Jessica Kahkoska

When an unexpected blizzard forces Berkeley freshman Mia to wait out the storm at a rural highway gas station/ general store/ laundromat/ tow shop in Southern Colorado, she’s forced to confront a past that she is both fleeing and seeking out. As she shares family memories with store owner Moises to pass the time, another world creeps in-- one of shadows, forgotten prayers, and secrets hiding right in plain sight.

In Her Bones explores the complicated legacy of crypto-Judaism in the Southwest, illuminating an unlikely, alpine tale of secrecy, faith, fear and how we pass on culture when written records are too dangerous to keep. Driven by a community-engaged, Colorado-based research process, this piece explores if our identities and rituals rise from earth and mountains where we spend our days, are inherited in the ancient stories of our blood, or are learned in the motions of mothers at sunset and overheard songs of grandparents.

Nia reimagines the Greek story of Iphigenia's sacrifice in a near future, rural Appalachian town governed by fundamental religious rules and a blue collar military tradition. When apocalyptic squalls ground the US Air Guard fleet in Aulis, North Carolina, an overwhelmed Colonel Agamemnon makes the unthinkable choice to offer his daughter to a local Pentecostal ritual for the return of calm skies.

Using the bones of the Euripides story, Nia delves into a dark world of military ferver, Pentecostal snake handling, kudzu vine, porch gossip, and sweet tea. Featuring Achilles as a confused former golden boy, Menelaos as a grief-stricken, bitter veteran, and a Greek chorus of aging church women on the neighborhood porch, Nia grounds this epic Greek myth close to home, all with an ancient, mythic violence lurking beneath the surface.

Was there indeed a miracle at Aulis, or just hysteria and violence? What story will we choose to believe?

Wild Home: An American Odyssey is a new theatre project created by Jessica Kahkoska and Notch Theatre Company that brings to the stage the hopes, struggles, and experiences of local communities in areas under serious threat from extractive industries.

As our country faces the greatest threat to public lands in its history, Wild Home takes an odyssey across rural America by traveling to fifteen wilderness areas significantly pressured by oil and gas development. In each town, Notch Theatre Company and playwright Jessica Kahkoska partner with community at every level of the process, beginning with public story-sharing events. Topics include community members’ experiences on public lands, their concerns for their community’s wildlands and wilderness areas, the challenges they are facing, and their hopes and dreams for the future of their community and these spaces. Kahkoska then crafts plays based on shared testimony and community feedback, which are performed by community and professional actors in outdoor spaces, interspersed with facilitated dialogue about wildland preservation efforts.

Wild Home: An American Odyssey aims to magnify stories about American wildlands under threat and the people who depend on them, specifically at this crucial moment in time—when the North Fork Valley faces more oil and gas development under the Trump administration, which threatens the area’s clean air and water, agricultural heritage and outdoor recreation opportunities. Wild Home performances also provide audience members a chance to be in conversation with one another, and deepen the conversation around protecting public lands and wild places both at a grassroots level and on a national scale.

Wild Home is designed so the plays can travel from rural areas to urban city centers, deepening the conversation on both a grassroots level and a national, policymaker scale.