The Broken Machine is a world premiere commissioned by Lehigh University Department of Theatre through the Horger Fund. Playwright Liz Duffy Adams joined us in a year-long residency to both teach a playwrighting course and write this play for the Lehigh community. Our students had the opportunity to collaborate with Ms. Adams on making a new play in all areas of performance and design. Inspired by the 2016 California fires, the play is a climate-chaos comi-tragedy. A burnt-out coder has become a hermit in the wilderness, nursing a broken arm and making lists from memory—of endangered species, moments of Lost Time, Incorrect States of Mind—in company with her only friend, a gray fox with a bad attitude. When wild fires approach they flee through the wilderness to the sea, pursued by feckless would-be rescuers and threatened by a punk psychopomp.