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the month of may

by Lillian Brown

ABOUT

More Ohio residents died from drug overdoses in May 2020 than in any month in Ohio history. In this short film, the volume of overdose deaths burdens the functionality of the staff and case management structure in a local Franklin County morgue. Suddenly everything changes when a morgue attendant discovers that she knows a deceased victim. Things start to spiral out of control when they have to piece together the life of this unclaimed body. This film explores the stigma and empathy gap associated with addiction.

“Medical examiners around the country are being overrun with bodies that no one comes to pick up, a trend that many coroners attribute to the nation’s opioid epidemic. Drug-overdose deaths increased by 10 percent from 2016 to 2017, largely driven by fentanyls and similar drugs, according to the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention. The bodies that remain accounted for, meanwhile, float in and out of state custody. No one is quite sure what to do with them. The United States has no uniform system for managing the unclaimed. There is no federal law outlining what steps to take, and many states do not have clear procedures, leaving individual medical examiners to make decisions about how to best deal with the bodies. As a result, examiners without money to simply bury or cremate the remains are resorting to inventive—and strange—solutions.”

- Michael Waters, The Atlantic

CREATIVE

Morgue Attendants: Rina Hajra, Kylie Logan & Matt Greenberg

The Spirit: Erin Alys 

Directed By: Lillian Brown

Written By: Lillian Brown, Rina Hajra, Kylie Logan,

Jess Hughes, Matt Greenberg, & Erin Alys

Stage Manager: Tamara Broeck

Lighting Design: Brad Steinmetz

Costume Design: Kristine Kearney

Set Design: Jessica Hightower

Prop Designer: Jessica Hightower

Photographer: Jacob Oomen Athyal

the making of

the month of may

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Read this powerful presentation to learn more about 

The Basics of Drug Addiction in the African-American Community.

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NO ANSWERS:

An epidemic art project

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