RUR
By KAREL ČAPEK
Adapted by TALENE MONAHON
Directed by JESS CHAYES
Step into the world of Rossum’s Universal Robots, where a would-be humanitarian finds herself entangled in an enterprise that is mass producing biologically engineered humanoid workers. From Karel Čapek’s seminal and eerily prescient 1920 play RUR, this adaptation by Talene Monahon (Meet the Cartozians) continues Čapek’s interrogation of the precarity of automation and the role of human responsibility in our age of Artificial Intelligence.
THE ARTISTS
TALENE MONAHON is a Brooklyn based playwright of Armenian descent. Off-Broadway: Meet the Cartozians (Second Stage, NYTimes’ Critic’s Pick, Vulture’s “Top 10 Best Plays of 2025,” TheaterMania’s “Top 5 Plays of 2025”), The Good John Proctor (Bedlam; The New Yorker’s “Top 10 Best Plays of 2023”), Jane Anger (New Ohio; 2022 Off-Broadway Alliance Best New Play Nominee), and How to Load a Musket (Less than Rent; TheaterMania’s “The 10 Best Theater Productions of 2020”). Regional and international productions include Trinity Rep, Shakespeare Theater of D.C., the Warehouse Theater, Detroit Shakespeare and London’s Jermyn Street Theater. She teaches Playwriting at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Upcoming plays: Eat Me (Southcoast Rep, 2026) and Wonder! A Woman Keeps a Secret (Northern Stage, 2026). B.A. Dartmouth College.
JESS CHAYES (Director) is an award-winning director and producer of new work and the Associate Artistic Director at Studio Theatre. Recent directing credits include Next Year in Connecticut (sheNYC), Misery (Warehouse Theatre), Smart (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre), In Corpo (The Assembly), Jane Anger (Shakespeare Theatre of DC, Jen Campos Productions), and Off Peak (Hudson Stage Company, 59E59). She has developed new work with NYTW, Playwrights Horizons, The Vineyard Theatre, and The New Group among others. Jess is a founding member of the New Georges Jam artists lab, a NYTW Usual Suspect, and an inaugural member of the BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle (at Northern Stage). Jess was awarded the 2017 Lucille Lortel Award by the League of Professional Theater Women and the 2019 Collaboration Award from the Women in the Arts & Media Coalition. She is a founding co-artistic director of New York-based ensemble The Assembly, with whom she has co-created and directed eleven original productions. www.jesschayes.com