WESTERN ANIMUS

Western Animus is a four play/film cycle set in Montana. Each work takes place in one of the four temperate seasons, and follows the changing relationship of Cora Pritchard, a queer woman born and raised in Montana, and the Nightmare Wolf, a metaphysical entity hunting the psychic landscape of the 21st century mountain west.

As the story unfolds throughout Cora’s life, each character in Western Animus struggles with identity as the settler-colonial paradigms of The West reckon with climate change and the legacy of oppression.

The cycle uses various dramaturgies to critique the theatrical narratives that uphold oppression — specifically through the settings, allowable character flaws, and language dynamics of white male hegemony in the rural west. Such hegemony has been embodied in canonical plays by O’Neill, Shepard, and Letts. Western Animus pays homage to the violent introspection of these playwrights even as it deconstructs their tropes, tilling new soil for more queer, intersectional, living myths of the West.

Broken Grass

My current writing project

In The Snow

The first play of Western Animus

Future Stories:

Cusp Weather

Haustion