Disaster Relief is a highly theatrical drama for three 3 tour-de-force actors about surviving a high school shooting. The play asks the question: What does it take to be a survivor? It also deals a lot with repressed trauma, especially of the high school variety, and how we try to grow up. There's a lot of research right now on psychological development that argues that we become the people that we will be in high school and I wanted to explore what happens when a person in high school experiences the most extreme kind of danger and trauma, and takes dangerous actions. What does a teenager do with that kind of extreme experience? How do they grow out of it? Can they?

In Disaster Relief, Jenny and Bank both run away from their past trauma but in polar opposite ways. Jenny tries to become a different person, but does not stray very far from home. Bank tries to outpace his pain by attending to the pain of others and never looking inward. Neither functions in a sustainable way and they are constantly haunted by the trauma that they can't escape. They see echoes of each other and their assailant Mike in every person they meet no matter how much time and space distances them from their moment of original sin. Inevitably, or perhaps by design, they find each other again at what feels like the ends of the earth in the midst of a another impending disaster. Face to face with each other for the first time in ten years, they wonder if together they might be able to find relief.

written with composer Brian Lowdermilk. Samantha Brown balances on the edge of her future, car keys in hand. As she sits in the driver's seat, she faces a choice: will she follow in her mother's footsteps, or take the dare of her impetuous best friend and chart a new path? This contemporary and compelling score from one of NYC's most exciting new songwriting teams immerses audiences in the complex inner life of a young woman on the brink of change. When every choice feels like life and death, how do you turn the key?