“Luck is like irony. Not everybody who thinks they got it, got it.”

Kevin Bundy, Jesse LaVercombe, Ava Jane Markus, Nancy Palk; Directed by Andrea Donaldson; Lighting and Set by Jason Hand; Costume by Joanna Yu; Sound by Thomas Ryder Payne

Sequence

By Arun Lakra

Theo has been named Time Magazine’s Luckiest Man Alive. For twenty consecutive years he has successfully bet double or nothing on the Super Bowl coin toss. And he’s getting ready to risk millions on the twenty-first when he is confronted by Cynthia, a young woman who claims to have figured out his mathematical secret.

Stem-cell researcher and professor Dr. Guzman is on the verge of a groundbreaking discovery. She’s also learned that one of her students has defied probability to get all 150 multiple-choice questions wrong on his genetics exam, but it’s not until he shows up to her office in the middle of the night that she’s able to determine if it’s simply bad luck.

The two narratives intertwine like a double helix of DNA to examine the interplay between logic and metaphysics, science and faith, luck and probability. Belief systems clash, ideas mutate, and order springs from chaos. With razor-sharp wit and playful language, Sequence asks, in our lives, in our universe, and even in our stories, does order matter?

Production History

Sequence received its first workshop through the Alberta Playwrights' Network in 2011. Following this, as part of the award for winning the grand prize in the Alberta Playwriting Competition, Sequence received a workshop and a public reading during Theatre Alberta/Alberta Playwrights' Network's 2011 PlayWorks Ink Conference. Sequence was developed further through a special workshop presentation at the 2013 Telluride Playwrights Festival.

It received its world premiere at the Big Secret Theatre in the EPCOR Centre for the Performing Arts, Calgary, Alberta, in a joint production by Downstage and Hit & Myth Productions from February 20 through March 2, 2013.

Sequence had its U.S. premier by the Bloomington Playwrights Project, Bloomington, IN - Chad Rabinovitz, Artistic Director. Winner of the Woodward/Newman Drama Award. 

Awards

  • Shortlisted - New American Voices Competition, American Actors UK, London, England (2015)

  • Winner - Gwen Pharis Ringwood Drama Prize, Alberta Literary Awards (2014)

  • Long-listed - James Tait Black Prize for Drama, University of Edinburgh/National Theatre of Scotland (2014)

  • Winner - Betty Mitchell Award, Outstanding New Play (2013)

  • Winner - Calgary Theatre Critics Award, Best New Script (2013)

  • Winner - Joanne Woodward/Paul Newman Award for Drama, Bloomington Playwrights Project (2013)

  • Finalist – STAGE (Scientists, Technologists, and Artists Generating Exploration) International Script Competition – Judges included 3 Pulitzer-Prize winners (Tony Kushner, David Lindsay-Abaire, Donald Margulies) and 2 Nobel Laureates, University of Californa Santa Barbara (2012)

  • Winner - Grand Prize – Alberta Playwriting Competition, Alberta Playwrights’ Network (2011)

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