New York Premiere

Pulitzer Prize finalist and Obie Award winner Rajiv Joseph brings the New York premiere of his grimly humorous look behind the headlines of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination and the events leading up to it. Premiered in LA in 2017, the troubling rise of nationalism and terrorism still draws similar and worrying parallels with today's global populism. Shot through with Joseph's characteristic black humor, we are invited to ask ourselves; what gives a country its identity?

What Is The Story?

Known for his ability to represent larger themes within human characters - as demonstrated in his 2011 hit Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo - the desperate and alienated populace of Serbia in 1914 are represented by three young men, who are all dying of TB. Viewed as expendable and with nothing to lose, this makes them perfect fodder for a shadowy organisation called The Black Hand, to carry out their shocking and nefarious plot that later plunges all of Europe into war.