There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.
Irma Bombeck

January 2019

Inspired by Current Events

January 8th through February 3rd, 2019, Rochester’s Geva Theatre Center will host the world premiere of a comedy that’s timely in its topic and challenging of popular biases. Brent Askari’s Hard Cell was selected for a workshop at the 2017 PlayPenn conference, a competitive play development event that’s spawned more than 140 new works and in 2017 saw its first production go to Broadway.

The poignant satire centers on an Iranian-American college professor who gets stranded in middle America and runs smack into an unfortunate case of mistaken identity. Faced with a potentially life-or-death scenario, he “uses his attackers’ own Islamophobic stereotypes and fears against them, manipulating the situation in order to survive a modern American nightmare.” The ensemble cast is a blend of Geva favorites and veteran actors making their Geva debuts. Grab your tickets, open your mind, and get ready for an evening of laugh-out-loud comedy.