synopsis

Robbi, a short-order cook, finds out the hard way that history doesn't stay politely in the past, it shows up, knocks over your meat cleaver, and asks for a beer.

Set in a rundown Appalachian diner called The Confluence, the play follows Robbi, a fierce and poetic young woman working a thankless shift while her life unravels around her.

She arrives bruised — from a car accident, from her marriage, from the world — and is immediately beset by the forces that define her existence:

• Clay, the diner's owner, a Proud Boy and probable Klan affiliate who holds power over her livelihood and her body;

• Righteous, her sweet but lost young husband who can't find his footing;

• Mrs. Taylor, a conservative Black woman more invested in a civic beautification grant than in the humanity around her; and

• John-o, a gentle, neurodivergent young person Robbi tends to with fierce protectiveness.

Woven through the present-day action are three Ghost Soldiers from the Civil War — Billy, Tanasi, and Jimmy — who haunt the diner and echo Robbi's words, bearing witness to a cycle of violence, dispossession, and survival that has never truly ended.

Guided by Amara, a wry and ancient psychopomp, they remind us that 1864 and 2025 are not as far apart as we'd like to believe.

When the violence between Clay and Robbi finally erupts, John-o intervenes with devastating consequences.

Robbi dies — and is freed.

In death she finally ascends, armed with her voice, her poetry, and her imaginary shotgun, to confront God himself.