By Jessica Owens
Directed by Mia Walker
With David Belleville, Marlina Devery, Dominique Lawson, Derrick John Marshall, Renrick Palmer, Robyne Parrish, Eric Ruffin, Portland Thomas, Teddy Trice, and Nick Trotta
On July 13, 1977, lightning struck three times in the New York area causing a city-wide blackout. In the following hours rioters destroyed multiple city blocks, millions of dollars’ worth of property, and the dreams of one Bushwick family. With their store and livelihood burned to the ground, they rely on each other to stay hopeful among the ruins.
SHEDDING LOAD follows this family, from 1938 to 2014, as they uncover long-kept family secrets, confront generational trauma, and face the fallout of how a singular event can alter a neighborhood forever.
The Varsity Theatre Company is a New York based collaboration formed with the intent of creating work that stimulates the modern audience through detailed exploration of characters and their humanity. Believing that the political is personal and that philosophies are often defined by social interactions, The Varsity seeks to engage with the large, sweeping questions of our society from the ground up through developing new work and generating new interpretations of existing texts. Central to The Varsity’s mission is its focus on experimenting with and pushing the boundaries of how theatre uses visceral elements - sound, movement, duration, etc. - to replicate human emotion and the human experience.
Read more at: www.varsitytheatrecompany.org
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