В Мандевилле состоялась премьера новой пьесы о тревогах и надеждах эпохи Y2K

Mandeville's 30 by Ninety Theatre premieres a new work by a local playwright and university professor that takes a trip back in time to Y2K. "Late Shift," penned by Louisiana Writer Award winner and Southeastern Louisiana University associate professor David Armand, will run for three performances at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the 880 Lafayette St. playhouse. The two-act play looks at a pair of siblings and their widowed mother set against the backdrop of New Year's Eve 1999 as they work through family drama, uncertainty and connections. Armand, a south Louisiana native and the writer-in-residence at the Hammond university, is marking his debut as a playwright. "I never thought I’d write a play," he said. "For years, I’d been publishing novels and memoirs and poetry, but have always been fascinated by what stories could do when shown on stage." He draws from personal experience for the emotional landscape of the show. In 2021, Armand started writing about the turn of the century, "when I was working as a telemarketer, dealing with the loss of my father and trying to figure out what the future held for me — all while the rest of the world was wondering what was going to happen when the clocks struck midnight that year, signaling in the new millennium, what people had started calling Y2K. "It was a time of both uncertainty and excitement and I wanted to capture that in my play." As most did, Armand made it through Y2K unscathed, though he did say he was busy "taking orders for an Amish hardware store (people were ordering supplies for the end of the world left and right!). But the worry and uncertainty of that time is definitely addressed in the play, as well as references to all those orders I took back then." Hope is an overarching theme for the show, and the playwright wants audiences to get the message on multiple levels, including "hope in the future, hope that even the hardest parts of life can turn out OK, and hope that certain people are sent into our lives when we need them most," he said. Julie Keen directs the show, with Larry Bergeron, Casey Lipscomb, Aaron Bridges and Casey Jones in the cast. Tickets start at $20. Visit 30byninety.com.