Grounded

Grounded presents a searing portrait of a fighter pilot confronting the moral complexities of modern warfare. The play centers on a skilled Air Force pilot whose career takes an unexpected turn when she is reassigned to operate armed drones from a military base in the American Southwest. Stationed thousands of miles from the combat zone, she monitors targets through thermal imaging and executes strikes with clinical precision—yet the psychological distance proves deceptive. As she balances motherhood, marriage, and the mundane routines of domestic life with the weight of lethal decisions made in a windowless control room, the boundary between soldier and civilian, between duty and consequence, begins to dissolve. The work unflinchingly examines how technology transforms the nature of combat, isolating operators from the tangible reality of warfare while simultaneously making them complicit in its violence. Through intimate monologue and stark staging, the play asks unsettling questions about accountability, desensitization, and the human cost of remote warfare—not only to those targeted, but to those who pull the trigger from a continent away.