Unblinking Eye
Both a live theater piece and an immersive sound experience, Unblinking Eye follows Iris, a teenager in New Mexico who loves horses and hunting in the desert, but, desperate for money, takes the only job she can get: firing hellfire missiles on pixelated people in Pakistan from a local Air Force base. The work eats at her conscience until, one day in the desert, it explodes awake with a message that rocks her, her base and the US Military. Based on interviews with active and dissenting Air Force drone operators.
Watch selected scenes filmed live at Theaterlab, NYC
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Guardian Angel Church, NYC
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center Rough Draft Festival
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Winner, Theater Bay Area CA$H grant
Winner, LMCC creative engagement grant
Winner, Walter E Dakin Fellowship, Sewanee Conference
Winner, JM Kaplan Writing Grant
Finalist: NYFA Women’s Grant, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Playwrights Realm Fellowship, New Harmony Project and the Jerome NYC Fellowship
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Luna Stage, Sewanee Conference, Stratford New Works Lab, Dixon Place, Piano Fight, Lucid Body House
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For background on the US military drone program and the war on terror, read this recent New York Times article.
“Unblinking Eye immediately grabbed me with its human story anchored in a larger and very timely conversation about the ethics of war. Iris, the protagonist, feels like a strikingly original combination of the archetypal and the particular, navigating an American landscape presented in a way that I have not seen before. Justin skillfully uses precise and emotionally resonant language to build the characters and the world of the play. The silences are deeply effective. The synthesis of colloquial and poetic language is profound.”
— Naomi Iizuka
Read an excerpt at this play’s NPX page
Photos take from filmed performance at Theaterlab, 2021 by Adventure We Can.