THE LISTENING ROOM
“They hoard stories, in those underground vaults, in those meeting halls. Swear each other to secrecy and keep sitting on piles of words. We are kept stupid on purpose. Hungry. Starved enough to gorge ourselves on occasional scraps of information and feel fortunate. Feel protected. Dependent. We are fed fear. Fear of what lived and died here. Fear of what’s coming across the sand…”
Drama, 85 mins | 3M, 2F
Potent and topical, The Listening Room is a powerful new political drama set at the turn of the next century. At the heart of a forgotten society calling itself The Earie, young dissidents use radio telescopes to salvage fragments of earlier civilizations still ricocheting between stars. These 'Listeners' fight against growing pressure from the governing central Council, whose hold over the imaginations of the population of The Earie has all but buried the practice of 'Listening.' As the tone of their world tilts away from discourse and curiosity toward emotional rhetoric and fear-fueled isolationism, the last remaining Listeners - Marcus, Lanolin, Fayette and Rouke - strike out wildly against the new reality. Marcus holds public audiences in the streets. Lanolin keeps secret records in the event of the sudden disappearance of the Listeners. On the eve of a high-profile 'disciplinary hearing,' a blind girl walks seven miles through the desert to the outpost called The Listening Room to ask for sanctuary - Isobel wants to become a Listener…
AWARDS
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Playwrights Guild of Canada RBC Emerging Playwright Award - Finalist
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Sanguine Theatre, New York City, NY, Project Playwright - Finalist
REVIEWS
“…inspired, unique in concept, deeply engaging… a stunning idea.”
- Showtones, New York City, NY
“…a high stakes, edge-of-my-seat, thrilling yet somehow poetic dystopian drama [with] characters who seem to come fresh off the pages of a masterfully written YA dystopian novel…”
- Erin Kahn, Stage Buddy & Box Five Reviews, New York City, NY
“The Listening Room explores the weaponization of information, history, narrative, and memory alongside the potentiality of dissent, resistance, and revolution, resonating, as much good speculative fiction does, both with and beyond our present moment. [...] In the play, stories are records of the past that can point the way to the future, and what we listen for and how we interpret and (re)present what we hear determines what kind of future that will be. The Listening Room itself is one such story, and it is well worth lending it your ears (and eyes).”
- Leah Richard, Culture Catch, New York City, NY
“… a speculation, and a knowing one at that, about the inevitable nature of government, of revolution and revolutionaries, of youthful radicalism and radicals… there’s no doubting the heat of the Cardiac production. It listens intently for sounds of youthful anger in the world, and connects to a revolutionary cycle that rolls on through time.”
- Liz Nicholls, 12th Night Review, Edmonton, AB
"... fiery performances… The evolution—and implied apocalyptic destruction—of tech plays a subtle role in the set design that makes one question our heavy reliance on digital technology today.”
– Vue Weekly Review (Edmonton, AB)
PRODUCTION HISTORY
2019 Nylon Fusion Theatre Co. New York, NY, USA
2018 Cardiac Theatre/ Downstage Calgary, AB, CANADA
2018 Cardiac Theatre/ Azimuth Edmonton, AB, CANADA
2018 Nylon Fusion Theatre Co. New York, NY, USA (Reading)
2017 Sanguine Theatre New York, NY, USA (Reading)
2016 National Theatre School Montreal, QC, CANADA
PHOTOS
PURCHASE SCRIPT
OTHER PUBLICATIONS