LOGLINE

When her husband vanishes and the money runs out, an “othered” woman navigates a treacherous New York art world only to find herself the most valuable — and most vulnerable — thing in the room.

SYNOPSIS

On a sweltering New York morning, Chante´ Reynold — elegant, ambitious, and perpetually watched — moves through her carefully constructed world with the precision of an “othered” woman, one who understands that an image crafted in the trappings of White success is a means of survival.

Her husband George, a White artist whose star has burned out as quickly as it rose, is nowhere to be found. The bills are mounting. The ledgers reflect a trend she can't believe.

Desperate but composed, Cantara arranges a meeting with Bemelman, a powerful Belgian art collector, to negotiate the sale of one of George's paintings.

What she doesn't yet know is that George has already made his own arrangement, one that trades her safety for his escape.
What unfolds over the course of a single day is a ruthless unmasking.

Cantara's household, which includes her assistants Jeff and Greg and her devoted houseman Mikel, orbit hers with varying degrees of loyalty, contempt, and desire.

Her nephew Jackson, freshly released from prison, arrives like a ghost from the life she fled, carrying stolen artifacts and hard questions about who she really is.

By nightfall, every structure Chante´ has built — her marriage, her social standing, her carefully curated identity — has been systematically dismantled by the very world she fought to enter.

HUMID is a examination of objectification, betrayal, and the brutal mechanics of social hierarchy.

It asks who gets to assign value to art, to people, to ambition, and who pays the price when those assignments are revoked.

At its heart, it is the story of a brilliant woman destroyed not by her failures, but by her determination to survive in proximity to power.

DEVELOPMENT SUPPORT
Martine Kei-Green Rogers, Dramaturgy; Dean, Department of Theatre, DePaul University
Jack Phillips Moore, Dramaturgy; Associate Director of New Work Development, Public Theatre, NYC
Emilio Williams, Playwright, Essayist, Educator, Chicago/Paris
Paul Selig, Instructor, Goddard College; Playwright, Yale
Neil Landau, Instructor, Goddard College; Screenwriter, UCLA, USC, Los Angeles
Gavin McAlinden, Director, London UK
Telling Humans Playwright Studio; Chicago Dramatists Master Class
Readings: NYC, London UK, New Jersey