When a world-renowned origami artist opens her studio to a teenage prodigy and his school teacher, she discovers that life and love can't be arranged neatly in this drama about finding the perfect fold.

A visceral blend of classical mythology and real life stories told by street kids, Naomi lizuka's Polaroid Stories journeys into a dangerous world where myth-making fulfills a fierce need for transcendence, where storytelling has the power to transform a reality in which characters' lives are continually threatened, devalued and effaced. Not all the stories these characters tell are true; some are lies, wild yams, clever deceits, baroque fabrications. But whether or not a homeless kid invents an incredible history for himself isn't the point, explains diarist-of-the-street Jim Grimsley. "All these stories and lies add up to something like the truth."

Inspired in part by Ovid's Metamorphoses, Iizuka's Polaroid Stories takes place on an abandoned pier on the outermost edge of a city, a way stop for dreamers, dealers and desperadoes, a no-man's land where runaways seek camaraderie, refuge and escape. Serpentine routes from the street to the heart characterize the interactions in this spellbinding tale of young people pushed to society's fringe. Informed, as well, by interviews with young prostitutes and street kids, Polaroid Stories conveys a whirlwind of psychic disturbance, confusion and longing. Like their mythic counterparts, these modern-day mortals are engulfed by needs that burn and consume. Their language mixes poetry and profanity, imbuing the play with lyricism and great theatrical force.

In this acclaimed play, Naomi Iizuka has created a carefully textured exploration of the meaning of truth—not just in the art world but in the human heart as well.

Taking its title from the series of woodblock prints by nineteenth-century Japanese artist Hokusai (which, contrary to their label, consists of 46 images of Mount Fuji), 36 Views unfolds in a series of 36 scenes and moments. The story has several threads, but at its heart is fairly simple. An art dealer and an art historian discover what they think is an ancient manuscript—a priceless Japanese pillow book—and try to learn whether it's authentic. Their search becomes an erotic game of greed, love, and mental hide-and-seek as the play explores the relationships between feelings and words, objects and photographs of objects, antiques and perfect copies, and a woman's heritage and her physical features.
 

On the outskirts of Mormon Country, Idaho, a six hundred pound recluse hides away in his apartment eating himself to death. Desperate to reconnect with his long-estranged daughter, he reaches out to her, only to find a viciously sharp-tongued and wildly unhappy teen. Big-hearted and fiercely funny, The Whale tells the story of a man's last chance at redemption, and of finding beauty in the most unexpected places.

In the bleak, corporate break room of a craft store in Idaho, someone is summoning The Rapture. Will, who has fled his rural hometown after a scandal at his Evangelical church, comes to the Hobby Lobby, not only for employment, but also to rekindle a relationship with Alex, his brooding teenage son, whom he gave up for adoption several years ago. Alex works there along with Leroy, his adopted brother and protector, and Anna, a hapless young woman who reads bland fiction but hopes for dramatic endings. As their manager, foul-mouthed Pauline, tries ceaselessly to find order (and profit) in the chaos of small business, these lost souls of the Hobby Lobby confront an unyielding world through the beige-tinted impossibility of modern faith.

Abby and Zack—young, American and married—have abandoned the stability of a comfortable post-graduate life in the states for Belleville, a bustling, bohemian, multicultural neighborhood in Paris. In an attempt to build a life together away from family and friends, their passive-aggressive and aggressively passionate relationship is put to test after an awkward afternoon discovery, a landlord's ultimatum and a cracked toenail.

After losing his best friend while they were on a cross-country bike trip, 21 year-old Leo seeks solace from his feisty 91 year-old grandmother Vera in her West Village apartment. 4000 Miles looks at how these two outsiders find their way in today's world.

Booth, by OBIE winning playwright W. David Hancock, is like overhearing the strangest, most moving, and at times most deeply disturbing conversation you will ever have the opportunity to eavesdrop on. Learn more about the production here.

Part shopping trip, part haunting, all play, The Race of the Ark Tattoo takes place inside a working flea market run by Mr. P. Foster, who is selling the artifacts of his deceased foster father, Mr. Homer Phinney. Audiences shop the flea market at the beginning (and end) of the play, discovering that each object in the flea market offers its own story. Each performance is different, as the stories to be told that night will be determined by the audience’'s selection of objects from Mr. Phinney’'s salvaged “story ark.” As the stories unfold, the audience discovers that this flea market is, in effect, a mausoleum—a repository for the memories of Foster'’s mysterious life within the relics of his father’'s.

The captive wives of a Liberian rebel officer form a hardscrabble sisterhood, their lives set on a nightmarish detour by civil war. With the arrival of a new girl who can read—and the return of an old one who can kill—their possibilities are quickly transformed. Drawing on reserves of wit and compassion, these defiant survivors ask: when the fog of battle lifts, could a different destiny emerge?