PLAYS
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What a World! What a World! 2 GN Two actors work their way through an old melodrama. It's not going very well. They can't figure out what works and what doesn't. They burrow further and further in. They recreate and destroy. They rehearse again. A new work emerges from the old. But is it any better?
Residency at Barn Arts Collective, October 2019 Workshop at Ars Nova ANT Fest, June 2019 
Photo by Danny Bristoll
three sisters I never had 4 GN Irina wants Moscow. Masha wants Vershinin. Olga wants peace. And in a room that is not in Imperial Russia, a man who is not Chekhov frets about his windowsill, his mother, and the longings of three fictional sisters. The sisters, meanwhile, keep slipping out of their theatrical world, in this phantasmagoric collision between Chekhov’s grief-stricken past and our grief-stricken present.
Virtual Production, February 2021 
Photo by Erica Wray
How to Mourn the Dead: A Tragedy (in flux) 2 M, 12+ W/GNC Two bros watch the dissident Antigone buried alive on national television. The spectacle inspires a misguided attempt to capture her martyrdom in art, as they glibly repurpose her story in search of some truth about the nature of suffering. Formerly titled The Antigones: A Tragedy in Flux.
Finalist for the 2021 FMM Fellowship for Works in Heightened Language Production at Montclair New Works Initiative, February 2020 Workshop at Tisch School of the Arts, July 2018 Staged Reading at PTP/NYC, August 2016 
Photo by Gennadi Novash
The True Chronicles of Ben-Zion Palachi, the Rabbi Pirate 4 W, 4 M, 5+ GN Conceived with Lila Rachel Becker
The year is 1500. The Catholic conquest of the Iberian peninsula is almost complete. The Inquisition touches every corner of newly unified Spain. The Ottoman Empire is battling for global power. And Captain Ben-Zion Palachi, the Rabbi Pirate, has gathered an intrepid crew of Jews, Muslims, and New Christians to find a legendary treasure of the British Empire: the Golden Chessboard. Amidst these adventures, a stowaway named Chana makes a bid for the kind of power she cannot find on land. A swashbuckling play with music set against a rapidly shifting world haunted by the ghosts of the past, The True Chronicles of Ben–Zion Palachi resurrects the historical phenomena of Jewish pirates to explore the stories we never hear. Reading in the Civilians' Finding Series, June 2022 Developed in the Civilians' R&D Group 2021-2022 Kingdom Crosses Over 3 W, 1 GN The Queen is in distress; the capital of her kingdom has burned down. The Architect has been taken prisoner, and her son has been taken away. The Architect is drafting the plans for the city as fast as she can. But it’s difficult to work with so much screaming in the palace. Inspired by the Argentinian grotesco criollo tradition, Kingdom Crosses Over is an examination of torture and power--and just how terrifying cello music can be.
In development with the Healthy Oyster Collective Workshop at Dixon Place, December 2015 Workshop at Manhattan Repertory Theater, November 2015 
Photo by Eliot Olson
Blackberry: A Burial 4 W Jess's pet goat Blackberry has been inexplicably murdered and beheaded. As she burrows into her grief, she begins to hear the song of Blackberry’s head crying out to her. In a world that doesn’t take children's pain seriously, and where grief is too expensive for her family’s means, Jess must grapple with her loss alone as she looks for Blackberry’s head.
Semifinalist for the 2019 O'Neill Playwrights Conference Semifinalist for the 2019 Bay Area Playwrights Festival Production at Iowa New Play Festival, May 2019 
Photo & Puppet by Lindsay Kuhn
Pastoral Play 7-13 GN Everyone’s been hooking up with each other in the meadows. The Wooer loves the Wooed. The City Slicker loves the Wooer. The Wooed’s not into either of them. And the Lady of the Moon is tired of all these dumbstruck lovers. An exploration of the erotic liberation found in pastoral literature, Pastoral Play is a pastiche comedy about queer desire and horny shepherds.
