4,380 Nights

Signature Theatre kicks off the Heidi Thomas Writers’ Initiative with a complex and intriguing look at an American worldview created in the wake of September 11.

For the last 12 years — or 4,380 days — Malik Djamal Ahmad Essaid has been held without charge by the United States government at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. As he languishes in his cell, his interactions with those on the outside are juxtaposed with historical events in a riveting exposé of the most dangerous prison of all: fear.

With a graceful poetry and a fluidity that spans time and place, Washington, D.C., playwright Annalisa Dias delivers a searing and timely critique of power, humanity, and what it means to be American.