Cypherbird Projects’
RESISTANCE PLAYLIST
Featuring a MashUp of Plays, Art, and Poetry
By Sean Michael Cummings, Lisa Wagner Erickson, Wayne Firestone, Rebecca Gorman O’Neill, Brice Maiurro, Sara Rockinger, & Veronica Straight-Lingo
The playlist is part of FALL OF FREEDOM, a nationwide cultural movement uniting artists, institutions, and communities in celebration of creative expression and solidarity.
Peruse the playlist and learn more at the FALL OF FREEDOM website.
DISSERTATION DEFENDERS
Concept by Lisa Wagner Erickson and Veronica Straight-Lingo
Written by Sean Michael Cummings, Lisa Wagner Erickson, and Rebecca Gorman O’Neill
Directed by Veronica Straight-Lingo
Featuring Sean Michael Cummings, Veronica Straight-Lingo, and Sadie Gracelynn Trigg
Quarantined in the lockdown days of the pandemic, two PhD candidates compete in a fraught (and odd) online debate to win the coveted prize: a full-time teaching position at adjunct wages.
may day
the union workers &
an ocean of allies
flood the steps of the capitol
a mile above sea level
thousands more across the city
hold down the fort
pick up the trash that none of us
are willing to confront
find themselves therapists
behind the counters of seven-elevens
restock the anemic shelves
with luxury items like
bread milk eggs
deliver rush passports
to starving mailboxes
we ask for nothing–
we demand what is rightfully ours
the steady tune
that has been dancing through my skull
all year–it is us that has to take care of us
on the green manicured hills of the capitol
a constellation of dandelions
burst forth defiant
yellow as a traffic sign
loud as a hot megaphone
it is us that has to take care of us
they hum to one another
the southern dust rushes in
blows in a birdsong
all the way from ludlow
echoes of coal mine canaries
the dandelions hold the tune
in their flower heads
the wheel of this year keeps turning
a beautiful rage springs forth from the earth
turns yellow headed dandelions
into a million comrades in motion
rising together into the thick air
mobilized by the winds of change
-Brice Maiurro
KNIGHT TIME
By Wayne Firestone
Directed by Paul Jaquith
Featuring Ben Butler, John-Christian Maheu, Elizabeth Kirchmeier
Taurus, a Ukrainian soldier and poet, grapples with his demons through conversations with a knight puppet while battling both external enemies and internal guilt after leaving his wife and child in Kyiv.
*Excerpt from the INK & IMAGINATION staged reading in September 2025
Upon Our Shoulders
Father, Mother, Brother, Son
Hairline Trigger: P is for Play
Two-Sided War - Sara Rockinger
still still
in the wake of another american
morning, where the color continues
to run dry, where the factory of
loneliness churns out more lack
than ever before, where the smog
black magics the day into the
obscurity of lingering night, it is here
that their lie grows teeth right into
the arteries of would-be kettle drum
hearts, and it is here that you & i
run, towards a sun we cannot see.
in the wake of another american
morning, where the blood of young
children fills the bellies of nightmare
machines, where cancer begets
more cancer, where we raise hell
in hopes of rising to heaven, where
god yet again is a father punch drunk
on the pain of his father before him,
it is here that we must contend that
we have arrived, & it is here that we
we must contend that we find our
selves, & still still in this dry heat,
this sick colonial fiction played out,
sunflowers grow on the side of
the highway.
