Devised Theatre

In 2013 and 2018, nine women in the field of paleoanthropology – dubbed the “Underground Astronauts” – were selected to excavate potential hominid fossils deep within the Dinaledi Cave System at the Cradle of Humankind outside Johannesburg, South Africa. To the surprise of the entire world, the excavation yielded 15 full skeletons of a new hominid species, Homo naledi, rewriting the human evolutionary timeline as we know it. 

Excavating The Rising Star, Infinite Variety Productions’ original documentary play based on the events in South Africa, examines how that 21 day excavation revealed more than just a “new '' human. Using the oral histories from six of the “Astronauts” (conducted by playwright Ashley Adelman) as the backbone of the dialogue, while setting the circumstances of the play within a fictitious, futuristic AI-powered museum, Excavating the Rising Star offers a dynamic, creative theatrical experience that ponders ethics, questions the authors of history, and, ultimately, examines what it means to be “human.”