14 cast any gender with expandable chorus and ensemble.
35 - 45 mins
 
If you are not in, you are out! The residents of In live in blissful monotony ruled by the governing Council of ANTIS, a collective of leaders who enforce the expectations, values and order of the community. In In, everyone is not only equal but the same. Routine provides security. Security ensures freedom. Freedom is utopia.
 
In is defined by a large square taped to the floor by ANTIS that defines the boundary between In and Out. A large door, like a hellmouth, is feared by the residents who will be evicted to Out should they dare to disrupt the natural order of In.
 
Every day is the same. The residents do their usual thing at the usual time in the usual way. Until one day, one of the residents is drastically transformed and cannot hide her difference. Feared by the residents and shunned by ANTIS, the resident is exiled to the loneliness of Out, but this only sparks further transformations amongst the residents who begin speaking in strange languages, singing and dancing to their own songs, professing new belief systems, and questioning, mocking and fracturing the governance of ANTIS that has, to this point, given them strength. 
 
As each newly transformed resident is exiled, they find themselves becoming free and happy in their new community in Out where they can finally be their true selves. The growing movement against ANTIS only increases the rigidity and desperation of the governing council desperate to cling to their power.
 
Reeling against their loss of power and depleted significant, ANTIS begin to physically disappear – limbs, bodies and voices literally vanishing. The oppressive system of ANTIS is gone, once and for all, and finally all those who are ‘Out’ have achieved utopia.
 
However, despite their new freedom, the residents become unsettled and uncertain and begin to seek guidance from an authority. In an act of social rewind, the vacant In becomes once again populated with new residents; a new society. And a new ANTIS is formed…
 
This absurd one act play observes the futility of social systems, the fragility of absolute power and the human need for community and belonging through classic absurd theatre tropes and techniques. The repetition of actions and words, a sense of meaningless of language and life, and characters trapped in terrifying situations they cannot escape from are only some of the literary and narrative elements that enhance the dramatic meaning of the play in an absurd context reminiscent of Ionesco’s ‘Rhinoceros’.