by Silma Sierra Berrada
Showtimes
Friday, May 8, 3:30 PM
Friday, May 8, 8 PM
Saturday, May 9, 3:30 PM
In an unnamed nation that bankrolls American power, a radical student activist leads a campaign demanding her university divest from the United States. At home, her boyfriend—an immortal man who once survived a lynching—keeps himself safe by offering spiritual readings, turning the scar that could not kill him into currency to avoid deportation. As protests rage outside their apartment, the performances that keep them alive begin to erode their intimacy. When survival becomes spectacle, what remains between them that isn’t an act?
About the Playwright
Silma Sierra Berrada. African American and Moroccan playwright, poet, and visual artist. She’s drawn to stories where the personal ruptures against the political—where memory, grief, and survival blur into ritual. Her work moves through ancestral haunting, spiritual collapse, and the ache of inheritance, often asking what softness can survive inside systems that demand endurance. She writes toward rhythm, texture, and emotional space—sculpting plays that are both tender and sharp, and dwell in the grey. She holds an AB in English from Princeton University and is currently pursuing her MFA in Playwriting at Columbia University.
About the New Plays Festival
Columbia University School of the Arts presents an expanded festival of new plays written by Columbia MFA Playwriting Students. The esteemed faculty who have nurtured these students, including Tony©, Pulitzer, and Obie Award winners such as David Auburn, Leslie Ayvazian, David Henry Hwang, James Ijames, David Klass, Michael Korie, Rogelio Martinez, Charles L. Mee, Lynn Nottage, and Blair Singer, invite everyone to experience these innovative new playwrights.
Organized by James Ijames, Head of the Playwriting Concentration.