DIET OF WORMS
DIET OF WORMS by Nick Hart, The University of Texas New Theatre (UTNT) 2026
Director - Rodolfo Robles Cruz
Stage Manager - Alisa Irvin
Assistant Stage Manager - Taylor Foster
Assistant Director - Evelyn Paniagua
Dramaturg - Aaron Sullivan
Scenic Designer - Lisa Laratta
Sound Designer - Elias Merlo
Costume Designer - Lindsey Thurston
Props Manager - Ashton Bennett Murphy
Light Designer - Rain Snyder
Technical Director - Scott Bussey
Co-Production Manager - Nicole Chacko
Assistant Lighting Designer - Edgar Cruz
Assistant Scenic Designer - Gala Demarin
Assistant Scenic Designer - Valerie Nuñez Estrada
Intimacy Director - Andy Grapko
Associate Production Manager - Valeria Blanco Perez
Co-Production Manager - Laura Soares
Original Music - Andrew Tham
Archival Footage - Eliot Fisher
Cast: Cast: Durrell Anderson, Haddon Britt, Frida Castro, Emma Dodds, Ella Eavenson, Ava Grottis, Zoë Hampton, Shaya Harris, Jimena Herrera, George Johannson, Isaiah Jones, Jarell Kearney, Jade Lang, Eli Leva, Sammy Liker, Roman Losa, Mackenzie Moberly, Keren Sofia Ortega, Blake Persyn, Manuela De Pontes, Preston Powe, Ericka Pugliese, Jason Robalino, Erin Simpson, Neely Stalcup, Erick Vargas, Fred Wara, PennyLou Zimmerman.
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Photos by Sarah A. Navarrete, courtesy of The University of Texas at Austin.
Original Music by Andrew Tham
Archival Footage by Eliot Fisher
The Approach
This new work development process began with a collaboration between playwright Nick Hart and director Rodolfo Robles Cruz, through planned readings prior to rehearsals we shaped the production goals.
The process included continuous movement training led by Rodolfo Robles Cruz through the Viewpoints Method. This led to a collaborative effort to develop a language which was "Vice" for the world, or authentically living in the circumstances of the play.
About the play: Gentlemen. This emergency session of the United States Congress has begun. FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS: WE HAVE TO pass a budget for the next fiscal year by midnight tonight. We currently have a 487 quadrillion dollar deficit. Everyone in this room tonight needs to look inside their hearts and collectively find or raise 487 quadrillion dollar by midnight, which AGAIN is within the next... 82 minutes or we'll all be executed gangland style in the back alley. OK? (A play about why we're the greatest country in the world.)
Through the use of absurd circumstances, heightened stakes, a time deadline, and audience interaction, this play uses humor as a way to approach our real world issues.
Director program note:
The process of new play development is a fluid relationship between two forces: the playwright who creates the world, and the director who interprets and delineates the embodied rules the play requires. Together, they are responsible for transporting actors into this world in which they must fully accept the given circumstances and rigorously justify them. The reward is a singular event—one that examines our own world through an entirely new lens.
With Diet of Worms, that lens is rage, impulse, and humor against the systems we stake our lives on every day—filtered through the distinct point of view of a cohort of young people. I ask the same of the audience, you are an active member of our ensemble, I ask you to experience through rage, impulse, and humor. I ask you to be like the white-tailed deer, the official state animal for eleven of our fifty U.S. states.
