Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play at Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

When the power goes out, what stories survive? In Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, A Post‑Electric Play, a band of survivors huddles around a fire and retells The Simpsons episode, “Cape Feare.” As the years pass, commercial jingles become parables, pop songs turn into hymns and TV characters (like the titular Mr. Burns) transform into mythic figures of the time before the collapse. Wildly funny and unexpectedly moving, Mr. Burns is a genre-bending mash-up of theater, pop culture, opera and commedia dell’arte with “depths of feeling to match its breadth of imagination” (The New York Times). Directed by Elizabeth Dinkova (Artistic Director, Spooky Action Theater), this daring play returns to its roots after premiering at D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.