The Tell Tale Heart adapted by Carlos Aguirre is a Hip Hop musical layered with themes like Indigenous erasure, internalized racism and the price of a guilty conscience. Using a blend of rap, classical music and vocal percussion, it tells the story of an unnamed narrator in an Indigenous community obsessed with ridding himself of his own roots by meticulously planning, executing and burying his elderly neighbor whose “vulture eye” he sees his own past reflected in. However, his growing paranoia and belief that he can hear the old man’s heart beating in the form of a haunting drum circle underneath the floorboards leads to his confession revealing his true madness. You cannot bury who you are. The ghost of your ancestors will haunt you like the “beating of a hideous heart…” 

Developed as part of the TheatreWorks Susan Fairbrook Core Writers Group. 
Development of The Tell Tale Heart was supported in part by the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s Frank Young Fund for New Musicals.

Rap Monologues is a tour de force about a storage unit trainer who works at Safe Guys and takes the opportunity to try community theatre through Shakespeare. However, the only classical text they know is hip hop verses they perform as monologues. Through this journey of searching for acceptance we discover that tradition is in the eye of the beholder. This electric verse based Monodrama is armed with hip hop history, humor, and a new perspective on classical literature adjacent to Shakespeare.