End Days
by Deborah Zoe Laufer
directed by Lisa Peterson
Wednesday, 4/1, 7 p.m.
549 West 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019
STARRING:
Dane DeHaan, Molly Ephraim, Peter Friedman, Deirdre O'Connell, and Paco Tolson
Sixteen year old Rachel Stein is having a bad year. Her father hasn't changed out of his pajamas since 9/11. Her mother has begun a close, personal relationship with Jesus. Her new neighbor, a sixteen-year-old Elvis impersonator, has fallen for her, hard. And the Apocalypse is coming Wednesday. Her only hope is that Stephen Hawking will save them all.
The germ of End Days began when playwright Deb Laufer heard an NPR report that 40% of Americans are Evangelical Christians. "I wanted to learn more about Evangelicals," she says, "and also to probe how the yearning for faith relates to the thirst for scientific knowledge." How better to get at that than in a play where the same actor plays both Jesus and Stephen Hawking? In creating End Days Laufer consulted with a physicist friend; for the EST production, science advisor and physicist Gabriel Cwilich worked with her to validate and deepen the scientific content. "Scientific themes run through all my plays," says Laufer. "Yet I've always felt that the best way to get people to listen is to be funny."
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