Isabel and the Runaway Train at George Washington Carver Museum - Boyd Vance Theater

If you believe that theatre can change hearts and minds, then we are eager to welcome you aboard!

Isabel and the Runaway Train invites you to begin your journey to COMPASSION and CONFIDENCE when someone says #metoo.

What will the event be like?

Isabel & The Runaway Train is a dramatic comedy (or "dramedy," if you will). This jazz - folk musical uses comedic strategies to engage audience members (aka "Passengers" ), while the cast of characters models healthy and not-so-healthy dramatic behaviors in response to a past #metoo experience. (No violence is pictured on stage, and the descriptions of harmful acts are carefully timed, trauma-informed and survivor - empowering).

Isabel is coming to life on stage in April 2022 at the George Washington Carver Museum’s Boyd Vance Theatre as part of the City of Austin’s prestigious Artist Access Program.

Link to In Person Tickets: Isabel and the Runaway Train Tickets, Multiple Dates | Eventbrite

Link to Livestream Tickets (April 30th shows only): LIVESTREAM of Isabel and the Runaway Train 4/30/22 Tickets, Multiple Dates | Eventbrite

Directed by Ansel Lowry.

Book, Music and Lyrics by Anna Westbrook.

IsabelandtheRunawayTrain.org

Why does this show exist?

The Isabel community is an Austin-based musical theater production with accompanying “train” - ing programs that teach people how to support survivors of sexual maltreatment in their personal and professional lives.

Getting on board for an Isabel production can help your community find healing, talk about mental health, and support survivors of sexual maltreatment.

Plot Summary

This 10 - cast member show tells the story of a 16 - year - old girl named Isabel who runs away from home and finds herself trapped on a magical train full of people who won't stop running - aka “The Runaway Train.”

Isabel is the only person on board who remembers her own name and it is up to her to stop the train and save the other characters on board. Characters include an overly helpful Porter, several Choir Members with low to nonexistent levels of social awareness, and a mysterious Writer who may or may not be dead.

Meanwhile, Isabel's parents are frantically looking for her, each in their own unique way. Her mother sends her father to scour the city...and he comes back with...mental health literature?! As you can imagine, these different strategies raise plenty of problems.

Back on the train, the relationships between the friends she meets on board and the evil Conductor turns out to be much more complicated than Isabel originally thought. Could her own relationships have a connection to the onboard drama?

She soon discovers that in order to get off the train, she will have to take a hard look in the mirror and lean on her family to process an unaddressed history of trauma.

Will Isabel unravel the mystery of her past? Will her parents learn to step up for her even though it's hard? And will the Porter ever convince Isabel to let him carry her baggage? If not, who even is he?

Explore these questions and more by booking your tickets to Isabel and the Runaway Train.

(Final Warning: you will be treated as if you were aboard a train for the entirety of the play. Expect puns Passengers. Expect. Puns.)

Bonus Knowledge: If you don't know, now you know...

Isabel programs are written BY a survivor of sexual maltreatment FOR supporters of survivors of sexual maltreatment. Because we know that it’s hard to be helpful.

Composer/Playwright Anna Westbrook created the Isabel characters in 2012 after being diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She wrote the script and store slowly and carefully over the next few years, while investing heavily in her own mental health. Now, her story of healing inspires others to learn and grow.