Full-length, Drama

Emma Phelps is a paleoclimatologist, focusing on ice in Greenland. In drilling and studying ice core samples, she sees first hand the symptoms of our changing planet, which makes the need to act all the more crucial and urgent. In addition, Emma, as a recent widow, experiences grief that compounds itself with each passing month. Now she's been asked to testify in Washington D.C. in a senate committee regarding climate change legislation, and in this intersection of science and politics, of politics and the personal, she finds more than just a little is breaking up under the strain of change.

Photo: Adams VisCom, Denver Center production, Louise (L, Kim Staunton) and Emma (Kim McCall)

Production Notes:

CHARACTERS:

Emma Phelps 50. A frozen person on a warming planet. A paleoclimatologist, who studies ice, with the University of Boulder and the National Centers for Environmental Information.

Clay Simpson 40. Lobbyist for a multinational mining company. A pragmatist, and, despite everything, a good guy.

Louise Allen 50. Senator from Michigan. Old college classmate of Emma's. A powerful woman in a powerful city.

Jeffrey Phelps 50. Emma's late husband. A sexy poet.

The actor playing Jeffrey also plays: Eric Wilson (Senator Allen's Chief of Staff. A very good manager. Smart and sardonic.)

And Malik Peterson (An extreme weather carpenter at various scientific research facilities in Greenland. Shy but a bit of a flirt. Strong, and capable.)

While the playwright makes no strict requirements about race or ethnicity, at least half of the actors should be non-white.

RUNNING TIME:

90 MINUTES (Without intermission.)

TIME: The present

PLACE: Washington DC and its environs, Boulder, CO and research facility in Greenland. None of the locations need be realistically staged.

Author

Tira Palmquist

Tira Palmquist is known for plays that merge the personal, the political and the poetic. Her most produced play, TWO DEGREES, premiered at the Denver Center, and was subsequently produced by Tesseract Theater in St. Louis and Prime Productions at the Guthrie, among others. Her other plays include SAFE HARBOR, THE WAY NORTH, TEN MILE LAKE and THE WORTH OF WATER. Tira teaches creative writing at the Orange County School of the Arts, and has also taught at Wesleyan University and the University of California-Irvine... [FULL BIO]