Ramp / Mushroom
Published on 30. January 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
225 pages
978-1-7370255-3-5 (ISBN)
Description
In the plays collected here-Ramp and Mushroom-Pulitzer
Prize finalist Eisa Davis mingles modes of myth and speculation,
documentary and fiction in two plays about family, desire, restorative
justice, ecological sustainability, and immigration amongst the working
class. Ramp adapts the foundational Egyption saga of Isis /
Osiris and sets on a near-future airline ramp, where siblings Isis,
Osiris, Seth, and Nepthys throw luggage on planes and bicker about our
thorny, precipitate futurity: should change be fast or gradual? Can the
ecological revolution we require for survival produce ease and peace if
it's rooted in violence? Is the path to utopia brutal? Must it be? Mushroom
centers on the lives, loves, and working conditions of the Mexican and
Central American mushroom-pickers in and around the town of Kennett
Square, Pennsylvania, where over 40% of all the mushrooms we eat in this
country come from. Through a series of intersecting
narratives traversed by English, Spanish, K'iche' and Malayalam
speakers, Mushroom considers a workplace dispute that has
serious ramifications for multiple immigrant families, mapping
how compassion and justice might intersect.
Prize finalist Eisa Davis mingles modes of myth and speculation,
documentary and fiction in two plays about family, desire, restorative
justice, ecological sustainability, and immigration amongst the working
class. Ramp adapts the foundational Egyption saga of Isis /
Osiris and sets on a near-future airline ramp, where siblings Isis,
Osiris, Seth, and Nepthys throw luggage on planes and bicker about our
thorny, precipitate futurity: should change be fast or gradual? Can the
ecological revolution we require for survival produce ease and peace if
it's rooted in violence? Is the path to utopia brutal? Must it be? Mushroom
centers on the lives, loves, and working conditions of the Mexican and
Central American mushroom-pickers in and around the town of Kennett
Square, Pennsylvania, where over 40% of all the mushrooms we eat in this
country come from. Through a series of intersecting
narratives traversed by English, Spanish, K'iche' and Malayalam
speakers, Mushroom considers a workplace dispute that has
serious ramifications for multiple immigrant families, mapping
how compassion and justice might intersect.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago, IL
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 190 mm
Width: 139 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-7370255-3-5 (9781737025535)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Eisa
Davis
is an award-winning actor, writer, and singer-songwriter working on stage and
screen. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her play Bulrusher,
and wrote and starred in Angela's Mixtape, named a best of the year by The
New Yorker. Other plays include Ramp (Ruby Prize winner), The History of Light (Barrymore
nomination), Paper Armor, Umkovu, Six Minutes, Warriors Don't Cry, Mushroom,
and ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||. Collaborations include Maze
at The Shed, The House on Coco Road, Active Ingredients, Hip
Hop Anansi, and Cirque du Soleil's first ice show, Crystal. Works
in progress include a sound art installation/performance piece entitled The Essentialisn't, and a
musical version of Devil In A Blue Dress. Eisa wrote for both seasons
of the Netflix series She's Gotta Have It, and is creating a limited series
based on the memoir by Carlotta Walls LaNier, the youngest member of the Little
Rock Nine. Eisa is a 2020 Creative Capital recipient. She was awarded the
prestigious Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, and was a resident playwright at New
Dramatists, where she won the Helen Merrill Award and the Whitfield Cook Award,
among others. She has received fellowships from Sundance, Yaddo, the MacDowell
Colony, Cave Canem, and the Doris Duke, Van Lier and Mellon Foundations. As an
actor, she is an Obie Award winner for Sustained Excellence in Performance.
Eisa's recent work includes a microplay by Lynn Nottage in the virtual series
Theatre For One, the role of June in the musical adaptation of The Secret
Life of Bees (AUDELCO award, Lortel nomination), Kings at the Public
(Drama League nomination), the 2017 Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius
Caesar, and Preludes created by Dave Malloy and Rachel Chavkin, for
which she received her second Lucille Lortel nomination. Other theatre
performances include Antigone in Ferguson, Luck of the Irish (Lucille Lortel and AUDELCO
nominations), the world premieres of This and The Call, the
first revival of The
Piano Lesson at Yale Rep (also composer and music director), and the
acclaimed Broadway rock musical Passing Strange, captured on film by
Spike Lee. Current television work includes Betty, Bluff City Law, God
Friended Me, Rise, Condi Rice on The Looming Tower, and Succession.
Davis
is an award-winning actor, writer, and singer-songwriter working on stage and
screen. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her play Bulrusher,
and wrote and starred in Angela's Mixtape, named a best of the year by The
New Yorker. Other plays include Ramp (Ruby Prize winner), The History of Light (Barrymore
nomination), Paper Armor, Umkovu, Six Minutes, Warriors Don't Cry, Mushroom,
and ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||. Collaborations include Maze
at The Shed, The House on Coco Road, Active Ingredients, Hip
Hop Anansi, and Cirque du Soleil's first ice show, Crystal. Works
in progress include a sound art installation/performance piece entitled The Essentialisn't, and a
musical version of Devil In A Blue Dress. Eisa wrote for both seasons
of the Netflix series She's Gotta Have It, and is creating a limited series
based on the memoir by Carlotta Walls LaNier, the youngest member of the Little
Rock Nine. Eisa is a 2020 Creative Capital recipient. She was awarded the
prestigious Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, and was a resident playwright at New
Dramatists, where she won the Helen Merrill Award and the Whitfield Cook Award,
among others. She has received fellowships from Sundance, Yaddo, the MacDowell
Colony, Cave Canem, and the Doris Duke, Van Lier and Mellon Foundations. As an
actor, she is an Obie Award winner for Sustained Excellence in Performance.
Eisa's recent work includes a microplay by Lynn Nottage in the virtual series
Theatre For One, the role of June in the musical adaptation of The Secret
Life of Bees (AUDELCO award, Lortel nomination), Kings at the Public
(Drama League nomination), the 2017 Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius
Caesar, and Preludes created by Dave Malloy and Rachel Chavkin, for
which she received her second Lucille Lortel nomination. Other theatre
performances include Antigone in Ferguson, Luck of the Irish (Lucille Lortel and AUDELCO
nominations), the world premieres of This and The Call, the
first revival of The
Piano Lesson at Yale Rep (also composer and music director), and the
acclaimed Broadway rock musical Passing Strange, captured on film by
Spike Lee. Current television work includes Betty, Bluff City Law, God
Friended Me, Rise, Condi Rice on The Looming Tower, and Succession.