The idea for Plan C, the latest play from New York devised theater company Hook & Eye, came in 2022, when Roe v. Wade was overturned.
“I just couldn’t understand, literally how it was possible…legally, how that decision came to be, and how much I had taken that right for granted,” said Carrie Heitman, co-founder and producing artistic director at Hook & Eye, in an interview.
Like others, Heitman felt “pretty despondent” after the supreme court ruling. Then, she asked herself, “If I can’t make policy, what can I do? What can a group of artists do?”
The answer for Heitman, of course, was to make theater—the type of investigative, transhistorical, genre-blending theater that Hook & Eye does best.
Plan C, which premieres at The Tank in Manhattan on March 12, shifts between 1620s Brussels and present-day West Virginia to tell the stories of two renegade women, or “codebreakers,” as Heitman calls them.
The first is Alexandrine Von Taxis, who became Imperial Postmistress of the Holy Roman Empire after her postmaster husband died during the Thirty Years’ War. Von Taxis created one of the first black chambers—a “secret spy room,” Heitman said—intercepting, translating, and decrypting messages in code.
“It was basically early modern diplomacy … eventually, every country had these things called ‘black chambers,’” Heitman explained. After learning of Von Taxis’ story, Heitman and the Hook & Eye team asked themselves, What’s a modern day black chamber?
So the character of Charley Gibson, who runs an underground abortion pill distribution operation from her family’s hardware store in West Virginia, was born.
Von Taxis, played by Elizabeth London, and Gibson, played by Vann Dukes, don’t interact directly in the play. However, they’re woven together through movement choreographed by Leslie Galán Guyton and original musical compositions by Ian Scot Williams. The characters “[work] in sync, even though they’re centuries apart,” Heitman said.
Initially, Hook & Eye planned to focus mainly on Gibson’s present-day story, but after playing an in-progress version of the show for test audiences, “it became clear after getting audience feedback…how much they were curious about the past,” Heitman said.
Plan C held its first research and devising workshop in March 2023. More actors joined the ensemble in December, and in July 2025, several developmental showings and iterations later, Hook & Eye performed a version of the play for Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College. By then, they had received the invitation to run at The Tank.
“I really think audiences can hold contradictions—in content, and form. That’s my belief,” Heitman continued, adding “I like to provide as many surprises as possible.”
In addition to joy, humor, and collaborative generation—each Hook & Eye play is co-authored by an ensemble of performer-devisors—a core company value is intellectual provocation. “A repetitive cultural diet limits curiosity and civic growth,” reads one point on Hook & Eye’s mission statement.
Before the show begins, attendees will have the option to respond to prompts by writing a letter to be read aloud during the play. Some letters from a developmental showing of the play read “like ‘Dear America, stop policing the world’…others were like ‘I would change my religious beliefs if I knew it would help you suffer less,” Heitman recalled.
“I don’t think New York City needs a play about abortion,” Heitman stated.
Instead of aiming to persuade audience members, Plan C asks “Who or what would you cross a line for?…How are these women inspiring you, and what are ways you want to take action, big or small?”
“Our friends in Minneapolis have obviously shown us what a network can do,” Heitman said. “Sometimes the quiet acts of resistance have wide reach—one-to-one relationships… helping a woman get the care they need… that matters,” she continued.
Plan C is funded in-part both by the New York State Council for the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. “That really buoyed us. These are the largest grants we’ve ever gotten,” Heitman added.
The show is produced by The Tank and Hook & Eye Theater, conceived and directed by Heitman, and co-authored by nine core ensemble members (who perform in the show!), plus an additional group of devising artists.
Plan C runs at The Tank from March 12 until April 12, 2026. For more information on tickets, as well as ASL interpretation, childcare, and reflection discussions offered during and after select showings, visit https://www.hookandeyetheater.com/.
