Black Curtain Theatre: World Builders

By Johnna Adams

Tagline: A Love Story

November 15 & 16, 2025 Sat and Sun 7:30pm and Sun 2:00pm $12 adults, $10 students

Whitney and Max live in their own, imaginary worlds. They are both patients in a clinical trial at Johns Hopkins Hospital experimenting with a new drug – a treatment that will cure them of their schizophrenic dreams and dissolve the worlds into which they retreat. With their memories progressively dwindling as the pills take effect, Whitney and Max agree to preserve each other’s creations by exchanging stories and recording the details of what they hear. As the act of sharing and the drugs’ effects replace

dissociative fantasy with vivid emotion, the two stumble into mutual respect and sweetly fall in love. When the end of the study, and the continued obligation to medicate, puts both worlds and the relationship in further peril, Whitney and Max must decide whether to cling to the happiness they have built or abandon it in hopes of a “normal” life.

Other quotes:

“A fascinating exploration of what it takes to truly love another person. …WORLD BUILDERS is profoundly thoughtful, transformative storytelling at its finest.” —BroadwayWorld

“The play calls us to reconsider the realities to which we subscribe and their role in shaping our self-conception. …WORLD BUILDERS reaches no neat conclusions, but offers in Max and Whitney the possibility that love and empathy may well be worth the risks they entail.” —Theasy.