In a remote outpost deep in space, Marion and Palmer pass their days with cocktails, music, and forced cheer—courtesy of Scatarine, a drug designed to keep colonists compliant. Palmer has embraced its blissful numbness; Marion refuses. As their witty banter turns into a battle of wills, Marion fights to hold onto her identity while Palmer urges her to surrender to artificial happiness. But when the power suddenly cuts, and the illusion shatters, they realize their every word has been monitored—and their fate may already be sealed. DARK MATTER is meant to be a darkly comic look at control, conformity, and the cost of feeling nothing at all.

THIS FROM THE DIRECTOR OF OXFORD THEATRE...
Dear Donald,
I want to thank you for writing such a great 10-min play, and I am so thankful to have been the one chosen to direct it. It has been a wonderful experience to work with and I am truly grateful. I have to admit, I picked your play because of the title alone, and it wasn't until I got into it with the actors that I saw the many nuances involved in such a short time. It has everything that I look for in 10min play: comedy, intrigue, thrill, suspense, and wonderment of what happens later; throw that all together with such dark themes of a patriarchal society mixed with happy narcissism and drug addiction, not to mention of putting that in a comic bubble that allows those dark themes to appear so subtly. Then, in addition, you add this hauntingly beautiful Frank Sinatra piece, and it just sent me and the cast into a whole new world and a completely different perspective. As a matter of fact, after rehearsing the play for the first, the first read-through, I played that song and we all were just moved. It's like it's a third member of the cast, and I can't get it out of my head. Nice pick, Donald."

-Davis Jones
Director
The Oxford Theatre
Oxford, MS