Performances begin September 13 at Playwrights Horizons for the world premiere of Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Plano playwright Will Arbery. The new play, which unfolds in Wyoming a week after the deadly 2017 Charlottesville riot, speaks to the heart of a country at war with itself, as well as to the ways in which education and intellectualism are weaponized by conservatives.

Heroes of the Fourth Turning is directed by Danya Taymor and features a cast made up of Jeb Kreager (Oslo), Julia McDermott (Epiphany), Michele Pawk (Hollywood Arms, Beautiful), Zoë Winters (White Noise), and John Zdrojeski (Monster).

The play follows the return home of four conservatives to toast their mentor Gina (Pawk), newly inducted as the first female president of a tiny Catholic college. But as their reunion spirals into spiritual chaos and clashing generational politics, the evening becomes less a celebration than a vicious fight to be understood.

Arbery, who grew up in a family of conservative Catholic professors, says the play is intended to be an accurate representation of the conversations that conservatives might have when liberals aren't present.

Heroes of the Fourth Turning is set to run on Playwrights' mainstage through October 27.

Arbery is the 2019–2020 Tow Playwright-in-Residence at Playwrights Horizons.

For more information visit Playwrightshorizons.org.