close to home the issues of Baltimore actually are.
My General Tubman
John Brown asks Harriet Tubman to fight with him to stop slavery. Her traumatic epilepsy triggered, Tubman moves through time to a modern Philadelphia prison. She meets Nelson Davis, who falls in love with her. He detains her from Harper’s Ferry; Furious, she returns to her time to mourn the failed raid. But when she’s recruited to lead the Union Army’s Combahee River Raid, she returns to the prison to recruit her spies. Davis goes back in time separately to fight Confederates and TB—and become her second husband.
What Doesn’t Kill You
A witty contemporary comedy that follows one person’s journey through a heart attack, a gay marriage, an obsession with Cher, and a trip to a concentration camp. So, yes, it’s a comedy!
Somewhere
It’s 1959 and the new musical West Side Story is a smash hit on Broadway. In their tiny family apartment in the San Juan Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, the young Candelaria siblings dream of glamorous careers in show business. When the opportunity arises for this talented Puerto Rican family to audition for roles in the film version of West Side Story itself, all their dreams seem poised to come true – until a neighborhood-wide eviction abruptly threatens everything they have worked for.
Interceptions: Life After the Tigers
Ten years after a vicious, and ultimately tragic, high school football hazing in the small Texas Panhandle town of Calhoun, a social media frenzy rips open old wounds, pitting brother against brother and pulling those involved back together, whether they like it or not. When truths are exposed, things finally begin to make sense, allowing some to heal, while others would rather keep buried what has long been buried.
The Heart Sellers
Jane and Luna run into each other in the grocery store on Thanksgiving in 1973 and discover they have much in common: they’re both 23, recent Asian immigrants, homesick and lonely with hardworking absentee husbands, and adjusting to a new country surprisingly filled with as much political uncertainty as the places they’ve left. Over a bottle of wine (or two) and a questionable frozen turkey, they dream of Disneyland, learning to drive, and an unknowable future as they share their hopes and fears in making a new home in a new reality.
An Eloquent Fugitive Slave Flees to Ireland
Inspired by his 1845 trip to Ireland. AN ELOQUENT FUGITIVE SLAVE FLEES TO IRELAND is a fictionized account of Frederick Douglass’ voyage across the Atlantic Ocean on the steamship Cambria. Exploring themes of racism, sexism, and freedom, AN ELOQUENT FUGITIVE SLAVE FLEES TO IRELAND uses dialogue sprinkled with rap to give enhanced contemporary resonance to a largely unknown page of Frederick Douglass’ life.
Wet
Four survivors of a storm-sunken pirate ship—the legendary Isabella, Neptune’s bastard daughter; pirates Jenny (a runaway whore) and Sally (an electrified girl); and the Viscountess Marlene (a drag queen)—seize a half-wrecked ship crewed only by Captain Joppa and two sailors, young Jack and ex-slave Horatio. Joppa is determined to get back to the war. Isabella has other plans. Amidst time lurches, shifting loyalties, hearts lost and secrets revealed, the seven souls find themselves without wind or current on a slowly sinking ship, until an unexpected event offers either hope or doom.
The Broken Machine
In this climate-chaos comic-tragedy, a burnt-out coder has become a hermit in the wilderness, nursing a broken arm and making lists from memory—of endangered species, moments of Lost Time, Incorrect States of Mind—in company with her only friend, a gray fox with a bad attitude. When wildfires approach, they flee through the wilderness to the sea, pursued by feckless would-be rescuers and threatened by a punk psychopomp.