It is the year 1518, and in the city of Strasbourg, a young woman named FRAU TROFFEA has started dancing uncontrollably for days on end, locked into some kind of trance state. Her condition spreads to other townsfolk, leaving beloved town figurehead SISTER KEYERSBURG to call on an odd physician named PARACELSUS to investigate. As the dancers fall deeper into their sickness, fanaticism takes control—in the shadowed world the dancers share, in the sermons given by the local ARCHBISHOP, in the panicked streets as more and more people dance to their death. As the bodies mount, KEYERSBURG must fight through political and supernatural forces to save her city from itself.

An epic reimagining of one of history's most bewildering mysteries, THE DANCING PLAGUE was commissioned by The Right Brain Project for its 11th season and was first produced in the fall of 2016. A play rendered in movement and song, it asks if we can ever escape the plagues of politics, xenophobia, and self-interest, if faith can be a tool for healing as well as destruction, and whether what ails us comes from ourselves, our society, or forces beyond our imagining.