IJU

An Irons in the Fire Project

August 28, 2025 @ 6:00pm
Theatre Row, Studio Theatre

By Abigail C. Onwunali
Directed by Jacob Basri

Synopsis

Chika never expected to meet something like it. A creature without eyes, without bones, without flesh—something that shouldn’t exist, yet does. Pulled from the sterile walls of her hospital room and into the unknown, she takes the creature home, determined to understand it. But life has a way of unraveling plans. As Chika battles her own struggles, she forgets the silent, hungry thing lurking in the shadows. Forgotten but not gone, the creature learns to survive—by any means necessary.

Playwright

ABIGAIL C. ONWUNALI (she/her) is a multi-faceted Nigerian American storyteller whose works have been produced by Red Bull Theater, Ensemble Studio Theater, Liberation Theater Company, and Yale Cabaret. She has been a finalist for the Fire This Time Festival and a semi-finalist for the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship, La Mama’s Experiments in Playwriting Fellowship, and Rattlestick’s Terrence McNally New Work Incubator. Currently, she is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theater’s Obie-winning Youngblood program and the Liberation Theater Company. Abigail is a Princess Grace Award winner and one of the Red Bull Theater’s Short New Play Festival winners.

Also a talented poet, Abigail’s slam poetry has been viewed worldwide. She holds a degree in Acting from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale and was an inaugural member of Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Mentorship Program. Drawing from her Nigerian heritage, Abigail creates theater that centers her people and brings her ancestry alive on stage.

Director

JACOB BASRI (he/him) is a director originally from Berkeley, California. He is an alum of the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, Williamstown Theatre Festival Directing Corps, the 2017–18 Van Lier Fellow at Playwrights Horizons, and the 2023–24 Directing Fellow at the Rattlestick Theater. He holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama, where he received the Julian Milton Kaufman Memorial Prize in directing. Jacob is also an associate artist with Compagnia de Colombari. He has assisted a number of directors including David Cromer, Rebecca Taichman, Lila Neugebauer, Robert O’Hara, Pam MacKinnon, Carl Cofield, and Karin Coonrod. Recent directing credits include Burnbabyburnby by a.k. payne (Yale Summer Cabaret), Love’s Labor’s Lost by William Shakespeare (Yale Drama), Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen (Yale Drama), littleboy/littleman by Rudi Goblen (Yale Drama), Fun Home (Korsa Musical Theatre Company), and The Woman in Black (Weston Theatre Company). Upcoming: Jacob will direct The Trial of Ubu by Simon Stephens for the Atlantic Acting School

Poster Sketch by Sean Devare