The 2022 Boiler Room Series

New Works From Fresh Voices
Videos available until June 19, 2022

The 2022 Boiler Room Series has gone virtual to preserve the health and safety of all artists, audiences, and staff.

All tickets for our filmed performances are still available Pay What You Can – just click the Buy Tickets buttons to secure your access to each of the videos. Once you have finished the checkout process, you will receive your tickets, which include the viewing page link and password, via email.

If you have any questions, please email boxoffice@keegantheatre.com.

The Wilting Point
by Graziella Jackson
Push the Button*
by Drew Anderson & Dwayne Lawson-Brown
En Las Sombras
by Jordan Ramirez Puckett
Mushroom
by Darren Donohue
Marjorie is Dead
by Priyanka Shetty
Strangers with Benefits^
by Shadia Hafiz
About the Boiler Room Series

Keegan’s Boiler Room Series (BRS) is inviting audiences to experience theater development in action through a series of presentations involving new plays somewhere on the path from “playwright’s first spark” to “mainstage production.” The 2022 Boiler Room Series is featuring filmed staged readings of 6 exciting new works by playwrights from across the country. Viewers can watch from home and then participate in the play development process by submitting feedback to the playwrights, helping to guide further work on these future hit plays. LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BOILER ROOM SERIES

* Appropriate for audiences of all ages, including young people
^ For mature audiences

“Five years in, we at Keegan want to celebrate some of the most compelling voices we have heard in the Boiler Room Series' history.”
— Josh Sticklin, BRS Artistic Director
Featured Works
THE WILTING POINT BY GRAZIELLA JACKSON
The Wilting Point
by Graziella Jackson

directed by Danielle Drakes
stage managed by
Paige Washington
featuring Brenna Horner, Sofia Colón Roosevelt, Ankur Garg, Bayron Celis, Stan Shulman, and Mary Myers

Mina travels to Sangre de Cristo, Colorado, where she produced the first season of Clime. Tuca is Mayorduomo of one of the last acequia villages in the area, whose life has changed since being featured on Clime. A fourth-generation acequia farmer, her farm, community, and livelihood are threatened by water shortages, caused by climate change. She has been trying to convince her son Udo, who recently returned home from deployment in Syria, to take over the farm and her role as Mayorduomo. If he doesn’t say yes soon, she will sell the farm.

VISIT THE BRS PLAYBILL
PUSH THE BUTTON BY DREW ANDERSON & DWAYNE LAWSON-BROWN
Push the Button*
by Drew Anderson & Dwayne Lawson-Brown

directed by Duane Richards II
stage managed by
Sam Linc
featuring Kevin E. Thorne II, Tre’mon Mills, Ashanti Symone Branch, Gary DuBreuil, Robert Willis, and Mitchell Alexander

From the creators of the Helen Hayes-nominated play FROM GUMBO TO MUMBO comes a bold, boisterous, brand new hip hop musical called PUSH THE BUTTON*. In a town beset by the sordid shenanigans of a prank-prone Villain, justice finally seems to be served when the celebrated Hero accuses Villain of the worst crime of all: Pushing The Button. (Gasp!) But when the dutiful Journalist starts asking the right questions, will convicting the Villain prove to be the wrong answer? This playful yet poignant parody of modern morality will cause its audiences to question their very notions of right and wrong, crime and punishment, truth and narrative. But most of all it will beg the question: who Pushed The Button??

* Appropriate for all ages, including young people

VISIT THE BRS PLAYBILL
EN LAS SOMBRAS BY JORDAN RAMIREZ PUCKETT
En Las Sombras
by Jordan Ramirez Puckett

directed by Omar D. Cruz
stage managed by
Caroline Johnson
featuring Silvia Escobar, Jasmine Cross, Skye Knight, Jessica Askey, and Solis Pettitt

In EN LAS SOMBRAS, Mari narrates the mythological story of Xenia and Luz, who journey to take the trial of the gods. If successful, they will save their mother and become gods themselves. As the play progresses, there are hints that the world onstage is not exactly as it seems. The first test that the siblings must face is to escape a room made of ice. Then the children must solve a series of seemingly impossible riddles. Finally, they are detained in a room, surrounded by the bones of dead children and simply told to survive. By the end of the play it is made clear that Xenia and Luz are being detained along the U.S./Mexico border and the audience has been seeing the world through their eyes as they try to cope with the horrors of their situation.

VISIT THE BRS PLAYBILL
MUSHROOM BY DARREN DONOHUE
Mushroom
by Darren Donohue

directed by Josh Sticklin
stage managed by
Jediah Greene
featuring Sally Cusenza, DeJeanette Horne, Bianca Lipford, Elizabeth Hoyland, Michael Kozemchak, Sean Laraway, and Patricia Williams Dugueye

On campus, students are protesting over the unveiling of a controversial sculpture. A meeting is called to try and defuse the situation. But as tempers flare, it becomes clear that when it comes to identity, appearances can be deceiving. Rich in humour, MUSHROOM explores the complex questions surrounding identity politics.

VISIT THE BRS PLAYBILL
MARJORIE IS DEAD BY PRIYANKA SHETTY
Marjorie is Dead
by Priyanka Shetty

directed by Momo Nakamura
stage managed by
Sarah Daniel
intimacy consulting by Emily Sucher
featuring Matthew Crawford, Katie Gallagher, Emily Sucher, Gregory Keng Strasser, Brendan Edward Kennedy, and Andrew Quilpa

MARJORIE IS DEAD follows the outbreak of a deadly “coroner’s virus” in an unsuspecting British family with convoluted lives and predicaments. The virus is their primary antagonist, yet could also be the only thing that unites them. Written during the global pandemic and inspired by Fry & Laurie and the works of P.G. Wodehouse, Shetty’s command of the seeming lost art of farce is intriguing and impressive. Funny, subversive, current, and yet somehow a throwback at the same time.

VISIT THE BRS PLAYBILL
STRANGERS WITH BENEFITS BY SHADIA HAFIZ
Strangers with Benefits^
by Shadia Hafiz

directed by Christina A. Coakley
stage managed by
Gabrielle Busch
featuring
Rebecca Ballinger and Jared H. Graham

What happens when a casual encounter turns out to be your sexual soulmate? Jane Doe seeks an anonymous hookup on Craigslist and is shocked to learn his picture is a lie — for the better. Boundaries are set and they embark on an intimate journey, where sex and kink are both cathartic and therapeutic. But can you continue “no strings attached” while enduring the inevitable losses that happen in life?

^ For mature audiences

VISIT THE BRS PLAYBILL
Photos

Photos by Alyssa Neely