what you are now – Livestream

By SAM CHANSE

Directed by STEVE COSSON

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Pia is a passionate young researcher investigating cutting-edge new ideas about how to heal the mind from traumatic memories. But her interest is also personal, deeply intertwined with her family’s history. When a figure from the past unexpectedly shows up, urging Pia’s mother to testify about her experiences during the violence of 1970s Cambodia, unresolved histories are brought to the surface. Pia must navigate through a latticework of interconnected memories: her relationship, her brother Darany and, centrally, her mother Chantrea—making discoveries that will radically alter everyone’s lives in the present.

what you are now asks what if our memories aren’t fixed, but change each time we recall the past? This world premiere by Sam Chanse is a thrillingly insightful new play that asks the audience to move through the shifting dance between the past and present, and to consider how with new understanding we might change “who you were then” to “what you are now.”

The Civilians’ co-production of What You Are Now is supported by The National Endowment for the Arts and Venturous Theater Fund, a fund of the Tides Foundation.

“WHAT YOU ARE NOW EXCELS IN UNFORCED REVELATIONS ABOUT THE HUMAN STRUGGLE TO CONNECT, AND TO SHARE THE MESSY AND SOMETIMES PAINFUL STORIES THAT MAKE US WHO WE ARE…”

– THE NEW YORK TIMES

“…SAM CHANSE’S IMPRESSIVELY MULTIFACETED, DEVASTATINGLY EFFECTIVE PLAY FEELS LIKE A LABOR OF LOVE FROM EVERYONE INVOLVED, NOT LEAST THE MARVELLOUS SUPPORTING CAST…”

– THE NEW YORKER