Kathleen Coudle-King

All their neighbors have oil wells on their land in Western ND except for Barb and Vern Johnson. When Dale, a handsome oil guy, comes knocking, ready to put a well on their land, Barb tells him they're not interested. It's her land, handed down from her family, but when her husband finds out about the offer he has other ideas. Meanwhile their son, Junior, is gay but not out, and trying to accept that if he stays in the community he loves, he may never find love. Their teenage daughter Vernadette, however, can't wait to find a way to get her as far away from North Dakota as she can. When Vern reveals that the title to the property is no longer in her name but his, she leaves him. She enlists the help of her best friend Linda, a Native American woman she grew up with, to create a protest to stop the fracking on her land. An attempt to get the land protected for an endangered bird fails. Linda pulls some strings and Jane Fonda makes an appearance, CNN circles overhead in a chopper, but all seems lost until it is discovered that while her husband may hold the title to the land, she still holds the title to the mineral rights.

This contemporary re-telling of Demeter's search for her daughter Persephone finds us in a park in North Dakota in summer. Demeter, from Athens, GA, has been following the trail a private detective has uncovered. However, Demeter's money ran out to pay the detective, so she is following up on her own. She's heard her daughter was last seen living with individuals who are homeless in this park. As she inquires about her daughter she meets characters that force her to confront her stereotypes about "who" is homeless.

In this interactive play about the history of mental health care, the audiences is led through six centuries of "therapy." Their trusty guides are two chimpanzees: Becky and Lucy, who have their own tale to tell, and will. We begin with Joan of Arc who heard voices, saw visions, and was burned at the stake, only later to be named a saint. From there, we meet famous women in history who struggled with mental illness and the so-called therapies to treat them: Virginia Woolf, Zelda Sayer Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath. We also meet the doctors: Benjamin Rush, Walter Freeman, and Dr. Freud. In this interactive play, the audience is invited to explore The Yellow Wallpaper Room, where they'll hear audio recordings of women who were committed but were not "mad". They'll watch a lobotomy and an early administration of electroshock therapy. And finally, they''ll walk through the Hall of PIlls until they reach the Talk Therapy Room, where the audience and actors can discuss the experience and share their thoughts of mental health care in America today.

“The Nut Lab” is the nickname for the Human Nutrition Lab in North Dakota. People subject themselves to studies exploring the impact of food and minerals on the physical and mental health of the subjects. The play focuses on 4 subjects: Walleye (an old hippy who is a regular at the lab), Bill (a jumpy guy from New Jersey who is hiding out from the mob), a college student, Jenny, who regularly participates in the studies in order to keep her student loan debt down; and Lenora, a middle-aged woman, seeking time away from her husband to figure out who she is other than “Mrs. –".
The study’s principal investigator is Dr. Schmutzenberger, a visiting professor from Germany studying the impact of sodium depletion on the human psyche. She is assisted by her fawning graduate assistant, Brianna. A gruff nurse who has had a long-term affair with Walleye and an orderly in love with Jenny round out the staff. As the subjects undergo the study, romance blooms and withers, and personalities alter, some for the better until a new character shows up to really test the subjects.

A middle-aged woman arrives at a motel in Fargo, ND with an overnight bag. She has traveled across the state to have a legal abortion in the state's only clinic. She awaits the next day when she can exercise her right to choose. But the walls of this cheap motel are thin, and over the course of the night each room around her not only tells its own story spotlighting violence and its many dark manifestations in society, but the rooms begin to bleed together as the inhabitants lives intersect.

It's 1962, northern Minnesota, a Catholic home for "unwed mothers." Four women, late teens, are waiting out the birth of their babies so they can release them for adoption and move on with their lives. But not everyone is certain that she wants to follow through with this plan. Not everyone has agreed to it, either.

Seven women are forced to lived together in a prison in Uruguay during that country's "dirty war" in the 1970s. They occupy themselves by rehearsing Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba and bolster each other's spirits as they deal with separation from their children and loved ones. But when one woman looks out for only herself, everyone's existence is jeopardized. These are their stories, based on testimonios of actual prisoners and their families.

After the death of their last remaining parent, three sisters gather to organize and hold a garage sale to get rid of a lifetime of items. In addition to deciding who gets mom's pearls, the two older sisters must unpack the sticky issue of who will care for their "baby sister," now 30, who is developmentally disabled. As in so many families, the decision can make or break relationships. Just who will be "it?"

You are a single parent. You have a 12-year old daughter. Your only living relative, your mother is dead -- not that it stops her from giving you advice. You have two good friends who can't stand each other. You invite them to the lake for the weekend to tell them your cancer has progressed. You're going to need them to come together for your daughter. They are all she has. But are they enough?