Media Relations

Original play by WKU student writer/director to be presented

Author: Tommy Newton Date: Thursday, October 25th, 2012

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The Corporate Surrealists of America is a group of artists from many disciplines that have come together to create original, aesthetically radical performances. The current project is Sena’s WKU Honors CE/T project and is being funded in part by a Faculty Undergraduate Student Engagement (FUSE) Grant.

The piece is a shocking, fierce poetic drama that draws from the writings of Rudyard Kipling and unpublished Iraq War memoirs. It cuts unflinchingly to the magmatic core of a nation’s expanding military, moral, and economic boot set firmly in the puddle of the world — its dwindling water supply.

Jumah, an angry, self-hating, and abused Muslim-American soldier fighting in a fictional American occupation of India, looks to a mysterious activist in an American military prison for solace and guidance. The woman, fighting peacefully for the return of her country’s stolen water resources from the hands of war-mongering cola barons and vampiric neo-liberals, prophesies every single unpleasant detail of Jumah’s imminent death. The Prometheus story reverses.

Jumah’s final act on earth, a gift of water to the fellow soldier who will end up his murderer, proves to be the secret, quiet gesture of beauty, courage, and sacrifice that is always at hand in a world brutal, odious, and ablaze. Note: The play contains strong language and violent subject matter