Is God Is / What to Send Up When It Goes Down

Is God Is follows two twin sisters who undertake a dangerous journey to exact revenge upon their father at the behest of their ailing mother. Drawing on a diverse set of influences, including ancient tragedy, absurdism, Spaghetti Westerns, and Afropunk, Harris creates an explosive epic that examines the cyclical nature of violence. What to Send Up When it Goes Down uses a series of vignettes made up of songs, soliloquies and dialogues that range from the satirical to the sorrowful in order to highlight anti-blackness in American society. The audience is invited to take part in rituals in order to act as witnesses to the effects of violence sparked by racism and to seek ways to collectively heal.

Author: Aleshea Harris
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
Published: 03/29/2022
Pages: 161
Binding Type: Paperback
ISBN: 9781559369633

About the Author
Aleshea Harris is a playwright, performer and educator who received an MFA in Writing for Performance from California Institute of the Arts. Her work has been presented many places, including: the Costume Shop at American Conservatory Theater, Playfest at Orlando Shakespeare Theater, VOXfest at Dartmouth, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Theatre @ Boston Court, L'École de la Comédie de Saint-Étienne, National Drama Center in France and in the 2015 anthology, The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop.

Harris has been commissioned by American Conservatory Theater (Crack.Rumble.Fly., 2016) and CalArts' Center for New Performance/La Comedie de Saint-Etiénne (The Gap, ongoing). Aleshea is a MacDowell Fellow, Hedgebrook Alum and winner of the American Playwriting Foundation's 2016 Relentless Award in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman for her play Is God Is. She was awarded the 2020 Windham-Campbell Prize.