The Inferno Project

A lost man, a dead poet, and a few circles of hell…familiar, but all new. The Rapscallion Theatre Collective stages a fresh and politically relevant take on Dante’s Inferno, The Inferno Project. Conceived, constructed, written and directed by company member and
accomplished director, Lauren Reinhard (TheatreRats’ The House of Yes and The Changeling and Milkcan Theater’s Trojan Women 2.0) The Inferno Project uses the iconic structure of Dante’s Inferno to explore activism in the Generation X. Performed in a movement based style that RTC calls home, The Inferno Project is emotional, daring and provocative.

The beginnings of the story are familiar: a man disillusioned with his life enters a wood in search of something. What follows however, is all new, equal parts horror, humor and hope. Through the course of the play we follow Dante and Virgil out of the wood and through history as Dante struggles to find his voice and the story of his life in order to save it.

Following the concept of the play is its construction; Reinhard interweaves text from historical speeches and quotes from such notables as Malcolm X, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Thatcher, Sojourner Truth, and Martin Luther King, Jr. into her original script. The result is an accurate and heartbreaking look at America’s past struggles and an equally hopeful look at its future.