Trial Child: Nurture a Better Nature
Written and performed by Scotty Wagner
Set design by Bailey Hikawa

Performances on April 15th & 30th
Doors: 7:00PM | Show: 8:00PM (45 min runtime)

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NowSpace is pleased to present, Trial Child: Nurture a Better Nature, an unconventional household drama written and performed by Scotty Wagner. Set in an imagined future where self-control is the single most important quality in human development, Trial Child, a robotic replica of a couple's would-be child, is the newest technology. 

In this one person play, Wagner activates viewer imagination by performing characters that weave between the physical and imaginary. Immersed in the pastel world of Bailey Hikawa’s vintage-future living room, “Trial Child: Nurture a Better Nature,” is a tragicomic Pinocchio tale that addresses issues surrounding the cyborg identity and our growing personification of robotics in relation to gender, identity, technological absurdity and family politics.

Scotty Wagner and Bailey Hikawa have been creative collaborators since 2013. Wagner is currently working towards an MFA at University of California Santa Barbara, focusing on experimental performance and writing. Hikawa lives and works in Los Angeles as an artist and set designer. They have performed together at Shed Projects in Oakland, The Di Rosa Foundation in Napa, California, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. In 2016, Hikawa and Wagner collaborated in a short performance titled “Freedom Finderz” performed at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles as part of a feminist performance series, “Sorority". “Trial Child: Nuture a Better Nature” is their most recent experimental mentally disordered visually delicious performative collaboration.