“promisingly metafictional… with a winningly committed cast”
— Washington Post
As robots on Earth finalize a museum exhibit commemorating the 100th anniversary of humanity’s extinction, an unexpected radio transmission disrupts everything they thought they knew. This darkly comic new play delves into our legacy and who will carry it forward.
The production will transform a two-story former retail store into Miyoko Conley’s visionary world: a living, breathing museum about the last days of humanity, envisioned by its robot curators through the lens of twentieth century disaster films. Audiences enter the museum lobby and can explore the gift shop, several exhibits and the bar before settling into their seats to watch the 90 minute play.
“The premise of Human Museum is incredibly original, fascinating, and prescient. It remains grounded in the gripping reality of an all-too-possible “What if?” scenario… it manages to infuse fun and delight into this imagined future, with the heart of the story being a loveable crew of robots who are more human than they think.”
— DC Theatre Arts
“The premise will make you think. The director’s deft touch will make you wonder, and the actors’ stellar performances just might make you reconsider your stance on robots”
— MD Theatre Guide
“An ensemble effort of the most appetizing kind, Rorschach’s staging of “Human Museum” throws an attic’s worth of ephemera into realizing Conley’s idiosyncratic futurescape, with a look and feel so agreeably cluttered there’s almost no distinguishing between props, costumes, set pieces and makeup design. It’s all arrayed in the quirky service of a story that’s as interested in the act of archiving as in the meaning of the archive: To collect, to hold, to interpret, Conley’s wonderfully curious robots seem to be saying, is inevitably to merge the subject into the self.”
— Washington Post
By Miyoko Conley
Directed by Randy Baker
FEATURING Ayanna Fowler, Bri Houtman, Rebecca Husk, Ixchel, Jennifer Knight, Aron Spellane
UNDERSTUDIES: Madison Bacino, Terresita Edwards, Sam Fromkin, Lisette Gabrielle
DESIGNED BY Gavin Mosier (Set), Ashlynne Ludwig (Costumes), Ian Vespermann (Sound), Hailey LaRoe (Lights), Rooster Skylar Sultan (Props), and Kylos Brannon (Video).
WITH Divinia Shorter (Dramaturg), Sophia Menconi (Stage Manager), Natasha Sánchez (Assistant Stage Manager), Makayla Smith (Second Assistant Stage Manager), Ainsley Priest (Production Assistant), Christian Sullivan (Technical Director), Libby Hinshaw (Master Electrician), Tori Niemiec (Associate Costume Designer), Benjamin Pallansch (Associate Video Designer), Sofia Olivar (Assistant Scenic Designer and Museum Graphic Designer), Andrew Reilly (Assistant Props Designer), and Germar Townsend (Production Manager).
PRODUCED BY Randy Baker and Jenny McConnell Frederick
This project is produced in partnership with Lerner Enterprises
and The Golden Triangle BID
and with support provided by the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities.