KENNESAW, Ga. | Sep 18, 2026

What if the place where we go to escape reality is also the place where we finally confront it?

That question lives at the heart of Branches Etched Across the Sky, a magical, deeply theatrical work by playwright Addae Moon presented by the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at Kennesaw State University next month. Directed by Assistant Professor of Theatre Marlon Andrew Burnley, the production invites audiences into a world somewhere between the one we recognize and the one we create in our minds — a liminal space where memory, grief, imagination and reality begin to blur.

It is, Burnley says, exactly the kind of material he loves to tackle.

The production also represents something of a full-circle moment for the director. Burnley first encountered the play years ago, when it was being developed by a former faculty member at KSU. He later participated in a stage reading of the work after moving to Atlanta in 2018. Since then, the play has remained with him.

Now, at KSU, he has the opportunity to bring it to life with a student cast and creative team. 

And bringing it to life means entering a world that doesn't always play by the rules of the real one.

 

Somewhere between the real and the imagined

Moon's characters exist, as Burnley describes it, somewhere between “the consensus realm” of everyday life and an imagined realm shaped by the characters themselves.

At the center are Melba, Travis and Delmar, siblings whose lives have been profoundly affected by the death of their mother. Each is artistic -- writers, drawers, creators -- and the play allows their inner worlds to become part of the world onstage.

When the characters enter those imaginative spaces, Burnley sees them as something like the mind fabricating itself in real time.

“Are we real or are we imaginary?” becomes part of the theatrical game.

That makes Branches Etched Across the Sky playful and strange, even as it explores weighty subjects. Moon's story moves through trauma, grief, mental health and complicated family relationships, but it doesn't present those ideas in strictly realistic terms. Instead, it turns inward, transforming the characters' psychological experiences into something the audience can see, hear and inhabit.

For Melba, trauma manifests through spells of typing; trances in which words and images pour out of her. What might appear on the surface as an unusual creative impulse becomes something much more complicated: a manifestation of what she is carrying inside.

As Burnley puts it, “the sickness is the art.”

The play's mystical elements give Moon a way to explore experiences that can be difficult to articulate directly, including generational trauma and the ways family histories can shape the people who come after us.

The dramaturgy team for the KSU production describes the play as particularly attentive to the experiences of Black families in the South, while also recognizing the universality of its questions about family, relationships, mental health and the weight of the past.

The result is a production that asks audiences to follow the characters somewhere unfamiliar, and to trust the theater to take them there.

 

Making the impossible visible

That imaginative quality extends into the production's design.

Set designer Alexander Whittenberg, with whom Burnley has collaborated on previous productions, is helping translate the director's vision into a physical environment. Projection designer Arash Baqipur is adding another layer, creating what Burnley describes as a cinematic quality that can lift the play's language into the space. Words won't simply be spoken. They may appear to exist in the air. Burnley's visual prompt was to imagine “words thick in the air;” something that could evoke smoke, memory and the past all at once.

It is precisely the kind of theatrical possibility that makes a work like Branches Etched Across the Sky so exciting in a university setting. Because this is not simply about presenting students with a familiar story and asking them to reproduce it.

It is about asking them to imagine what theater can do.

 

A place to experiment

For Burnley, that spirit of experimentation is inseparable from the rehearsal process.

He begins with the expectation that the work should be approached with maturity, bravery and a willingness to go beyond what is comfortable. He also asks his cast to consider a simple question throughout the process: What are you going to do today to surprise yourself?

It is a question that reflects something larger about the educational mission behind a production like this. Theater students aren't simply learning lines and blocking scenes. They are learning how to take creative risks, respond to unfamiliar material and discover possibilities they may not have encountered before.

Burnley has seen that willingness from this cast. After only eight rehearsals, the actors arrived having memorized the material and were already able to move beyond simply learning the script toward building the world of the production.

For Burnley, that is where the real work begins.

“We're always building forward,” he says.

 

More than the weight of the past

Although Branches Etched Across the Sky deals with grief, trauma and the ways our past can shape us, Burnley doesn't see the play as ultimately being about those things.

At its heart, he sees it as a story about imagination, vulnerability and the human capacity to play — to create, to change and to imagine something beyond the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

The characters make different choices about whether to move forward, remain where they are or return to the past. The play doesn't necessarily prescribe one answer. Instead, it recognizes something deeply human: that we are all imperfect, all shaped by what has happened to us, and all capable of choosing what happens next.

That may be the most fitting reason for KSU students to take on a work like this.

Because sometimes the most valuable thing an artist can learn is not how to make something familiar look good.

It is how to step into the unfamiliar. How to play. How to be vulnerable. How to make the impossible visible. And, perhaps most importantly, how to surprise yourself.

 

Branches Etched Across the Sky will be presented in the Onyx Theater on October 6-11. More information and ticketing can be found on the Geer College of the Arts website or by calling the Box Office at 470-578-6650.