An autistic child is menaced by an ABA therapist with supernatural powers. The ghost of another returns to avenge her murder at her parents' hands. AI drives a lonely man insane. A brother and sister find themselves at odds when one comes out as an anti-vaxxer. A telemarketer tries to sell his soul to a client, content moderators scrub the Internet of human evil at the cost of their own sanity, and psychics and hackers try to scam us all.
A horror-comedy anthology play filled with neurodivergent characters as wry as they are wounded, the stories in the Immolation Variations take the audience on a surreal Gothic tour through the haunted houses of ableism and surveillance capitalism.
Keywords: autism, neurodivergent, horror, dark comedy, anthology, vignette, Gothic, surreal, ghosts, therapy, murder
Several pieces of the Immolation Variations have been produced across Canada and the US:
- The Procrustes Pitch was first produced at Riverside Theatre in Iowa City, Iowa in 2016 as part of ROAR!
- Indifference was first performed at the Newmarket National 10-Minute Play Festival in Newmarket, Ontario in 2019
- Sin Eaters of the 21st Century was first produced by Pi Theatre in Vancouver, BC as part of their anthology series Truth and Lies in 2023
Genre: Horror, Comedy
Acts: 2
Run time: 120 minutes
Content notes: This play features scenes depicting behavioral modification therapy, ableist rhetoric., and references to infanticide. There is also frequent profanity, physical violence, and gore.
Cast size: 6 actors
Male roles: 3
Female roles: 3
Casting notes: Immolation Variations may be performed in its entirety by six actors. Roles may be doubled as follows:
Calvin/Father/Ali/Carl (Race-blind)*
Therapist/Siofra/Voice/Jenny (Race-blind)
Mel Pfister/Steve/Kevin (Race-blind)
Vera/Jane Sharp (Race-blind)
Parent/Pilar/Leah Doran (Should be played by a Latinx actor)
Barack/Zoltan Zoltilovich (Should be played by a black actor)
All roles, including those of Calvin and Siofra, should be played by adult actors.
Cover art by Dan Bray.
