Overview
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.
Casting & Production
Casting
EMMA PHLEPS — 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.)
MALIK PETERSON (An extreme weather carpenter at various scientific research facilities in Greenland. Shy but a bit of a flirt. Strong, and capable.)
Casting Note:
While the playwright makes no strict requirements about race or ethnicity, at least half of the actors should be non-white.
Setting
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.
Reviews
“The play’s twofold approach is impressively fluid as it moves between Emma’s past and her present, between her grief and the planet’s forewarned misery…the play offers a humane argument that not only is the unmaking of life a matter of degrees, but so too, the making sense of it.”
—The Denver Post
“The play takes the time to translate big ideas into plain language without talking down to the audience. Palmquist also succeeds in turning emotion into action in ways that make the characters, particularly Emma, more compelling.”
—KDHX St. Louis
