Patricia Krahnke

An Exceptionally Dark Comedy in Twelve Scenes

Anne’s husband David, a narcissistic, emotionally abusive immigration lawyer, is harboring Rafiq, a young Afghan refugee, in their cramped New York apartment. This fact alarms Anne's fiercely loyal childhood friend Savannah, a meddling, bigoted free spirit, who asks with dark suspicion, “Where will this refugee go? What will this refugee do?”.

Long exhausted from negotiating peace between her warring husband and friend, Anne has entered her own safe harbor -- heroin addiction. As she struggles with longing for family, nurture, peace, and safety, she finds an unexpected ally in the mysterious, sweet young stranger who sleeps on her sofa and prays in her living room.

When Anne watches David and Savannah finally come to blows and their deaths leave her alone and oddly at peace, “Where will she go? What will she do?”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Throughout the development of this play, in readings and workshops, the following individuals have played important roles in getting it right:

Humaira Ghilzai, Afghan Cultural Consultant
Carson Grace Becker, Dramaturg, Artistic Director, Chicago Dramatists
Will Dunne, Instructor, Scene Work, Chicago Dramatists

Kate Hendrickson, Director, Trap Door Theater, Chicago
Emilio Williams, Playwright, Essayist, & Educator, Chicago
Audrey Sheffield, Director, London, UK
Telling Humans Playwright Studio
John Elmore, Director, Brown County Playhouse
Brown County Playhouse (IN)
Steve Krahnke, Producer, Indiana University
Pony Boy Speakeasy Theatre Production Team

Cantara, a socially ambitious African-American woman, is married to a wealthy white New York artist whose star has fallen as rapidly as it rose, and who on this day is nowhere to be found.

Desperate for money, Cantara visits a mysterious international art dealer in an attempt sell him one of her husband's paintings.

But what she doesn't know is that her husband has already cut a deal, sealing her fate.

THEMES: Objectification of women; objectification of women of color; we project onto people in the same way we project onto works of art, ignoring the intention of the person or the artist; white people try to do the right thing even when they don't understand and end up doing the wrong thing; "Why would you put something valuable in a vulnerable place?"

Robbi is a short order cook in a crummy, haunted West Virginia diner. Today's her day to escape this bullshit town. But the ghosts have a different plan.

VIBE
Toons / Baby-Jane / Arsenic & Old Lace / Hedwig / Harvey

LOGLINE
Can elderly sisters at opposite ends of the political divide reconcile before they die?
Beauregard says YES! Bananas says NO!