dire wolf
we light candles & dance
unabashed into midnights
our soulfire stoked sweetly
-
we hold each other in deep dream
eyes galaxy louder with each
quiet breathsong that hums
blanketing our heavy heads
-
moon finds her way through the
window as we churn love out of
restless reckless aching towards her
distant light a story we don’t quite
know how to say goodbye to
-
holding hands from across the room
a pot of winter’s broth swells potatoes
turnips & rosemary into the perfume
of this small straw house of us
a sanctuary the material formation
of an attention turned devotion
-
a trinity assumes the fetal position in the warm
infancy of a new night the cold can scratch at the
window we are lost into one another three bending
branches braided into the softest fire of dreams
that can only bloom in a vast sleep vast the way
we envision our ancestors when we turn off our maths
& dissolve back into the tumescent river of time
-
each cup overflowing with herbal tea
each prayer met with its cousin prayer
the same color in a different shade
the most sober circle we’ve ever entered
the love that hides in shoeboxes under
warped wood floors in the attics of our
hearts free here to join into perfect earth
a prayer for protection from a heavy storm
-
outside of the gentle turning melody of this
music box we have made together there is
a wolf at the door a wolf the size of our shadow
that we have fed metal & smoke for far too long
& now this wolf has the taste of blood upon its
tongue calling us to huddle in as close as any ever
before any ever after & when our drifting fingers
begin to unfurl from fists it is the muscle of the
whole human body that pulls them home again
-
the clocks more like paintings when we do not
care to look them in the eyes where outside the
window the wolf paces circles to a violent music
we struggle to want to dance around it a violent music
that repeats its own history like a hundred year flood
when our ankles are still wet with the rainwater of
its last intrusion it is so understandable to want to go
inward when outside is on fire but we must head out
-
where we find ourselves depends upon how wide
we are willing to open our pupils the weight
of obsidian we allow ourselves to hold as on
the other side the wolf’s pacing is a broken bone
which could receive a good medicine if it
recognized why the pull towards all of the howling
meanwhile our hands cannot write eulogies fast enough
there are good times & there are important times
-
this is the compass that lives in the heart of the doula
witnessing contraction & feeling it in our own womb
grabbing the hand of the goddess through the veil
letting go of our father’s hand when it no longer feeds us
calling in the ghosts & the futures that root & branch us
calling out for more sky & deeper earth holy water
-
through all of these heartbeats the wolf paces at the door
speaking in defiance of communication a growling that
opts out of communion a mountain that crumbles its rocks
into the river to mar the mystery of its own reflection the wolf
thirsts for a blood which never quenches a thirst for water
-
we close our eyes now to the terror that seeks to feed
on our ancient infant minds our old-growth forest that
forms the bones that hold all of us up above unimaginable
gravity our internal sacred grove our bones our om
-
there is no human war but the war of the human heart
medicine drum war drum footsteps of our children
there is no human war but the war of the human heart
-Brice Maiurro
This Land - Sara Rockinger
THE CREATIVE TEAM
Ben Butler
Sean Michael Cummings
Lisa Wagner Erickson
Wayne L. Firestone
Rebecca Gorman O'Neill
Paul Jaquith
Elizabeth Kirchmeier
Brice Maiurro
John-Christian Maheu
Sara Rockinger
Veronica Straight-Lingo
Sadie Gracelynn Trigg
BIOS
BEN BUTLER (Actor - Knight Time)
Ben Butler is an English Teacher, Performing Arts Director, and Head Football Coach at Manual High School in Denver. When not working Been is pleased to be a member of the local theatre community and has most recently appeared in The Hombres, The Inheritance, and Shakespeare in Love, all at Vintage Theatre, as well as several assorted staged readings. Been is always looking to grow and improve as an educator and actor including a recent course of study at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London.
SEAN MICHAEL CUMMINGS (Playwright, Actor - Dissertation Defenders)
Sean Michael Cummings is a writer and performer from Denver, Colorado. His plays and one man shows have been seen across the U.S., with productions at the Northwest Playwrights Alliance (WA), The Orchard Project Cabaret (NY), Phamaly Theatre Company, and the Denver Center for Performing Arts ("Best Exploratory Theatre," Westword Magazine, 2019).
LISA WAGNER ERICKSON (Playwright - Dissertation Defenders)
Lisa Wagner Erickson is a playwright, theatre artist, and occasional performer & singer whose varied experience includes singing at Red Rocks, performing sketch comedy at Boulder Theater, and plays that have been developed and produced across the United States. A True West Award winner, she has also been a finalist for the Gary Garrison Award for 10-Minute Plays, a regional finalist for the KCACTF 10-Minute Play Award, a PlayPenn semi-finalist, and a Landing Theatre’s New American Voices semi-finalist. Her plays have been developed and presented by Primary Stages, Stickball Productions, Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, No Strings Theatre, And Toto too, Edge Theatre, Theater 29, and Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company, among others. Her work has been published in Literature Today and Mini Plays Review. She is the founder of Cypherbird Projects and the former owner and Creative Director of Theater 29.
WAYNE L. FIRESTONE (Playwright - Knight Time)
Wayne L. Firestone is an alumnus of four (2019-2022) John F. Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensives. He successfully completed the London, UK based 28 Plays Later challenge three times--writing 28 short plays in 28 days (2022-24). Over two dozen of his plays have appeared in festivals or publications around the world. In 2022-23, he was the Jewish Plays Project inaugural 21st Century Playwright Fellow in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is a descendant of Ukrainian grandparents and prior to the War visited universities in Kiev and Kharkiv. A member of the Dramatists Guild of America, he is a Denver resident.
