Full-length Plays

WESTWARD MUTATIONS (2M, 2W, 2 either)
 

A man is diagnosed with cancer and thinks he knows what caused his cells to turn against him. Spence, an eccentric healer, and his assistant, Edie, encourage him to explore this notion while his own doctor counsels him to stay put and begin treatment.  The man sets off on a cross-country quest to correct his mistake and reverse the cancer’s course.  He meets Jess and Bickie along the way, who are running from their own pasts and the three of them continue west across America searching for a cure for what ails them.  As the man’s quest unravels and the nature of what Jess and Bickie are running from is revealed the question of what does it mean to heal? And how can we help one another? come into the foreground as the play ends on a beach in Hawaii.

Premiering in the 2013 Hunter Playwrights Festival May 7, 9, and 11th.  Directed by Luke Harlan.

ONCE UPON A BRIDE THERE WAS A FOREST  (3M, 3W, one screaming baby)
 

Once Upon A Bride There Was A Forest journeys through a fairy tale world built on the mystery of memory.  It navigates the dark secrets and insecurities that underlie love and threaten to overwhelm our hopes for the future.  In the play, Josie searches for her father.  She wants him to know that she’s going to be married to Warren.  Instead she encounters the Wright family, a perfectly lovely family except for the baby who won’t stop screaming.  As she tries to explain about her car and her need for the phone, Mr. Wright enters, and Josie sees her long lost father, seemingly unaware of his past life or her identity.  She’ll now do anything to stay...

 Winner of the 2012 Zarkower prize at Hunter College.  Finalist for 2013 PlayPenn Conference.


SACRIFICE (2M, 3W)

On a deteriorating family farm in SE Iowa, Anthony brings his teen-aged daughter, Emmie, to his mother’s home as a place of refuge for them both.  Instead of refuge they find a place threatened by agribusiness, land speculators and a moribund economy.  Emmie seeks to make sense of this world that she’s inheriting - on the brink of disaster with no one willing to make the sacrifices she sees as necessary to re-balance the environment and the society.  She and Montgomery, the home-schooled neighbor boy attempt to write a new narrative for the world. Meanwhile she encounters Janis, a supremely confident business woman who appears to hold the ability to make anything happen.  Emmie ultimately orchestrates a tragic sacrifice of her own with unforeseen consequences.

Included in Blue Coyote's Commission Project for New plays, presented at Dixon Place.  Named the finalist for the Coe College New Play project.


THE STRAY DOG (2W, 2M, 2 either)

To be performed in a small space, ideally a basement, a backroom.  Someplace safe.  THE STRAY DOG takes its inspiration from the St. Petersburg cabaret of the same name where Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandlestam, Mayakovsky and others read their poetry in the early 1900s.  This play takes place in the present, amidst the ceremonies of a group devoted to the adoration of these poets on a night when their priestess is teetering on the brink.  A theatrical event balanced between the real and the imagined about what makes the heart sing - and what makes that stop.

Originally commissioned and produced by Rising Phoenix Rep's Cino Nights. Published by NYTE in CINO NIGHTS.  Available at:  Indie Theater Now

THE MELTING POINT (4W, 1M)

The over-achieving prodigal daughter, Stevie, returns home and falls through the ice.   Her PhD has stalled as she witnesses its subject, the Cryosphere, disappear due to our warming climate.  Coming home to the suburbs of Washington DC seeking a respite, she finds instead her mother and younger sister frozen in their own isolation.   Overwhelmed by her sense of impotence to change anything globally Stevie's attempts to impact her world locally seem equally unmanageable - until actions are taken - a kiss, a swim, a gun-shot - a connection.

Presented by Live Girls! Theatre in Seattle and Capital Stage in Sacramento.  Originally developed in the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, with additional workshops at The Playwrights' Center and New Georges.  A finalist for the O'Neill Festival of New Plays.

THE HEART IN YOUR CHEST  (2W, 4M)

a dystopian romance

The play opens in the parking lot of a disintegrating motel on the outskirt of the district. A group of agents put a plan in motion to locate Milla, a daughter of a dissident, reported to be dead.  In one of the rooms she is being secretly kept by Clyde, one of the agents now charged with finding her.  She is often addled from drug use, but is kindling the will to ask the questions no one is asking - why, who's orders, and where else could they go?  The play pits coarse dialogue, familiar archetypes, and slapstick violence against heightened language and moments of serenity to ask serious questions about violence, individual agency and belief.

Workshops and readings have been hosted by The Brick Theatre (NYC), P73 (NYC), The William Inge Center for the Arts (Independence, KS) and Circle X (LA).

GLOUCESTER POINT (2w, 3M)

In the country people get drunk and drive.  Set on the Ware Neck of Virginia, over-looking the James River, the Shelton family drinks away a summer after the death of their matriarch. Daughter Mai has dropped out of grad school and stopped returning calls when her vigil is interrupted by a visit from Fischer, her ex and classmate whose star is rising. A play about grief and art, resilience and dependence told in three days over the course of a year.

An early draft was presented by Blue Coyote Theater (NYC) and a staged reading occurred at FLUX Theatre's annual retreat.

DEPARTURES (1W/1M)

Cara is an American ex-pat living in Britain who has to return to the US after her visa expires. But with the death of her father and loss of her childhood home, what is she returning home to? Complicating things further is the boyfriend who refuses to let go. DEPARTURES is a two-hander that crosses time zones and continents to tell the story of that first difficult love.


DEPARTURES premiered at Blue Coyote Theatre (NYC)

LOCAL STORY  (4W/3M)

Somewhere in America, between a river and an interstate, a town is disappearing. What happens to the people who cling to the past as the familiar is eroded by progress? And can the one woman who did make it out change the course for those who chose to stay? Local Story examines this small, vanishing town through a prism of reckless lovers, married couples, adulterous flirtations, and the enduring friendships among a community of people living where they were born, and struggling with what makes that home.


LOCAL STORY premiered in NYC, produced by Overlap Productions

also produced in LA at Theatre of NOTE

and Washington DC's Fringe Festival produced by Madcap Players

You can read it at Indie Theatre Now




ALL THE GIRLS LOVE BOBBY KENNEDY (2W/4M)

At the beginning of 1968, Gracie has a fiance, plans to be a teacher when she graduates, and a best friend she shares a room with.  Then her younger brother is drafted and she gets involved with the nascent anti-war movement on her rural college campus.  Her political awakening coincides with Bobby Kennedy's run for the democratic nomination and she relies on his voice for reassurance and guidance. As the spring of 1968 draws to a close and Gracie is on the cusp of following her heart, history unfolds and his voice is lost to her as she makes the decision that will shape the rest of her life. 

ALL THE GIRLS LOVE BOBBY KENNEDY premiered at Prop Thrt in Chicago produced by Point of Contention Theatre.  It was also presented by students at Marist College and featured in Orlando Shakespeare Theatre's Harriet Lake Festival of New Plays.