Time is a Color and the Color is Blue

by Melanie Coffey

Whittaker has been searching for the oldest cave paintings on record for years and finally the glaciologist has found them! And then she gets snowed in.

While her tiny team waits out the storm in their lab, Whittaker begins to spiral, her memories and guilt melding and folding in on itself just as pressurized ice, thousands of feet below the surface does. Sensitive memories come to the forefront and snap and...

Whittaker has been searching for the oldest cave paintings on record for years and finally the glaciologist has found them! And then she gets snowed in.

While her tiny team waits out the storm in their lab, Whittaker begins to spiral, her memories and guilt melding and folding in on itself just as pressurized ice, thousands of feet below the surface does. Sensitive memories come to the forefront and snap and crack as Whittaker works to figure out how to apologize to her mother, how to let go of her guilt, how to ask forgiveness from the Earth and how to get out of the cave. Falling back on the safety of her lectures on ice to keep her calm, and talking to friends and family in her head, Whittaker questions if she even wants to leave the cave.

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Time is a Color and the Color is Blue

Recommended by

  • Annika Andersson: Time is a Color and the Color is Blue by Melanie Coffey
    “

    In a setting that inspires both awe and terror, this play employs magical realism, the memory play, and existentialism in a way that is really fascinating. Compelling characters and stakes.

    In a setting that inspires both awe and terror, this play employs magical realism, the memory play, and existentialism in a way that is really fascinating. Compelling characters and stakes.

    ”
  • Zach Barr: Time is a Color and the Color is Blue by Melanie Coffey
    “

    Treading a fine line between hope for a future and mourning for the past, Coffey's play is a vital consideration of what it means to cause harm and be forgiven. Time collapses together onstage as it does in the deepest ice sheets, forcing the audience to see the proceedings at both a geologic scale and a human-to-human perspective at the same time. A bravura showcase for a skilled lead actress.

    Treading a fine line between hope for a future and mourning for the past, Coffey's play is a vital consideration of what it means to cause harm and be forgiven. Time collapses together onstage as it does in the deepest ice sheets, forcing the audience to see the proceedings at both a geologic scale and a human-to-human perspective at the same time. A bravura showcase for a skilled lead actress.

    ”
  • Patrick Vermillion: Time is a Color and the Color is Blue by Melanie Coffey
    “

    Melanie's play proposes a framework for the future of climate change theatre: when we transition from anger to acceptance as mankind's self-destruction becomes less theoretical and more inevitable. How do we reckon with ourselves as the world collapses in on us? What will we have left and how will we find redemption? It's a refreshing, innovative, and compelling take on how art can help us process the existentially unimaginable. Structured unlike anything else I've read or seen in quite some time. It's marvelous

    Melanie's play proposes a framework for the future of climate change theatre: when we transition from anger to acceptance as mankind's self-destruction becomes less theoretical and more inevitable. How do we reckon with ourselves as the world collapses in on us? What will we have left and how will we find redemption? It's a refreshing, innovative, and compelling take on how art can help us process the existentially unimaginable. Structured unlike anything else I've read or seen in quite some time. It's marvelous

    ”

Development History

Production History