Mr. Burns, a post-electric play

What will endure when the apocalypse arrives? Anne Washburn’s enthusiastically acclaimed comedy begins after an apocalyptic nuclear event has permanently taken down the electrical grid. The survivors, a group of strangers, bond and cling to their culture by recounting the infamous “Cape Feare” episode of The Simpsons. From this meeting, their memories of the TV show become the basis for shaping a new society as the play travels seven years into Act II, then 75 years into Act III, when today’s pop culture has become a new generation’s mythology. From a bleak rebeginning to a colorful musical finale, Mr. Burns is a wildly inventive exploration of storytelling as the glue that holds us all together.