Small developmental reading of DENIERS, a new musical, by Rick Widen.

7pmEDT / 4pmPDT

*Available to ETC members only

Several decades into the future, agent Shea McCleary of the Climate Liabilities Commission is hot on the trail of The Planet Paladin Fellowship vigilante group, which, in addition to avoiding their Climate Alleviations Taxes, has targeted Olivia Levingston, one of the few remainingClimate Science Deniers left in society, for execution. Shea’s stake in protecting Olivia heightens when she discovers that Olivia is the estranged mother of her high school “one that got away,” Alan Nolan, who became his mother’s caretaker a few years ago. As the son of a Denier with a monumental Climate Alleviations Tax debt, Alan must endure relative poverty and little hope of starting a life and family of his own.

After a heated confrontation with the Planet Paladin Leader, Shea moves Alan and Olivia to the safety of the CLCCommissary, but a disoriented Olivia escapes, and is caught by the Paladins, who attempt to film her execution (drowning by rising ocean tides,) in the hopes of rallying more to their vigilante cause. Shea breaks up the execution, but delays rescuing Olivia from drowning due to Olivia’s disrespectful rants about Shea’s profession, during which Olivia dies of a heart attack from the stress of the situation. Alan is mysteriously sent a clipped video of Shea not-rescuing Olivia, and is furious. He escapes Shea’s custody, not knowing she was merely pretending to not rescue Olivia until she promised to stop her denials altogether, for the good of her son’s future.

After subplots involving a deputy’s secret love for Shea, a Planet Paladin Leader’s embarrassing secret, and a speakeasy for Denierkin, Alan is himself captured by the Paladins, who have now joined forces with one of Shea’s superiors, Commissioner Green 9. Faced with a secret alliance between the vigilantes and her own government, Shea must choose between a world bending towards revenge, or a world where justice and humanity may still be found in the face of a wounded world