Zero
Image Designed by Kara Q. Lewis for the Ashland New Plays Festival
SHORT LIST - 2023 WILD IMAGININGS THEATRE EPIPHANIES NEW WORKS FESTIVAL
SEMI-FINALIST - 2022 GARRY MARSHALL THEATRE NEW WORKS FESTIVAL
winner - 2020 ashland new plays festival
Finalist - 2020 Normal Avenue Players NAPSeries
semi-finalist - 2020 bay area playwrights festival
Selection - 2020 Spooky action theatre new play reading series
Deep in the woods of rural Connecticut lies a brick-laden Victorian mansion, the St. Vedastus Academy for Misguided Teens, a refuge for the newly violent, mildly sinister, and willfully corrupt. Nil is at least two of these things, and even in the eyes of more deviant classmates, suffers social death for it. But when schoolmate Harrison discovers a seemingly bottomless pit in the forest floor behind the school, Nil sees an opportunity to claw a way to the top of the heap. Unbeknownst to them, the pit appears to be getting larger and larger and larger. ZERO is a narrated tale of the inexplicable and the unspeakable, a darkly comedic allegory about the relationship between addiction and empathy, the danger of simple solutions, and whether ‘nothing’ actually exists anyway.
CAST BREAKDOWN: 1GN* / 1W / 1M / 1GF or 1GN / 3W / 3M
* GN = Gender Non-conforming, GF = Gender Fluid
RUN TIME: 110 Minutes.
ZERO was developed with the assistance of the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, KS, November 2019.
““Zero” is enigmatic, devious, heartbreaking, and breathtaking.”
ZERO was performed as a virtual reading presentation as part of SPOOKY ACTION THEATER’s New Works Program in August of 2020, with director Craig Baldwin at the helm. The cast featured Emmett Grosland as Nil, Shubhangi Kuchibhatla as Julia, Dylan Fleming as Harrison, Alejandro Ruiz as Nick, and D.C. theater veteran Rick Hammerly as Mr. Gains, Sergeant Riggs, and Dr. Virginia Woodhouse. The images below were captured during rehearsals for this presentation.
