ALEXANDRIA to Make Off-Broadway World Premiere At Dixon Place This May

Alexandria, a new play by Markley Bortz and directed by Jack Morrill, is set to make its Off-Broadway World Premiere at Dixon Place May 8-25.

After a series of brutal hurricanes forces them out of their homes, five survivors seeking shelter stumble upon an abandoned library that has miraculously survived the elements. Sisters Luz (Anuka Sethi) and Izzy (Josie Rose Hand), alongside life-long friend J (Celeste Samson), attempt to make sense of the world with the new found knowledge at their fingertips, while married couple Rheann (Caitlyn Alico Beckwith) and Kal (Steve Gamble) try their best to rebuild what is left of their old lives. As tensions rise on the surface, a sixth survivor (Kana Seiki) remains hidden underground, cultivating a life of her own. With the threat of change forever looming, the group must make the choice to succumb to it or to shape it.

The cast includes Kana Seiki, Celeste Samson, Anuka Sethi, Josie Rose Hand, Steve Gamble, Caitlyn Alico Beckwith, Mason Forringer, Callie Fabac, Megan Gwyn, Malin Glade, and Luke Sage.

Director Jack Morrill shares, "A year ago when I was in Chicago for POP!'s adapted production of Next to Normal, I was getting lunch with Markley. We were talking about projects we were working on and she mentioned this new play she had been writing inspired by Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E. Butler, set in an abandoned library in the not-so-distant future. I was instantly hooked. Having read Parable a few years back, I knew whatever she had been creating was going to be both thrilling and poignant and something audiences needed to see immediately."

"When I started writing this play about the near and uncomfortable future, I knew I couldn't leave out this book, which (not unlike the characters) has been an anchor for me in times of uncertainty. A piece of fiction that doesn't necessarily act as an escape but as an ignition," states playwright Markley Bortz.

"There is a reason why funding for our libraries is currently being gutted. There is a reason why books and education are the first to go in any fascist regime. I wanted to write about a future where our protagonists have found themselves in a powder keg, and have to grapple with what protecting a place like that really means when they are also just trying to survive," says Bortz. "This landscape may feel dystopian to some, but for many who are living under the (already very present) impacts of climate change and violence of capitalism, the dangers of this world are not necessarily foreign ones."