Upcoming Events Events

The Body's Midnight by Tira Palmquist 

Directed by Jodeen Revere

A couple on an epic road trip across the west, told in the epic mountains of Bogus Basin.

What does it mean to be lost in America? Anne and her husband David are about to find out. Determined to put a troubling diagnosis in the rearview mirror, they set off on the perfect American road trip with a plan, a destination, an impressive list of cool spots to stop along the way, and a timeline that should put them in St. Paul just in time for the birth of their first grandchild. But what if this perfect plan is merely a distraction from the complicated, ridiculous, occasionally breathtaking, and often far messier journey they’d hoped to avoid? Bearing witness to the beauty of things, even as they disappear, Anne and David struggle to come to terms with the unexpected and unavoidable journey of their lives.

Fourth Annual BIPOC Playwrights Festival

Boise Contemporary Theater’s annual BIPOC Playwrights Festival, founded in 2021 with assistance from the Idaho Women’s Charitable Foundation, seeks to champion emerging and mid-career playwrights by connecting exceptional works with professional actors, directors, and technicians. The festival gives playwrights of color the chance to workshop their script during the week with a director and full cast. Hearing their words read out loud by professional actors provides valuable feedback. The festival culminates in two nights of staged readings. This experience helps inform their work, building the careers of playwrights of color, so they can keep telling their stories.

Attend all BIPOC Playwrights Festival offerings with a festival pass for $30, click HERE.

Playwrights' Panel - August 21st, 7pm (Free to attend, RSVP below)
Meet the playwrights selected to participate in this years BIPOC Playwrights Festival.
 

Ajax by Habib Yazdi - August 22nd, 7pm
It’s a hot summer in August, 1953, when a clean-cut American arrives at a peaceful villa in North Tehran. Kambiz, the villa’s gardener and pool boy, wonders if the new guest may be his ticket to a better life. As their friendship deepens, Kambiz finds himself entangled in strange affairs involving the Shah of Iran and the country’s elected prime minister. How will it end? Only the pool knows…

In Case of Bruising by Kamila Boga - August 23rd, 7pm
Triplets Milo, Otis, and Della’s lives are very different from other kids. They’re too big for the third grade, they don’t know when they’ll have food for lunch, and they don’t go home if their father is in a bad mood. They know their Mama spends more time in the hospital than other mothers. They know she is sad again. One afternoon, the triplets meet Calico, an odd boy with an odd name. They accept him quickly. As Daddy and Mama get worse, each child finds new ways to cope - some safer than others.

Dear God by Lisa Langford - August 24th, 2pm
Aliens have landed. After the initial shock, humans of all races and creeds join together to do what they do best: discriminate. Vonnie, a pastor of a Black church, refuses to take a vow stating that God is only the God of humans. This creates friction between Vonnie and her frightened parishioners, her devout husband, and an ex-lover who could destroy everything she’s worked for. Vonnie must decide if her gospel welcomes all, regardless of planetary origin, or if she will revel in a racism-free world where humans persecute aliens.

Artificial by Prince Gomolvilas - August 24th, 7pm 
After a failed career in standup comedy, Simon has taken a soul-sucking job as an AI engineer at his younger brother Jetsada’s thriving chatbot company. But when the artistic bug bites again, Simon leverages the company’s AI technology to write jokes, and he hits open mic nights once again—much to Jetsada’s dismay. The sparring brothers’ sibling rivalry reaches epic proportions in this timely yet timeless exploration of a fractured Thai-American family, the uneasy intersection of art and technology, and the question of what it means to be human in the modern age. And yes, this synopsis was written by ChatGPT…. Or was it?

Between Here and There, I am Homeless by Luma Jasim - August 25th, 7pm 
*Supported by MAP Fund NYC*
Iraqi-born artist and performer Luma Jasim presents a multidisciplinary performance art-work based on her story of growing up and living in Baghdad, of being a witness to three wars, debilitating sanctions, devastating sectarian violence, and finally immigration and acculturation in the U.S. The performance will combine projected video and animation, storytelling and spoken word, live ‘action painting,’ movement, live, composed and improvised music and sound by musician Ryan Garrett and pre-recorded music by Iraqi musician Ali Asim. The work aims to use the personal to address the political, to call into question and ultimately open up the space and time of the meaning of ‘home.’ Says Jasim, “I left Iraq after the U.S. invasion eighteen years ago and have not returned. The nostalgic feeling for home continues to haunt me, even as the U.S., Boise specifically, has now become my present home. Here, I have a ‘home’, yet, strangely, I feel homeless. My old home was invaded by my new home. My new home struggles to recognize me. I feel caught between places and times, very much in a space ‘in-between.”

by Heidi Schreck

Playwright Heidi Schreck’s boundary-breaking play breathes new life into our Constitution and imagines how it will shape the next generation of Americans. Fifteen-year-old Heidi earned her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In this hilarious, hopeful and achingly human new play, she resurrects her teenage self in order to trace the profound relationship between four generations of women and the founding document that shaped their lives.

Written and Performed by Benjamin Scheuer

The Drama Desk Award-winning piece written and performed by Benjamin Scheuer, has redefined the genre of musical theatre. Scheuer tells, sings, and plays the turbulent story of his family and his own brush with mortality, with his supporting cast of six guitars.

by Daf James

A single dad meets his adopted daughter for the first time. Then he agrees to meet her birth-mother. When their two worlds collide, will what they have in common outweigh their differences? A one-off meeting. But three lives will be changed forever. One the One Hand, We're Happy is a tender, funny, hopeful play about being a mum when your name is Dad. 

by Samuel D. Hunter

Keith, a mortgage broker, and Ryan, a yogurt plant worker seeking to buy a plot of land that belonged to his family many decades ago, realize they share a "specific kind of sadness." At this desk in the middle of America, loan talk opens up into a discussion about the chokehold of financial insecurity and a bond over the precariousness of parenthood. With humor, empathy and wrenching honesty, Hunter commingles two lives and deftly bridges disparate experiences of marginality.

by Novid Parsi

WORLD PREMIEIRE

A son tries to save his mother. She has other ideas. So do two mysterious strangers who watch the play—and ask the son to tell the story again and again until he gets it right, whatever right might be.