Patrick’s newest play, Distant Neighbors, will be produced by Fresh Ink and will run December 5-13 at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. In Distant Neighbors, a group of suburban neighbors are strangers to each other until an alien space ship crashes into their back yards. After its arrival, they get to know each other a lot better, and faster, than they ever expected (or wanted). Distant Neighbors is a space-age love story about loneliness and longing, and the barriers we set up between us. It looks at the possibility for wonder, not just at the skies and the universe, but also at the person living right next door.

This fun script is one that went through many rounds of weekly readings at Rhombus and then spent most of a year as part of New Rep’s New Voices program, culminating in a reading in May 2013.  Now Fresh Ink is mounting this play at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (after becoming a Factory Theatre orphan, when that venue closed unexpectedly this fall).  Fresh Ink has a history of producing plays by Rhombus members, having already produced Ginger’s The Embryos, Walt’s Priscilla Dreams the Answer, and Patrick’s Fire on Earth.  And Fresh Ink’s next show is Chalk, another play by Walt that has gone through our reading process.

You can buy tickets to Distant Neighbors here.  Thursday, December 11th, is playwrights’ night and will feature a post-show discussion with Patrick and dramaturg Tyler Monroe.