The Collision / The Martyrdom

Two plays created in response to Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim’s Dulcitus.

In The Collision and What Came After, or, Gunch, Sisters Anise, Gudrun, and Gunch spend their days praying, washing clothes, and copying the Bible. When a mysterious object falls from the sky–bringing death, destruction, and…unsettling changes in one of the sisters–they are forced to question: was this God’s work? Or the Devil’s? And what happens when you can’t tell the difference between a pervert and a prophet?

The Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Agape, Chioia, and Irena, By Hrotsvitha the Nun of Gandersheim, As Told Throughout the Last Millennium By the Men, Women, Scholars, Monastics, Puppets, and Theater Companies (Like This One) Who Loved Her, Or: Dulcitus asks: how do you solve a problem like Hrotsvitha? More specifically, how do we solve her 10th-century comedy about three Christian virgins who triumph over the Devil by accepting their violent, corporeal deaths as a shortcut to eternal happiness with their Celestial Bridegroom? This raucous adaptation is a road trip through the last millennium with the people (and puppets) who have asked themselves this same question – in hopes that someone else might have the answer.

Together, these plays explore how we make meaning from the stories we inherit and how to make new meanings when old stories fail us.