Palm Beach Florida Weekly

THE SCIENCE OF A PREMIERE

Dramaworks mounts first production of Carter Lewis’ “Leaving Omaha.”



Nicholas-Tyler Corbin and Georgi James in the Palm Beach Dramaworks production of “The Science of Leaving Omaha.”

Two unmoored young people struggle at the center of “The Science of Leaving Omaha,” opening at Palm Beach Dramaworks on Feb. 3 — 18-year-old Iris, who feels trapped in her job at an Omaha crematory and Baker, 21, who breaks into the funeral home to bid goodbye to his recently deceased wife. The two thrash about, with humor and hope, to understand the dismantling of their working-class lives and try to conceive a future that makes sense for both of them — before their pasts, and the police, catch up with them.

Director Bruce Linser said the play, written by Carter W. Lewis, originally was commissioned by Washington University, which mounted a student production of it in 2021.

“It was sent to us as a submission by Carter’s agent,” Mr. Linser said. “We did an assessment reading of it first, followed by a reading of it at last year’s New Year/ New Plays Festival. From there we decided we wanted to produce its world premiere.”

He said PBD is always looking for shows that can appeal to a younger demographic while offering strong, universal themes — and this one checked both boxes. The play was inspired by a 2020 article in The New York Times about the disintegration of working-class communities across the country and the devastating toll it takes from one generation to the next, in terms of limited education, joblessness and ultimately broken families. Children are particularly victimized as they try to navigate a social system that dismisses, discards or demonizes them.

LINSER

LINSER

“It’s really about the working poor and there’s an entire generation of kids that are being told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” Mr. Linser said. “But the system we’ve put in place, which favors privilege, offers them no road map to do that. That’s really challenging to a whole swath of the population in this country. It’s sort of a forgotten generation.”

He said the play inspires audiences to look at the system we’ve created, see how it’s broken and look into ways to fix it.

LEWIS

LEWIS

“This is a play about dashed hopes and broken dreams,” Mr. Linser said. “And the fragile hope that keeps us moving forward. I don’t think there’s anybody alive who can’t relate to that idea. We’ve all had things we didn’t get or things that didn’t work out that we wanted. How do you keep going when all the odds are against you? Everybody should be able to relate to that.”

Georgi James plays Iris and “The Science of Leaving Omaha” marks her PBD debut, as well as co-stars Nicholas-Tyler Corbin as Baker and Merrina Millsapp as Sally, a security guard.

“Iris was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, and has never been anywhere else,” Ms. James said. “In her life she’s been faced with a lot: poverty, loss and abandonment. However, she’s such a charming character. With all this adversity she’s faced, she’s still fighting to make something of her life.”

One thing she likes about Iris is how she covers her traumatized past with a sense of humor and hope.

 

 

“She has so many layers to her,” Ms. James said. “And she has not given up, as many people in her situation would have.”

Mr. Linser said the main challenge of staging this play, which alternates between comedy and drama, lies in establishing a consistent tone.

“We don’t want it too comedic or too dramatic,” he said. “We’re looking for something in the middle. There’s a sense of fun in the script that must be balanced against the gravity of the themes, ideas and situations that counter that.”

Ms. James said Iris is still a kid at heart, trying to figure her life out.

“And she’s tough,” she said. “That’s one thing we’ve really been working on in rehearsals. Although she occasionally blurts out funny and quirky sayings, she’s no doormat. She doesn’t want anyone to feel bad for her. She’s resilient and grounded through all the chaos she’s lived through. So it’s been an exciting challenge to put all of those contrasting traits together in one person.”

 

 

That resilience is something Ms. James hopes PBD audiences will relate to.

“They’re going to come and watch Iris and Baker, two young people that have practically everything working against them,” she said. “But they’re going to fight like hell until they make it out of there.”

Mr. Linser said he hopes PBD audiences will be inspired by this play to take a look at the world through a set of different eyes.

“It’s easy for our audience at a certain age and a certain comfort level to forget about the less privileged and less well off,” he said. “I hope they’ll take a look at the world from that perspective and see it a little differently than they might have before. I also hope we get kids of that generation coming to see themselves on stage and say hey, the theater is a place that understands me and is supporting me and is trying to help change the national dialogue.” ¦

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