BY THE NUMBERS is a fun and inventive collection of eight short plays inspired by mathematical theorems. But no math is required to enjoy them!
Length: Full-Length
A full-length play or musical, in one act or two, that is 75 minutes or longer.
Born With Teeth
An aging ruler, an oppressive police state, a restless polarized people seething with paranoia: it’s a dangerous time for poets. Two of them—the great Kit Marlowe and up-and-comer Will Shakespeare—meet in the back room of a pub to collaborate on a history play cycle, navigate the perils of art under a totalitarian regime, and flirt like young men with everything to lose. One of them may well be the death of the other.
“Oh Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!
And so I was, which plainly signified
That I should snarl and bite, play the dog.”
—Henry VI, Part 3,
Shakespeare & Marlowe
The Brightest Thing
An American Fable that’s tinged with sadness about a girl’s imaginary journey in a hot air balloon to rescue her mother.
Black Super Hero Magic Mama
Sabrina Jackson cannot cope with the death of her son by a White cop. Rather than herald the Black Lives Matter movement, Sabrina retreats inward, living out a comic book superhero fantasy. Will Sabrina stay in this dream world or return to reality and mourn her loss?
The Binding
Set in the Midwest, THE BINDING tells the story of Isaac, a deeply closeted, religious teen whose childhood imaginary friend, Poppy, returns on the eve of his sixteenth birthday. As Poppy begins to unravel Isaac’s tightly wound secrets, both must learn to escape the smothering identities they have chosen. THE BINDING is a play about the ecstasy and pain of believing in something that can’t be seen.
The Ballad of Emmett Till
THE BALLAD OF EMMETT TILL dramatizes the final days of Emmett Till, a Chicago teenager who takes a fateful trip to Mississippi in the summer of 1955. It is the story of a quest, Emmett’s pursuit of happiness, of liberty and ultimately of life.
This is the first play in The Till Trilogy, a three-play cycle which includes BENEVOLENCE and THAT SUMMER IN SUMNER, exploring the epic saga of Emmett Till and the birth of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Babel
Renee and Dani are expecting. Ann and Jamie are also expecting. And a Giant Stork suddenly starts talking. Set in the near future, Babel paints the picture of a society where embryos must be pre-certified. When each couple faces the test results, things take a complicated turn. This dark comedy begs the question, “How far will we go to create the ‘perfect’ world?”
That Summer in Sumner
THAT SUMMER IN SUMNER is the middle drama in The Till Trilogy, a three-play cycle exploring the epic saga of Emmett Till. While the first play, The Ballad of Emmett Till, is the story of the boy, That Summer in Sumner explores the 1955 trial of his killers. While drawing upon trial transcripts, contemporaneous news accounts, and the abundant photographic and media imaging, the play is not a docudrama, but my imagined interpretation of behind the scenes events from the perspective of three African American journalists covering the trial and from Emmett, himself, his ghost, his cipher, his Kah, coming to grips with what has happened to him.
This is the second play in The Till Trilogy, a three-play cycle which includes BENEVOLENCE and THE BALLAD OF EMMETT TILL, exploring the epic saga of Emmett Till and the birth of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Another America
A cross-country pilgrimage on bicycles from Venice, CA to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA. ANOTHER AMERICA is a free-wheeling portrait of the country itself as well as a journey of self discovery for two brothers and their best friend.
Benevolence
BENEVOLENCE explores the impact of the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Chicago youth Emmett Till on two families in the Mississippi Delta, one white (the family of his killers), one black (their neighbors). When the daily routine of a country storekeeper is disrupted by a group of buoyant teens, one of whom whistles at her, from that chance encounter, she is swept into a whirlwind of violence, prosecution, deceit and delusion that pursue her till the end of her days. In a nearby town, an auto mechanic and his wife struggle to hold their family together after his infidelity, but when he witnesses evidence of Till’s murder, the incident tears at the very fabric of their lives. Based on actual events, the third play in Bayeza’s THE TILL TRILOGY grapples with the enduring legacy of American racial violence through this intimate story of two women in quest of love and redemption.