The Intermission

New York City. Now. The cold open kill - an actor, NELLA, is pushed in front of a subway train. A Black playwright, LOUIS, arrives at theatre on the closing night of his Broadway play. The white cast (HINDS, POMPOSELLO, KNOTT, ARCHER and STAPLES) and the Black cast (SIBBLIES, BRADSHAW, O’HARRIS, KIDWELL and ALESHA) are backstage doing warm-ups. Flashback — Louis recalls a contentious meeting with New York theater columnist, VAN PALLANDT, who refuses to review the play. Tensions flare up backstage between the play’s diva lead, MARIÉ, and Alesha, who lost out on the role. The final scene of Act One plays out onstage, with the white actors being belittled and physically abused by the Black actors. It is closing night of the production and the white actors want payback. The intermission is 90 minutes, for the two-act, five-hour play. All of the actors separate. Flashback — Louis and his producer, ST. CRISTOFER, are confronted by a woman, DEUCA, protesting the play. She tells a talkback audience Louis and St. Cristofer were accused of sexual assault while in college. The first kill — Hinds kills Bradshaw. Flashback — a threesome between college roommates Louis and St. Cristofer and Louis’s then-girlfriend, the dead actor Nella, goes wrong. Deuca picks up Nella outside the dorm. The second kill — Pomposello kills Sibblies Flashback — Louis has a contentious production meeting with stage manager FOSSEY and set designer TURNBULL, who are at odds with each other. The third kill — Archer kills Kidwell Flashback — Van Pallandt belittles Louis publicly during the playwright’s appearance at a drama book shop The fourth kill — Knott kills O’Harris Flashback — tempers flare early between Black and white actors during the first reading of the play Flashback — one of the white actors, RAPHAEL, is fired after his email critique of Louis is leaked to Van Pallandt The fifth kill — Marié witnesses Staples murder of Alesha Act Two starts — Marié and Louis arrive on stage. They see bodies of Bradshaw, O’Harris, Kidwell, Sibblies and Alesha on the set, hidden from the audience. The white actors, in blackface masks, have taken over the dead Black actors’ roles. The play ends with Louis killing black faced Archer live on stage, using a prop made lethal by ringleader Fossey. Louis runs off the stage and out of the theatre. Marié finishes her final speech to applause — as the curtain falls, she is attacked by the white cast. Staples, who was often humiliated by Marié, kills her. Outside the theatre— Louis runs into street, sees cops first but is distracted by the apparition of Nella in the crowd protesting his play. Louis is killed when he’s knocked down by rear-view mirror of a theatre tour bus and smashes his head on the pavement.