Jim Hawkins

Life’s been rough for the residents of Hope Town, a tent city by a busy highway. When an ambitious stranger discovers them by accident, a string of events unfold that forever changes their lives.

Life is good for Benjamin Shylock. He is successful in business. He has a loving family with his wife Rachel, a smart, compassionate woman, and their intelligent, inquisitive 15-year-old daughter Jessica. He has good friends. And he lives in a magnificent palazzo on Venice’s Grand Canal.

But there are tensions beneath the serene surface. Venice is facing both external and internal challenges. And these challenges are leading to resentment. Some privileged Venetians start to target those who are dismissed as other, particularly Jews.

Benjamin’s good friends, the Duke and Duchess of Belmont, urge the Shylocks to leave Venice and make Belmont their new home. Benjamin and Rachel dismiss the concerns of their friends and vow to stay in Venice. But the tensions in Venice escalate: a petty confrontation with Antonio, the son of a prominent Venetian family, a brutal beating, threats of segregation, and finally murder on the last night of Carnevale.

By the end of the play, Benjamin’s good life is shattered, and he becomes the bitter Shylock we encounter in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

The year is 1774, 18 years after the end of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Treasure Island. Jim Hawkins, now a young man who has been to university and since has worked as Squire Trelawney’s estate manager, returned to Treasure Island two weeks ago. King George III granted Treasure Island to the squire as a proprietary colony, and the squire in turn has appointed Jim as governor. Jim has come with a dozen of the squire’s artisans to found the colony.

As lights rise, Jim is putting the finishing touches on the great hall of the governor’s house. The house is newly built and very rustic, and the great hall is not very great. In the great hall are a Union Jack, a portrait of King George III, a portrait of Squire Trelawney, and a map of Treasure Island.

Jim is awaiting the arrival of Lucretia Trelawney, the squire’s great niece, and the closest living relative to the life-long bachelor. Jim is surprised when the first guests are Long John Silver, the one-legged former pirate who led a buccaneer rebellion the last time Jim was on the island; Beulah Silver, John’s wife, a former slave born in New York; their 17-year-old daughter Kezziah Silver, born after John escaped at the end of the novel; and Captain Flint, John’s parrot.

Both Long John Silver and Lucretia Trelawney make it clear that they have come to help Jim set up the new colony. The two have competing visions for the island’s future. Lucretia’s plans center on sugar and the introduction of slavery. Silver’s plans emphasize that Treasure Island can be a shining city on a hill, a place of justice where all people are welcome.

The battle for Treasure Island’s future, and Jim’s soul, comes to a head in the final scene, a lavish dinner prepared by Long John and Beulah Silver. The feasting turns to feuding as Lucretia and Kezziah spar, first with words and then cutlasses. Jim attempts to stop the ensuing duel, and in the process, is mortally wounded as the play ends.

Lily's seemingly perfect life shatters when her husband, Congressman Dick Johnson, is caught in an affair with a teenage intern. Can Lily rebuild her life while combatting political dirty tricks and battling the establishment?

Deborah and Elijah live in a bleak future world controlled by the Powers. They meet in a catacomb for 15 minutes every day to celebrate what life on the surface used to be like before the destruction of the environment. While Elijah revels in these brief remembrances, Deborah has had enough. She collaborates with the Powers, who will destroy the catacomb as soon as they surface.