World Premiere Preview (April 25-27, 2008)

Some years ago, a friend of mine told me about a philosophical conundrum called "The Ship of Theseus."

The basic premise was that Theseus, the legendary Greek king who navigated the labyrinth and slew the Minotaur of Crete, would arrive at a particular harbor with his ship as part of some sort of diplomatic/trade mission...the particulars of which are unimportant. The important thing is that he'd dock his ship.

And while the crew was ashore, a group of pranksters at the port would go to the ship and remove one plank of wood, replacing it with a plank of wood from their local trees.

This went on like this for years--the ship of Theseus would dock, the pranksters would replace a plank of wood.

Eventually, the pranksters had replaced every single plank of wood on the ship. And they took the original wood that they had stolen, and with it they built an exact replica of the ship of Theseus.

The conundrum, then, was this: Which ship was the Ship of Theseus?

As you'd expect of a philosophy puzzle, this then spun out to ask about human beings, who completely replace every cell on their body over a cycle of a few years at a time, and it spun out from there into the moral/ethical dilemmas of cloning, etcetera, etcetera. It was college, you know, we used to have these conversations at three in the morning to convince ourselves we were deep.

This week there are nine new titles. The show has completely changed over an uncounted number of times. Is the show still, in fact, Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind?

Mary, Greg, Kristie, John, and Sean blow your mind with the following new plays:

• The Small Print (Greg Allen)
• The Carrots Understand (Mary Fons)
• Redemption Inanimato (John Pierson)
• The White Knight Is Talking Backwards (John Pierson)
• It came from the ground: a remembrance (Kristie Koehler)
• 36 Gun Salute: Ahh, Spring in Chicago (Kristie Koehler)
• The Laugh with the Tragic Content (Sean Benjamin)
• Juxtaposition (Sean Benjamin)
• Please Listen to this song about waiting while we leave the room to get the squirt guns we will inevitably squirt you wiht. During your wait, it would be greatly appreciated if someone would please volunteer to stand against the back wall on the towels. It would seem that people in the audience might appreciate this selfless act. More than one volunteeer is certainly acceptable. If no one volunteers, the outcome....should be obvious to you. The song, by the way, is by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It is called "The Waiting". (Sean Benjamin)

FYI: A tree falling in the forest always makes a sound. I don't know how you can keep asking about that.