UNRECONCILED at Academy of Music

UNRECONCILED is an autobiographical solo play written by Jay Sefton and Mark Basquill and performed by Jay Sefton. At thirteen, Sefton dreamed of being an actor and was cast as Jesus in a school play directed by a parish priest who was later defrocked and named in a grand jury report for the sexual abuse of minors; the play incorporates actual VHS footage from the 1985 Passion Play. The work exposes not just one predator but the wider institutional system that enabled him, set against the backdrop of a whiskey-drenched, sports-crazed suburb of Philadelphia. The performance will be followed by a post-show conversation with trauma expert and author Bessel van der Kolk and musician and healing arts advocate Licia Sky, moderated by Melenie Freedom Flynn.