Mercury Festival 2022 Schedule

by Josie Seid

A contemporary retelling of the Greek tragedy Hecuba as told from an African American perspective, integrating modern themes and concepts. A principal, haunted by a school shooting, uncovers a series of unthinkable crimes and conspiracies…and is pushed toward taking a shocking act of revenge.

Featuring short films produced during ART’s Mercury Company including two premieres with PHAME Academy.

by E.M. Lewis

In 1986, scientists and engineers from around the world converge at the South Pole Research Station to figure out, among other things, if there really is a hole in the sky. In the darkest, coldest, most dangerous place on Earth, eight imperfect souls are trapped together. Utterly isolated from the outside world for eight and a half months, this research team must face life or death challenges, their own inner demons and depend upon each other for survival.

Featuring short films produced during ART’s Mercury Company including two premieres with PHAME Academy.

by Dan Kitrosser

Written by award-winning screenwriter (We the Animals) and playwright, Dan Kitrosser.  It’s 1881 and Motke, the ne’er-do-well alcoholic Jewish homosexual novelist who can’t quite finish his novel, returns to his parents’ shtetl on the eve of a Passover seder unlike any other.  For on this very night, right in the middle of the fekakte seder, there’s a murder!  Why This Night is your typical queer Jewish shtetl mad-cap murder mystery, that scratches at the gray area between this world and the world to come.

Featuring short films produced during ART’s Mercury Company including two premieres with PHAME Academy.

by Yussef El Guindi

Sakinah, an Arab American woman, undergoes a mental health evaluation to determine what led to the violent crime she committed against Emily, a rich heiress. The play explores race, class, privilege, and how those factors collide and play out in today’s culture.

by Diana Burbano

 Beheading Columbus follows two sisters down a trail of DNA deception and makes them face race and colorism in the Latinx community and in their own family.

by Sarah Mantell

Curtains up on an ensemble of actors who have dedicated their lives to performing Shakespeare’s work. But what happens to us and our relationships when we tell the same stories over and over and over again? Fight Call is a time-bending love story told through the fight calls for all of Shakespeare’s female death scenes. 

by Derek Kolluri

by Deven Kolluri

Sodara follows two cousins, STU and SOL, who are seeing each other for the first time in years. STU, a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology, is finally beginning to gain acceptance by commodifying elements of his lost culture in his academic pursuits. SOL, a former marine struggling to find meaningful connection in civilian life, and mired in the violent trappings of PTSD, pins his hope for acceptance on his estranged best friend and cousin, STU. Both men are fighting to be accepted as Indians in America. In our fight to be accepted in a world that doesn’t seem to want us, are we destined to become the monster we seek to destroy?

Warning: this production contains strong racist language.