Ramp / Mushroom

(Paperback)

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In the plays collected hereRamp and MushroomPulitzer Prize finalist Eisa Davis mingles modes of myth and speculation, documentary and fiction in two plays about family, desire, restorative justice, ecological sustainability, and immigration amongst the working class. Ramp adapts the foundational Egyption saga of Isis / Osiris and sets on a near-future airline ramp, where siblings Isis, Osiris, Seth, and Nepthys throw luggage on planes and bicker about our thorny, precipitate futurity: should change be fast or gradual Can the ecological revolution we require for survival produce ease and peace if its rooted in violence Is the path to utopia brutal Must it be Mushroom centers on the lives, loves, and working conditions of the Mexican and Central American mushroom-pickers in and around the town of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, where over 40% of all themushroomswe eat in this country come from.Through a series of intersecting narrativestraversed by English, Spanish, K'iche' and Malayalam speakers, Mushroom considers a workplace dispute that has serious ramifications for multiple immigrant families, mapping howcompassion and justice might intersect.

Author Bio

Eisa Davis is an award-winning actor, writer, and singer-songwriter working on stage and screen. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her play Bulrusher, and wrote and starred in Angelas Mixtape, named a best of the year by The New Yorker. Other plays include Ramp (Ruby Prize winner),The History of Light(Barrymore nomination), Paper Armor, Umkovu, Six Minutes, Warriors Dont Cry, Mushroom, and ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||. Collaborations include Maze at The Shed, The House on Coco Road, Active Ingredients, Hip Hop Anansi, and Cirque du Soleils first ice show, Crystal. Works in progress include a sound art installation/performance piece entitledThe Essentialisnt, and a musical version of Devil In A Blue Dress. Eisa wrote for both seasons of the Netflix series Shes Gotta Have It, and is creating a limited series based on the memoir by Carlotta Walls LaNier, the youngest member of the Little Rock Nine. Eisa is a 2020 Creative Capital recipient. She was awarded the prestigious Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, and was a resident playwright at New Dramatists, where she won the Helen Merrill Award and the Whitfield Cook Award, among others. She has received fellowships from Sundance, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, Cave Canem, and the Doris Duke, Van Lier and Mellon Foundations. As an actor, she is an Obie Award winner for Sustained Excellence in Performance. Eisas recent work includes a microplay by Lynn Nottage in the virtual series Theatre For One, the role of June in the musical adaptation of The Secret Life of Bees (AUDELCO award, Lortel nomination), Kings at the Public (Drama League nomination), the 2017 Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar, and Preludes created by Dave Malloy and Rachel Chavkin, for which she received her second Lucille Lortel nomination. Other theatre performances includeAntigone in Ferguson, Luck of the Irish (Lucille Lortel and AUDELCO nominations), the world premieres of This and The Call, the first revival ofThe Piano Lessonat Yale Rep (also composer and music director), and the acclaimed Broadway rock musical Passing Strange, captured on film by Spike Lee. Current television work includes Betty, Bluff City Law, God Friended Me, Rise, Condi Rice on The Looming Tower, and Succession.