In a cramped, crumbling office, four volunteers spend a few hours every Tuesday night on the phone telling strangers that everything is going to be okay. As the outside world disintegrates, they teeter on the edge of their own personal catastrophes. Their hopes and fears become entangled as they try, desperately, to connect with the callers and with each other. Sam Steiner's You Stupid Darkness! is an urgent play about the struggle for optimism and community amid the chaos of a world falling apart. It was first seen at Theatre Royal Plymouth in February 2019, in a co-production between Paines Plough and Theatre Royal Plymouth. 'A work of extraordinary observation and overflowing empathy... a brilliantly realised, unflinchingly truthful mid-apocalyptic comedy' - The Stage 'Sam Steiner makes us beam as the world burns... his hilariously bleak show about helpline volunteers has a charming cynicism and compassion' - Guardian

Sam Steiner is a playwright and screenwriter from Manchester. His plays include: A Table Tennis Play (Walrus Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe, 2019); You Stupid Darkness! (Paines Plough and Theatre Royal Plymouth, 2019); Kanye the First (HighTide, 2017) and Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons (Walrus Theatre, 2015). He is a co-founder of Walrus, a new writing and touring theatre company.