Icarus

Edwin Sanchez Icarus is the melancholy fairy tale of five dreamers who have fled or been exiled from the “real world” to a narrow strip of abandoned beach where they wrestle with whether or not to take one final shot at the happiness that just might kill them. The central players in this joyful tragedy are wheelchair-bound Primitivo, slowly dying of an unnamed disease but determined in what time he has left to achieve worldwide celebrity by swimming far enough into the ocean to reach up and touch the setting sun, and his self-appointed manager and fierce protector is his older sister, Altagracia, who wears the hideous deformities on her face as both a badge of honor and a shield. They are followed on their journey by the enigmatic Mr Ellis, toting a suitcase full of dreams and determinedly burying his own past. The precarious knife-edge balance of their world is upset by the arrival of Beau, a once-beautiful young man on the run from his past who wears a ski mask to conceal the terrible scars of car wreck that may have wounded him in much deeper places than just his face. The beach where these four collide is also home to the Gloria, who spent a few beautiful moments in the sun as a rising Hollywood star, only to be forgotten, passed over and exiled to a solitary existence where she waits for the one phone call that will restore her fading glory. The life-and-death comedy of these five nearly lost souls mingles the poetic with the mundane as they all grope their ways clumsily towards their own visions of touching the sun. At its heart, Icarus is a desperate song of joy played out on a narrow strip of land between the wreckage of all that has come before and the mingled hope and terror of what comes next. It is the sharp intake of breath before a wild leap into the unknown—in the place where all dreamers live.If you are interested in working on the show, email the producer, Susannah Hyde, at susannah.hyde@yale.edu!