A Contemporary New Play
A groundbreaking theatrical work reckoning with the attitudes, systems, and policies surrounding substance use, overdose, and recovery in the face of America’s unprecedented and unabated Opioid Epidemic.
The World Only Spins Forward is a groundbreaking, docu-theater project based on 5 years of clinical, recovery-community research. The project interrogates the addiction crisis in America; attempting a visual and narrative insurrection into the American opinion of addiction. Synthesizing research and primary source material; The World Only Spins Forward will become a multi-media driven dramatic performance and spectacle that reframes the addiction landscape.
Inspired by a collection of five years worth of field work in recovery communities, rehab facilities, and meetings across the country.
The United States is in the midst of a nationwide public health emergency: an epidemic of opioid misuse and abuse that has been called the deadliest drug crisis in American history, particularly affecting young Americans.
Nearly 200 Americans die each day from drug overdose (NIDA, 2018b). Death rates have been steadily increasing from 1999 and are at an all time high (now increasing 18% per year due to synthetic opioids).
Our research is being used to develop a groundbreaking, contemporary new play exploring the history and future of this epidemic through a fantasia of narrative scenes, video archives, immersive technology and theatrical vignettes.