The town of Thebes was once the jewel of Southern Illinois, but the river has turned poisonous, the crops are failing, and pregnant women and their unborn babies are dying mysterious deaths, all while the town's leader has locked himself away, leaving the residents to cast about for answers. Suspicion falls on Mellie, a young woman born with a serious disability. Despised from birth by the gods and barely tolerated by the rest of town, it falls on her and the other women of Thebes to wrest power from the man who has led them to catastrophe in this radical reimagining of the Oedipus myth.

The Southern Illinois towns of New Athens and Sparta share a lot of history. When New Athens native Tom returns after years of running away from his past and gets involved with Rachel, a Sparta girl with quite a past of her own, history shows just how unrelenting it can be.

The twin sons of Oedipus have come of age and are fighting each other for the control of Thebes. The exiled Polynices has returned home with 7 armies to back his claim, while Eteocles would rather see the city destroyed than hand over power. The twins' mother, Jocasta, and sister, Antigone, seek to intervene, forcing a parley, while their uncle, Creon, works behind the scenes to avert disaster--but only if that work won't cost him personally. Thrust into the heart of this tinderbox is a group of Phoenecian women. Fleeing war and upheaval in their home country, they have come to Thebes seeking refuge among their distant relatives only to find themselves caught between the brother's indomitable wills and subsequently forced to choose a side. After only just repelling a first wave of attack on the city, the brothers agree to face each other in single combat. Jocasta tries one more time to force them to a peace, but she comes too late; the brothers kill each other and in her grief, Jocasta takes her own life. The Phoenecian women make one more appeal to Creon to be allowed to stay in Thebes, but Creon, his attention on repairing and rebuilding his own city, turns a deaf ear to their pleas and casts them out.

Be brave and create a world that is better for everyone. Artemis Sims is a 14-year old living in the town of Arcady on the banks of the Mississippi River. A wheelchair user for most of her life, she dreams of getting out of her tiny town to explore the world and escape the limited expectations her neighbors tend to impose on her. But one week ago, a massive flood wiped away most of Arcady, leaving her stranded atop the town's library. With some help from a great blue heron named Nicodemus, Artemis tries to find a way back to her Aunt Maggie's house, only to learn of a new danger—a pair of corporate developers determined to claim the town for themselves. In order to stop them, she’ll need to bring her whole self—determination, imagination, and problem solving—to discover her power, purpose, and her place in rebuilding her town as a better place for everyone. First commissioned and released by the Kennedy Center as a radio play as part of WTYA Presents in 2021, Tim J. Lord’s play transforms into a heartening world premiere musical, with composer and co-lyricist Avi Amon.

After being held hostage in a Moscow theater by terrorists demanding an end to Russia’s war in Chechnya, a Ukrainian-Russian playwright is still haunted by the relationships he made during the crisis and unable to move past the tragic events that surrounded the siege’s conclusion. In a desperate attempt to understand where he and his country have come to he attempts to sneak into Chechnya only to be captured by Russian agents and suspected of being a terrorist himself. All alone in an interrogation room on the Russian frontier he is forced to confront just what happened during those fifty-seven hours in 2002.