INCELS AND OTHER MYTHS Will Be Performed at Boston Playwrights' Theatre Next Month

Boston Playwrights' Theatre (BPT) continues its 2021-22 season with Incels and Other Myths by Ally Sass. Running from December 2-12, the play is directed by Erica Terpening-Romeo.

The drama journeys into the online realms of gender, power and mythology when Elaine, a teacher of Women in Mythology, grows concerned when son Avery spends much of his time playing the online adventure game Oracle.

"I first learned the word incel when I came across the story of Elliot Rodger, who in 2014, drove his car into a crowd of people as an act of 'retribution' for his perceived social and sexual rejection by women," Playwright Sass says. "Rodger was a member of the 'involuntary celibate' or 'incel' community: a widespread online subculture comprised of men who define themselves by their inability to have sexual or romantic relationships with women."

Sass wrote Incels and Other Myths as a way to explore the unexamined parallels between inceldom and womanhood.

"The story of Elaine and Avery is one that subverts our expectations through a landscape of gender, mythos and complicated internet netherworlds," she says, describing the play as "one of the most thrilling, challenging and significant projects I've taken on as a playwright."

Sass's play Zygote was a semifinalist for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and her Late Night at the Serpent was a finalist for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival's (KCACTF) John Cauble Outstanding Short Play Award. Sass is a member of Boston University's M.F.A. Playwriting Program class of 2021 and a native of Cambridge, Mass. Director Terpening-Romeo received her M.F.A. in Directing from Boston University. She is the co-founder of the Shakespeare company Anon It Moves and former Literary Manager of Portland Actors Ensemble, both in Portland, Oregon.

All the plays in BPT's 2021-22 season were written by the Boston University M.F.A. Playwriting Program class of 2021. Originally slated for the 2020-2021 season, the productions were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The plays are co-produced with the Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Theatre as part of its New Play Initiative.

BPT's season continues in February with Rx Machina by Caity-Shea Violette and concludes in April with Beasts by Cayenne Douglass.

Audiences are required to wear masks and show proof of COVID-19 vaccination to attend performances. Up-to-the-minute information regarding performance schedules, COVID-19 protocols and ticketing can be found on the BPT website (www.BostonPlaywrights.org) under Visit Us > COVID-19 Safety.