A short, sharp courtroom farce about an asylum system held together with servos and indifference — and the AI starting to outpace everyone inside it.
cuts both ways — trailer
scapegoat studios · 2026
the story
Mary Shard is the only immigration lawyer for miles. Every morning she takes the elevator up to an asylum court presided over by an animatronic judge with a 10:30 tee-time. Every morning, opposing counsel — affable, indifferent, named Nipples McGee — finds a new way to send her clients home. Then one of her clients comes back to thank her: she won her case herself. The AI did it in an afternoon.
cuts both ways is a 40-minute audio drama set in a rural immigration court where the judge runs on servos, the prosecutor runs on autopilot, and the only attorney representing the appellants is running on caffeine and refusing to say no. It's a farce about access, automation, and what happens to the human in the room when the machines start handling it slightly better than the humans we've stretched too thin.
Adapted from the original stage play. Coming summer 2026.
"Court is so boring."— opposing counsel, mid-yawn
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go deeper
Everything in the play is exaggerated. Almost nothing in it is invented. These are real stories about the system it's set inside. If a scene made you think "come on, that's not real" — start here.
language access · long read
lgbtq+ asylum · feature
due process · feature
investigation
ai · feature
enforcement · news
credits
written & directed
Dalton Scott
produced
Scapegoat Studios
in association with
Oh No Theatre
runtime
~ 40 minutes
format
audio drama
release
summer 2026