Developed with the Healthy Oyster Collective Workshop at University of Iowa, October 2018 Workshop at Dixon Place HOT! Festival, July 2017 Workshop at PTP/NYC, July 2016 
Photo by Brett Stone
If the Saints Arrive in Germany 6 W Sixteen-century Germany. Europe is in the midst of the Protestant Reformation. The nuns of the Convent of St. Cecilia are preparing for the performance of a choral mass to honor the Feast of Corpus Christi. At the same moment, a group of Lutheran iconoclasts have arrived in town to smash the convent to pieces. And yet the woman refuse to flee. The resulting catastrophe provokes an intimate and comic investigation of personal faith. A loose adaptation of "St. Cecilia, or the Power of Music" by Heinrich von Kleist.
Co-produced by the Healthy Oyster Collective and Metro Arts Initiative, May 2014 
Photo by Eliot Olson
Denial 3 W, 3 M Six people gather for a meeting of the minds. The lights go out. The smell of rot permeates the air. The ghosts come out to taunt us. Denial is a horror play about humanity's worst impulses.
Finalist for the 2021 O'Neill Playwrights Conference Semifinalist for the 2021 Bay Area Playwright's Festival (read their official recommendation here) Semifinalist for 2021 Blue Ink Playwriting Award AirSpace 6W, 2 M Susannah's father has just died. But she doesn't have time to grieve. She's been called to Romania to help an unnamed company expand into international markets. Trapped in a world of corporate absurdity, Susannah's grief grows more distant as she burrows into her job. Meanwhile, the city outside is beginning to look oddly like the office inside. AirSpace is a comedy about the cultural consequences of globalization.
Reading at the 2022 Theatertreffen Stückmarkt at the Berliner Festpiele Workshop at the Iowa Playwrights Workshop, August 2019 
Photo by Piero Chiussi
there will come a time for vengeance 5 W, 6 M Within the horrifying chambers of the Christian imagination, four Jews chart the psychological and sexual violence of internalized anti-Semitism. A revenge adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Marlowe's The Jew of Malta.
Finalist for 2020 Jewish Plays Project (info on the contest here) Semifinalist for the 2020 Bay Area Playwright's Festival (read their official recommendation here) Semifinalist for SPACE at Ryder Farm, 2020 Watch a video excerpt for the Jewish Plays Project here. The Book of Jonah [The Interim Years] 2 W, 2 M Jonah’s been running from God, ever since escaping the belly of the whale. He can’t seem to forget his ex-lover Isaiah as he waits in a rainy train station somewhere in Moscow. And waiting with him is a sad young woman named Anna Karenina, who has her own train to catch. The Book of Jonah is the story of the heartbroken Jonah and Anna as they begin to grope their way towards a sense of logic in their sorrows.
Staged Reading at Iowa New Play Festival, May 2017 Workshop in Exquisite Corpse Company's Revival Series, June 2016 Developed in Exquisite Corpse Company's Writer's Lab and come apart 4 W Three daughters gather for their mother’s passing. Ancient family wounds are reopened as the audience, blindfolded for the play, eavesdrops on these women’s conversations.
Semifinalist for the 2022 Bay Area Playwrights Festival Workshop Production at the Tank, 2021 Finalist for SPACE at Ryder Farm, 2019 Staged Reading at Iowa New Play Festival, May 2018 
Artwork by Alahna Watson
Scenes of Ascending: A Fable 2 W, 2 M A woman from a modest Mormon household announces to her family that she has decided to become a god. Husband wants to support her. Son doesn't want to know much more. And Daughter just wants her to shut up and say grace. As Wife begins her ascension, the family begins to unspool. Meanwhile, the whole house is slowly flooding. Scenes of Ascending is a comedic fable about ambition, theology and oceans.
Semifinalist for the 2015 O'Neill Playwrights Conference Staged Reading at PTP/NYC, July 2014 Staged Reading at Rhapsody Collective, December 2013 |