A Spacefaring IT Specialist Runs Low on a Precious Resource—Coffee—in One-Act Comedy Girl in Space

Peter Lalush had never seen a sci-fi comedy with a female hero in the lead, so he wrote one last year as a senior at N.C. State. In his comic one-act, Girl in Space, Lana is the spunky IT systems analyst aboard the spaceship Underdog. She wakes to three dilemmas: the Underdog's computer is buggy. The rest of the crew has gone missing. And although there's plenty of food, water, oxygen, and fuel, the countdown to disaster starts when Lana learns the ship is almost out of an equally crucial resource: coffee. Lalush's comedy won the 2017 Arts NC State Creative Artist Award, which led to its first full production this weekend. Lindsey Veros directs the premiere.