Octet at Studio Theatre

Eight people meet in a church basement and lock their phones in a box. This a capella chamber musical from Dave Malloy (Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812) follows an octet of people struggling with digital dependency, charting their compulsions using only the analog vibrancy of their own voices. Witty, dissonant, and lush by turns, Malloy’s score plumbs the darkest corners of the internet alongside these characters’ yearning for connection. Staged in the round in the Victor Shargai theatre, Octet asks how—in the face of the many ways to escape into our screens—we can choose to be present with each other.