At the end of President Barack Obama's second term, after he had campaigned on the promise of closing Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, of the 800 men who were detained there over the course of 14 years, 41 remained. Now, President Donald Trump has promised to keep the facility open for the foreseeable future. Over the course of 12 years, or 4,380 nights, Malik Djamal Ahmad Essaid has been held without charge by the United States government at Guantanamo. As he languishes in his cell, his interactions with those on the outside interconnect with historical and mythical events in a riveting exposé of the legacy of global colonization and the continued violent coercion of black and brown bodies. 4380 NIGHTS asks how we might acknowledge our interconnected past and present moments and together build a future free from the walls.
Production History
4,380 NIGHTS had its world premiere, directed by Kathleen Akerley, at DC's Signature Theatre in January 2018 as part of the 2nd annual DC Women's Voices Theatre Festival. 
     "a treasure" - DC Theatre Scene
     "a lush historical buffet" - Washington Post
     "deeply felt" - New York Times
     "haunting and poetic.. a work of genuine humanity and insight" - Washington City Paper
     "gutsy and well-crafted" - Washington Blade

The Kilroys
4,380 NIGHTS was recognized as an honorable mention (top 21%) on the 2017 Kilroys list of un- and underproduced plays by female and trans playwrights of color. 

#RESIST: THE MUSICAL is a comedic satire that unravels the ways the inherent narcissism of the #resistance (as seen online) may actually be a manifestation of the same kind of individualist showmanship that gave rise to the era of Trump. In #RESIST, residents of the Big City are excited to vote for their first female president. When things don't go as they expected, Big City residents turn to social media to unleash their rage and to hashtag-resist. Except, this doesn't go quite as they planned either. In the age of the #resistance, our new musical aims to skewer white feminist ideology, performative wokeness, and the liberal fantasy of a post-racial America. Songs include, "How Did This Happen?" “Let’s Hashtag Resist,” "A March Will Solve Our Problems," and "Take a Back Seat, Becky."

Part theatre, part ritual, part epic journey, the earth, that is sufficient is a contemplative inquiry into the precarity of human relationships to extraction, consumption, and power.  the earth, that is sufficient is an iterative performance project that conceptualizes theatre-making as an ecology, and asks audiences to consider the braided legacy of our past and the infinite possibilities we might stitch into a shared future.The project is told through the eyes of Lucy, the australopithecus, the 3.2 million year old hominid fossil. She speaks of the earth’s vast history and her relationship to lands, place, and time. With her, we wonder, “when a body has been turned into an object, where does it find rest?”

​The Process
From February - November 2019 Creative Collaborators engaged in a multi-phase research, development, rehearsal, and performance process. Phases 1 and 2 resulted in the creation of a series of performance works, which we called Mushrooms. Phase 3 resulted in a final performance residency called HEARTSPACE, based at the Anacostia Playhouse.
We defined “performance” widely and welcomed all kinds of events/interventions/experiences that use a wide range of performative/expressive/interactive mediums/disciplines. As such, a Mushroom might be a one-time-only event, or it might be repeated. A Mushroom might last 10 min, or it might last 8 hours. As an embodiment of our commitment to iterativity all Mushrooms were developed as a response to one or more of the works that had been developed prior to it. In this sense each performance acted as a spore that led to a new work. Mushrooms then both emerged as part of and extended a mycelial network that runs below the ground of these pieces: communicating, transferring chemicals and signals.

Artistic development for the earth, that is sufficient was partially funded by the American Scandinavian Association, the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, The Puffin Foundation, and the Theatre Communications Group Global Connections Program. The project was produced by The Welders in DC and globally throughout 2019. 

https://www.groundwaterarts.com/green-new-theatre.html

"Green New Theatre" is a public document and set of 6 principles to embed a Just Transition into the national performing arts field, co-authored by Annalisa Dias, Anna Lathrop, Ronee Penoi (Laguna Pueblo/Cherokee), & Tara Moses (Seminole/Mvskoke) on behalf of Groundwater Arts, in collaboration with many members of the national theatre community. 

Over the course of 2020, the Groundwater Arts team hosted a series of public working calls (with HowlRound, TCG, and more) to continue disseminating the priciples developed in community. To date the Green New Theatre document and public calls have reached over 20,000 people.