Thursday, August 20, 2026 • 7-8PM

The Off Center presents The Chimerical Ballad of Betsy Bell and Mary Gray

The Ballad of Betsy Bell and Mary Gray tells the tale of two young women whose world is plagued by resource-eating intelligent machines. Betsy and Mary must not only survive in the surveilled forest, but help a three-headed beast defeat WISER® before it destroys all life on Earth. The Ballad is adapted from the lives and deaths of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, whose attempt to escape a 1645 plague became a Scottish folk legend. It is said the women were found in one another’s embrace, inspiring the Scots-Irish immigrants of Staunton to give their names to its pair of mountains. This new puppet play blends mythologies of the past with threats of today, asking if humans will survive our own technological plague.