Arizona Theatre Matters · Official Press Kit
Midnight at the Algorithm & Blues
A Dark Comedy by Gary Wright
The past refuses to stay buried.
Quick Facts
Overview
Midnight at the Algorithm & Blues is a darkly comic supernatural satire that collides American history, livestream culture, and modern spectacle. Presented by Arizona Theatre Matters, the play follows a late-night ghost-hunting broadcast that begins as a bid for attention and spins into something far stranger.
Set inside one of America’s most iconic monuments, the play follows a ghost-hunting livestream that goes spectacularly off the rails. What begins as a staged paranormal broadcast quickly becomes something more volatile, more revealing, and far less manageable than anyone expected.
Sharp, funny, and unsettling, the play explores truth, performance, belief, and the stories a nation tells about itself.
Synopsis
Late at night, a pair of online ghost-hunters break into a famous American landmark to film their latest livestream episode.
They expect an easy viral video.
Instead, the night begins to unravel in ways they never anticipated.
As the broadcast spirals into chaos, questions of history, truth, and performance collide, and the past proves far less predictable than any algorithm.
Themes & Tone
History, spectacle, belief, performance, and viral culture collide in a night where the past proves far less predictable than any algorithm.
Education Resources
Study Guide
Explore public memory, Grant and Julia Dent Grant, monuments, satire, digital identity, historical interpretation, and the play’s competing versions of truth.
Toolkit
Move from inquiry into practice with media-literacy, source-checking, performance, writing, public-history, and design activities.
Cast
Gary Wright
Narrator
Playwright Gary Wright also performs the Narrator, guiding the audience through the increasingly unstable events of the evening.
Kiley Bishop
Linzie
One half of a ghost-hunting duo whose livestream ambitions set the night in motion.
Donald Young
Boone
Linzie’s partner and co-host, determined to turn paranormal investigation into online success.
MKM Riddell
Clio
A mysterious presence who intervenes when history itself seems to demand correction.
Mathew Zimmerer
Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, whose legacy looms over the events of the play.
Carolyn Howarth
Robin
A National Park Service ranger whose arrival complicates an already extraordinary night.
Production Information
Playwright
Gary Wright
Company
Arizona Theatre Matters
Distribution
Free Global Digital Theatre
About the Playwright
Gary Wright is a playwright whose work explores American history and contemporary culture through satire, humor, and theatrical invention.
About Arizona Theatre Matters
Arizona Theatre Matters seeks to set possibility in motion by creating theatre that could exist only because of the artists creating it—and provoking others to explore what could exist only because of them.
Press & Media
Press inquiries:
Kadin Barnes
pr@arizonatheatrematters.org
Production photography will be added after rehearsal and recording sessions.