King of Nothing

  • No Exit Theatre Collective
  • Year Grant Awarded: 2023

Welcome to the end of the world. Are you sitting comfortably? Are you gripping your flashlight tightly? Did you take your pill today? Quiet now. A transmission’s coming through.

Inspired by the ongoing collapse of our environment and the ever-growing waste produced by modern post-Amazon convenience culture, King of Nothing is a one-clown/one-sock puppet mangling of King Lear set on a mountain of trash. Audiences will enter into an immersive post-apocalyptic landscape and light their own way, and the performance, with flashlights provided at the door. 

King of Nothing was conceived, written, and performed by Rachel Weekley with direction, scenic, and lighting design by Robert Malbrough, video design by Bobby Marcus, and featuring the voice of Tyler Riley as The Transmission.

It was workshopped in June 2022 at The Tank as part of Trash Fest/Dark Fest, and received its world premier in May 2023 at The Brick with the support of The Puffin Foundation.

No Exit Theatre Collective is a community-oriented artist collective and multimedia performance arts platform that functions as an innovative playground for radical thought, practice, and exploration. They center and serve those historically marginalized, disenfranchised, and othered by traditional societal frameworks. Through the creation of collaborative theatrical projects they facilitate a culture and practices that create accessible pathways for storytelling, creation, and communion in artistry, industry, and education. Since April 2020, they have produced countless works both digitally and in-person. Recent productions include: Ubu Roix at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Rachel Weekley’s King of Nothing at The Brick with the support of The Puffin Foundation, and in 2024 at the second annual Harrisburg Fringe Festival.  While in residence at IRT in Summer 2023, we developed new and public domain works, including Zora Neale Hurston’s Cold Keener, and RJ Christian and Cameron Reese’s new musical Angry Brits Stomping in collaboration with The Hearty Meal Theater Company.