Sapience

SAPIENCE

By Diana Burbano

Elsa is a primatologist who has spent her life making herself legible to a world that was never built for her. Brilliant, Latinx, and autistic, she has hidden her truth even from herself; she finds it easier to communicate with Wookie, a young female orangutan, than with the humans who surround her. When her research brings her back into the orbit of her ex-boyfriend Jason, her cousin Miri, and Miri's nonverbal teenage son AJ, the careful boundaries Elsa has constructed between science and feeling begin to dissolve.

Warm, funny, and deeply moving, Sapience asks what it truly means to communicate and whether love requires speech at all.

"Sapience beams with affection for each of its five characters."

- Oregon ArtsWatch

"A wondrous experience of stepping into the world of color, light and sound."

- Oregon ArtsWatch

"I felt very called out by Sapience, in addition to being emotionally rocked by it."

- Portland Mercury

"The audience's standing ovation opening night said it all."

- Artists Repertory Theatre press

World premiered at Moxie Theatre / TuYo Theatre, and at Artists Repertory Theatre, Portland (2025).

5 actors · 90 minutes · No intermission · For production inquiries: [email protected]