Details

A woman lies awake. Pupils like pinpricks, skin saturated in sweat, the odd jerk of a muscle. She hasn't slept for 3 months. She knows what is happening to her and there's nothing she can do. Francesca Trevisan's body is discovered in her car in the North Sea. Her neighbours say she had been acting strangely. Her daughter and a doctor she has never met are left to discover what drove her to commit such an act. Set against the backdrop of an unfolding mad cow crisis, Cosima and Dr Graham go on a journey through history and a race against time to find the cause and cure of a rare disease before its commercial interest wanes. Inspired by the extraordinary true story of a family cursed with a rare genetic disease that cruelly deprives members of sleep until they die, Sleepless is a story that sits at the crossroads of two cutting edge areas of science: sleep research and prion theory, and begs the broader question: how do we decide the value of a human life?

Cast/Performers

Michael Cusick, Jake Ferretti, Andrew Quirbach, Leoni Schulz, Balvinder Sopal

Creatives/Company

Author(s): Hannah Barker, Liam Jarvis
Company(s): Analogue, Staatstheater Mainz
Director: Hannah Barker
Design(s): Anike Sedello, Christoph Schodel (video design)
Lighting: Jurgen Sippert
Sound: Elena Pena
Dramaturg: Jorg Vorhaben