Artists Space

The Rapture
A Play by James Sherry & Mark Wallace

Play
December 6, 2020, 7:30pm

Jesus has arrived on Earth. In Florida. Is it the Second Coming? Nobody is sure. But Jesus has his hands on a lot of opportunity! Many people want a piece of that action: CEOs, politicians, reporters, lobbyists and ministers, workers and students, the Russians. What follows is a chaotic struggle: the dead walk, and angels and armies are taking sides. Is this the Rapture that the prophets foretold? In this boldly contemporary version of a medieval Morality Play, the denizens of Earth, Heaven, and Hell fight to control the answer to a crucial question: What does Jesus want?

A drawing of a group of skeletons, dancing and playing instruments. In the center of the image, a red banner features black text that reads "The Rapture".
Flyer for The Rapture, Sunday, December 6, 2020, Artists Space. [A drawing of a group of skeletons, dancing and playing instruments. In the center of the image, a red banner features black text that reads "The Rapture".]

Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes

The Rapture is a co-presentation of Artists Space and Inter Poets Theater.

Roland Sands
Thomas Fink
Anna Kohler
Stephen Ira
Greer Sinclair
Clarinda MacLow
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Directed by James Sherry
Produced by Lonely Christopher

James Sherry is the author of 13 books of poetry and theory and one of the leading proponents of both Language Writing and Environmental Poetics. His books include The Oligarch (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018), Entangled Bank (Chax, 2016), Oops! Environmental Poetics (BlazeVox, 2013), Four For(Meow, 1995), Our Nuclear Heritage (Sun & Moon Press, 1991), Lazy Sonnets (Potes and Poets Press, 1986), In Case(Sun & Moon Press, 1980), Part Songs (Awede Press, 1978). His work has been translated into nine languages including the Chinese edition of Selected Language Poems (Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House: Chengdu, 1993), translated by Ziqing Zhang and Huang Yunte. He is the editor of Roof Magazine and Roof Books, a seminal literary publisher, associated with virtually every innovative strategy in English language writing of the past 40 years, publishing over 150 titles of seminal works of language writing, flarf, conceptual poetry, new narrative and environmental poetry and poetics. He started the Segue Foundation in 1977 that has produced over 10,000 events in New York including the Segue Reading Series. Sherry was born December 30, 1946 and lives in New York City.
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Mark Wallace is the author and editor of more than fifteen books and chapbooks of poetry, fiction, and essays. Most recently he has published a novel, Crab, and a book-length prose poem, Notes from the Center on Public Policy. Selections of his multi-part long poem The End of America, which he has been writing since 2005, have been published in several chapbooks and a number of journals. His current novel, Sir Sleepy of the Bunny Nest (A Saga of the Revolution), is an ongoing serial appearing on a fugitive tumblr blog. He lives in San Diego, California.

Program support for Artists Space is provided by The Friends of Artists Space, Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust, The Cy Twombly Foundation, The David Teiger Foundation, The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The New York Community Trust, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, The Stavros Niarchos Foundation, The Willem de Kooning Foundation, The Danielson Foundation, The Fox Aarons Foundation, Herman Goldman Foundation, The Destina Foundation, The Luce Foundation, May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, VIA Art Fund, Arison Arts Foundation, The Chicago Community Fund, The David Rockefeller Fund, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, The Jill and Peter Kraus Foundation, The Richard Pousette-Dart Foundation.