Show image by Sir Green Pea Studio
The entire world changes with the invention of giant mech suits called GOSSAMERS. The Engineer who built them must reckon with the ramifications of her invention as they grow and alter the lives of more and more people, from those who'd wish to exploit these new machines, to those who fear them. A science-fiction play about big robots, bigger dreams, and how we live in our bodies in the era of machines.
Produced by The Plagiarists - April 21 to May 8, 2022 - The Edge Theater Off Broadway
Photo by Joe Mazza
CAST
The Engineer - Song Marshall
The Technician - Madison Hill
The Astronaut / Chorus - Nicolette de Guia
The Executive / Chorus - Carina Lastimosa
The Volunteer / Chorus - Julia Stemper
The Monitor / Chorus - Clara Byczkowski
The Ace / Chorus - Lexy Hope Weixel
CREATIVES
Playwright - Ryan Stevens
Director - Christina Casano
Movement & Intimacy Director - Maureen Yasko
Stage Manager - Mack Finklea
Costume Designer - Emma Cullimore
Props Designer/Scenic Consultant - Nina Castillo-D'Angier
Lighting Designer - Connor Sale
Sound Designer - Hannah Foerschler
Scenic Charge Artist - Reagan Kay James
Casting Director - Brittani Yawn
Press:
Chicago Reader
”’Robot’: from robota, Czech for ‘forced labor,’ coined in 1920 in Karel Čapek’s play Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum’s Universal Robots), meaning not machines made of metal, gears, wheels, and bolts, but artificial life forms of manmade flesh and blood, indistinguishable from us though of alternative origin, usage, and intention. But the idea of inventions that assist and annihilate dates back millennia, mythically and metaphorically to Promethean fire—surely more ancient still our fear and fascination with what human hands can build or break.
I Build Giants, written by Ryan Stevens, directed by Christina Casano, with movement and intimacy direction by Maureen Yasko, reimagines the problem with stunning force in an epic poetic feminist science-fiction allegory with the Plagiarists.”
New City Stage
”’I Build Giants’ is an ambitious play that wants to engage complex discussions, and is worth celebrating for that, even with this reviewer’s nit-pickery. It’s a problem with no clear right outcome. The Technician admits that whether the Gossamers were given to the government, the public or private interests, it doesn’t matter. Their corruption was inevitable. Maybe the Engineer should have kept it to herself. But if we hope to create a better future, perhaps the real question isn’t whether we could or should, but how we can keep trying.”
Staged reading for the virtual Art In The Time of Plagiarism, 2020
Photos by Joe Mazza
