Sleepers

A Contemporary Tragedy in a Classic Style

Four New Yorkers’ paths collide in the days ahead of the 2016 election. Dan teaches Marxism while secretly courting a student. His girlfriend Mariko, an actress, finds refuge in her dying mentor’s bed. When her sister, Akari, arrives from LA--in flight from her own dead-end romance--she becomes the unwitting witness to their mutual destruction . . .

In crystalline prose, Gasda maps the territory between who we pretend to be and who we are--and how far we are willing to go when we think the internet isn’t looking. The Sleepers, a ruthless portrait of educated Millennials who know better but act worse, throws a jagged, electric light on how desire upends our carefully curated social personas.

Matthew Gasda is a writer, director, and critic. He is the founder of the Brooklyn Center for Theater Research, where his plays appear regularly. You can read his ＂Writer’s Diary＂ on Substack.