REBECCA GORMAN O’NEILL (Playwright - Dissertation Defenders)
Rebecca Gorman O’Neill was born in Akron, Ohio; she left at age 17 to attend Dartmouth College where she earned a B.A. in Drama and English. Rebecca went on to earn her M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University. Her original plays have been produced across the United States, and those published can be found through Dramatic Publishing, Eldridge Publishing, and Next Stage Press. Rebecca is a Professor of English at Metropolitan State University of Denver, where she teaches playwriting, screenwriting, film and media studies, and the graphic novel.
PAUL JAQUITH (Director - Knight Time)
Paul has been doing theatre in Colorado since 2009. And around the country since 2002. Some of his favorite directing projects have included The Normal Heart (Vintage Theatre), The Baby Dance (Silhouette Theatre), and Della Doucet (Vintage Theatre). He is also an actor and has had the honor of being a part of Avenue Q (Vintage Theatre), This is How it Goes (Silhouette Theatre), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Longmont Theatre Company), and The Best Day of Your Life (Vintage Theatre). Paul will be directing for Firehouse Theater this fall with Topher Payne's Comedy, Let Nothing You Dismay, in November.
ELIZABETH KIRCHMEIER (Actor - Knight Time)
Elizabeth Kirchmeier (she/her) is a Denver based actor and producer. She most recently produced, wrote, and performed in Mouse City Podcast, presented at Denver Fringe Festival 2025. Her most recent appearances onstage include Maureen in Three Leaches production of To The Bone and Emily Brontë in Band of Toughs' newest devised epic Gin and Gothic, a Brontë Rocktale. Follow her work and other fun happenings on Instagram: @ itslizkirchmeier
BRICE MAIURRO ( Poetry)
Brice maiurro is a Colorado poet, workshop facilitator, storyteller and artist. He is the Editor-in-Chief of South Broadway Press. They have authored four collections of poetry, including The Heart is an Undertaker Bee, published by Middle Creek Publishing. His work has been published by or is forthcoming with West Trade Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, and Poets Reading the News. Themes of their work include human connection, ecology, and finding the divine in the mundane.
JOHN-CHRISTIAN MAHEU (Actor - Knight Time)
As a passionate individual deeply embedded in the vibrant community, I find myself at the intersection of creativity and collaboration, driving a strong creative turbine force that inspires artistic expression. My interests as a Technical Director and General Manager at The Three Leaches Theater as well as a Drag Queen allow me to oversee innovative drag productions that not only captivate audiences but also challenge societal norms through bold storytelling. In addition to my managerial role, I am a karaoke host, creating joyful experiences for participants and audiences alike. I also contribute to the First Fridays at a local art gallery, enhancing the cultural experience with engaging performances and community connections. Furthermore, I am heavily involved in singing for the Wild Beautiful orchestra, where the power of music unites us all. Ultimately, my role is to strengthen community bonds, weaving a rich tapestry of shared experiences and inclusivity, particularly through the vibrant world of drag, while fostering a space for creativity to flourish.
SARA ROCKINGER (Fiber Art)
Sara Rockinger's visual art has been featured at the Textile Museum in Washington DC., in Fiber Arts Magazine, Surface Design Journal, Freestyle Machine Embroidery by Carol Shinn, and Dimensional Cloth: Sculpture by Contemporary Textile Artists by Andra Stanton, as well as TextileCurator.com, VisualArtSource.com, Colorado Public Radio, and on Fox News in Phoenix, AZ. Learn more @ www.sararockinger.com
VERONICA STRAIGHT-LINGO (Director, Actor, Editor - Dissertation Defenders)
Veronica Straight-Lingo is an actor/director/designer/improv artist in the Denver/Boulder area. Directing credits include: The Pillowman (Miscreant Theatre Collective), Eleemosynary (Coal Creek Theatre of Louisville), Hidden Worlds and Strange Negotiations (Theater 29), Invaders from Planet 9 (Arts in the Open), Richard III (Lost and Found Productions). She also hosts Metro Arts on KGNU, Boulder/Denver/Fort Collins.
SADIE GRACELYNN TRIGG (Actor - Dissertation Defenders)
After finishing her degree at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NY, Sadie returned home to Colorado and found a wonderful community in the Denver theatre world. You may have seen her in Three Leaches' No Exit and A Piece of My Heart. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Straight with 5th Wall Productions, or maybe Puffs with Lost and Found Productions. During the lockdown, Sadie's life took a big turn and launched her into a new career as a tattoo artist at Nest Art Collective.