Hot Topics. Your Community. Your Voice.

Join your neighbors in lively debates on current issues that impact your world! The Hornets’ Nest features script-in-hand performances of hot topic plays followed by conversations with community leaders.

All Hornets’ Nest events are held in Geva’s Nextstage. Tickets are free and limited to two per person. Reservations are highly recommended – many events sell out! Reserve online or Call the Box Office at (585) 232-GEVA (4382).

Rick Dollinger and Major General John Batiste at the inaugural Hornets’ Nest reading of Back of the Throat

How can I get involved?

This project was born of our passion for open and free dialogue. It is essential to us that the access to this forum – if it is to be true community dialogue – that it remain free and open to all.

But for that to happen, we need you! You have already shown us that this kind of theatre and this kind of dialogue are important to you. That you believe, as we do, that art speaks to who we are as a community and as a civilization. That we can explore the stories of our generation in an effort to make life better for the next generation.

Let’s keep the conversation alive and thriving. Support the Hornets’ Nest.

Got a suggestion for a possible Hornets’ Nest play, or a topic that you’d like to talk about? Let us know what you’re thinking by emailing us at gevatalk@gevatheatre.org. Please include Hornets’ Nest in your subject line.

The Hornets’ Nest: Think Theatre.

“Because I am a white woman, I’ve never walked in the shoes of a black man, or an Asian person, or a Jewish person. But through the theatre I can experience that in some fashion – maybe not the same way, maybe not identically – but I CAN experience it, and through those experiences I can change. I think it’s so important that we have theatre that allows us to walk in someone else’s shoes.”

Retired Judge Marilyn O'Connor
following the Hornets’ Nest reading of The Sandreckoner

The Hornets' Nest is supported in part by Jack and Barbara Kraushaar.

Freud’s Last Session

By Mark St. Germain

October 24 at 7:00pm

On the day England enters World Word II, the legendary psychoanalyst Dr. Sigmund Freud clashes with the young C.S. Lewis about love, sex, the existence of God and the meaning of life – just weeks before Freud tak es his own life. Is there common ground between faith and reason? What happens when science and religion are used as justification for action?

The Hornets' Nest is supported in part by Jack and Barbara Kraushaar.

Coyote on a Fence

By Bruce Graham

February 27 at 7:00pm

Illiterate but likable, Bobby Reyburn loves to do impressions. He's also a member of the Aryan nation, convicted of a horrific crime. John Brennan is a serious writer whose passion got the better of him. Both are on Death Row. Can a person be innocent though proven guilty? Is our justice system fair and just enough to include capital punishment? Is the Death Penalty a viable punishment?

The Hornets' Nest is supported in part by Jack and Barbara Kraushaar.

Spare Change

By Mia McCullough

March 19 - Reception at 6pm, Performance at 7pm

Please join us for a special Hornets' Nest benefit reading of Spare Change followed by a spirited community discussion.

This event will be modeled after one of Geva’s most successful programs, The Hornets’ Nest, a series of hot topic play readings - selected for the ethical questions they present - that serve as the springboard for conversations featuring community leaders who have particular expertise and serve as “Instigators.”

Spare Change is an exploration of what it means to help one another, and how race, class, privilege and idealism complicate matters. A disillusioned investment banker, young and white, tries to “do good” by interfering in the social welfare system after encountering a multi-racial young mother who is fleeing an abusive past. Discussion topics include the social service and welfare system, domestic abuse, race relations, individual acts of charity, and more.

Instigators include: Mia McCullough (playwright), Wanda Acevedo (COO of Wilson Commencement Park), James M. Sheppard (Rochester Police Chief), and Carolyn Portanova (former President and CEO of Catholic Family Center).

Facilitated by: Lovely Warren (Council President, City of Rochester)

Tickets are $50 - a portion of your ticket is tax-deductible in support of Geva's community engagement programs.

The Hornets' Nest is supported in part by Jack and Barbara Kraushaar.

The Exceptionals

By Robert Clyman
Directed by Michael Herman

May 14, 2012 @ 7:00pm

Gwen’s and Allie’s sons are part of an exclusive research program that matches women with exceptionally intelligent sperm donors, then monitors their children’s development. Now, they have the chance to enroll their five-year-olds in a selective school for the gifted. But in order to give their children the best possible opportunities, they may have to adjust their ideas of what it means to be a family.

A discussion after the reading will explore questions raised by the play, such as: How much should a parent be willing to give up to improve their child’s future? Parents have always strived to give their children a better chance in life - should these efforts extend to providing them with genetic advantages? Has science gone too far?

The Hornets' Nest is supported in part by Jack and Barbara Kraushaar.