David Datz, Author

Please check out my new website for info about all my plays and books: https://www.daviddatzwriter.com/

My full-length comedy play, Basement Folly, will run at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills October 3-26, Sundays (except Oct 2) through Wednesdays!

David Datz, Author updated their website address.

From a secret government project in a remote patch of the southwestern American desert, the new, slightly altered humans escape their generations-long imprisonment, triggering public hysteria. The new humans struggle to survive, the project staff wrestles with guilt, and the public grapples with biases, in a speculative near-future allegory of racism.

The new humans escape!
Developed, nurtured, and sequestered over decades—indeed, generations—in a secret lab city in the southwestern American desert, they bolt to freedom, not caring about the luxurious lives they’re leaving behind in their self-contained town.
And it’s not just the new humans. Also in flight are the project’s normal human staff, who have accepted outlandishly large salaries in exchange for legally binding commitments to never leave.
The very sight of the new humans could wreak mass hysteria among the public, even though that newness lies in only one small difference, aimed precisely at helping our species survive our accelerating fouling of the earth. But these new humans are utter strangers to normal humans, who have enough problems keeping peace among themselves, let alone coping with that small difference, not to mention the question of whether these new folk are “persons” with constitutional rights.
The catalyst for the ensuing tumult is a small group of adventurous new-human teenagers, who, wanting some risky fun one night, sneak out from and back into the project, an escapade that alarms the new-human police chief as well as the normal human project director. The director has seen such mutinous behavior before, but his preferred remedy—on which he has insisted in the past—seems so excessive that the chief and the director’s own head of security decide, at their own peril, that just following orders might not be best.
The leak of facts becomes a flood, and the trickle of refugees becomes a stampede—or, actually, two stampedes. Among the new-human fugitives are the teenagers, their parents, the police chief, and the city manager. They learn to move and live stealthily, hiding and foraging amidst the general public—for as long as they can.
Among the project staff are the morally anguished security head; a lawyer who has been foraying out anyway to avert a nervous breakdown; and the lawyer’s security guard lover.
Among the public, there is a hacker who goes from stealing data to creating some, thereby speeding up events for his own amusement.
And there is a jaded actor, whose depressing day job is speaking at funerals and who has lost his own moral footing—until he and the lawyer join together in a desperate attempt to defend the new humans against an onslaught of hostility.
The new humans escape!
Developed, nurtured, and sequestered over generations in a secret government lab city in the southwestern American desert, they bolt to freedom, abandoning their luxurious self-contained project town. The very sight of them triggers mass hysteria among the public, who have enough problems keeping peace among themselves, let alone coping with the new humans’ one small difference—not to mention the question of whether these new folk are “persons” with constitutional rights.
Also on the run are the project’s normal human staff, in violation of legally binding commitments never to leave, including a stressed-out lawyer who can’t stop watching the impending disaster. And among the public sucked into the crisis is a jaded actor with a depressing day job as a funeral speaker, who ignores the crisis until he cannot.
The survival of the new humans—and the rest of us—hangs in the balance, in this speculative near-future allegory of racism.