psychoPharm

a mindbender by Shawn Nacol

Insanity isn't contagious. Ideas are.

psychoPharm is  a high-impact cybercomedy that explores the outer limits of inner space. It’s a futuristic thriller about an outlandish innovator in the business of changing people’s minds.

In the future, Pharmaceuticals have been deregulated. The “War on Drugs” is over and the War in Drugs is worth trillions. With full-length doses of chemical entertainment available, movies and books have become extinct. Happiness can be bought. And Love. And Danger. Artificial intelligences run the industry but rely on human brains for invention.

Pharm is the ultimate entertainment. This unholy marriage of science and business has spawned a new breed of demigod: neurochemists who enjoy rockstar celebrity. In a tomorrow where every mood is treatable and boredom insurance generates astronomical claims, it’s a Pharmer’s market.

Hieronymus Phicks has proved himself the greatest consciousness designer on Earth. Out on the edge of the Amazon basin, this fad scientist is on the verge of formulating an over-the-counter religion… a drug that opens the door to Heaven… and might just kick homo sapiens up the evolutionary helix. But is Phicks having a breakthrough or a breakdown?

The play takes place on a unit set: a treemounted bioLab on the rim of the rainforest. Via low-tech quick-changes, two actors (1m;1f) get to play 6 characters with fancy footwork and some friendly froglicking.

psychoPharm is a fast, funny dose of ethnobotany, intellectual piracy, and extremely nervous systems. It defies expectations and redefines the possibilities of possibility... Hold onto your head and find out if Heaven is worth the trip.

psychoPharm: where the future grows wild