The Unearthing of Mr. Diggins

Travis Riggins is living the American dream. He has a sexy wife, a sexier truck and a beautiful home set upon a spread of suburban loveliness, and he's obsessed with protecting both it and his sense of invulnerability against an adversarial world.

Yet despite his security cameras and iron gates an intruder manages to breach his defenses, not from without but from below; while digging in his garden, Travis' shovel makes a chilling find, the likes of which he dares not share with the world. It's a discovery which proves but the first of many for Travis, one that launches a series of unearthings which will not be limited to what's buried beneath his feet.

Employing equal measures of psychological thriller, historical mystery and social commentary, The Unearthing Of Mr. Diggins breaks through the sculpted facade of Travis' bucolic paradise and explores the secret gardens of the mind, where preconceived notions of race, religion and our most cherished values are challenged and reexamined. Blending elements of humor and horror, Mr. Diggins plunges deep into the murky corners of one man's unexamined life, exposing his secrets to the open air while forcing the reader to stare into its unforgiving mirror.

From its first unsettling discovery to its shocking conclusion, The Unearthing Of Mr. Diggins throws its shovel blade against the big questions, revealing our hidden selves and the destructive weeds which infest our psycho-emotional Edens. Prepare to find what's buried in the dirt... and in the deeper soil of the heart.

Dave Lauby is an award-winning playwright/actor based in Atlanta Georgia, and the director of Atlanta's Seldom Scene Productions. His fiction work includes two novels and more than a dozen short stories. His latest dramatic work, Into The Breach, will be presented by Seldom Scene in the fall of 2023.