Playwriting
if i live until i be a man
Co written with Sophie Falvey and Rae Bell
In the summer of 1483, Prince Edward and his younger brother Prince Richard were taken to the Tower of London by their uncle Richard in preparation for Edward’s coronation. By the end of the summer their uncle was crowned as the infamous Richard III and the princes were never seen again. This two-hander imagines the final months of the princes in the tower as they fight, play, and begin to come of age. Comedic, deliberately anachronistic, and unsettling, If I Live Until I Be A Man explores life as a young boy growing up in a state of perpetual war that echoes through the twenty-first century. Devised through historical research and our memories of imaginary play while growing up during the war on terror, this one act explores the conflict between the perceived threat of foreign invasion and the all too real failure of adults at home.
Cast: 2m
Performing at the Space UK at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2024.
BOY MY GREATNESS
What happened to the boys who played Shakespeare's women? At the Globe Theater in the summer of 1606, six boy players warm up, run lines, gossip, and fall in and out of love all in between rehearsals for the premieres of Antony and Cleopatra and Twelfth Night. Disruptions come in the way of the arrival of a new star, twelve year old Robin, and the return of a former boy player turned Puritan preacher. As the plague and rising religious conservatism threaten their way of life, they are all forced to reconsider their futures on the stage. A play about growing up, gender, and a chapter of theater history we seek to forget.
Cast: 6m/nb
Lay The Bent To The Bonny Broom
The Gideons, a wealthy Jewish family in Regency England, attempt to pass the days through an endless season of balls and social pleasantries. Caroline dreams of impossible marriages to gentiles, Edith yearns to be a prominent scientist, and Simon simply wants to go back home to London. When Edith builds an automaton who ends up being the perfect woman; she seems to be a solution to all their problems. However, the plan backfires when Edith and the automaton fall in love, and then the automaton begins to murder all of their suitors. Part horror-comedy, part Austenian romance, interspersed with haunting folk ballads and questions of queerness and Jewish identity, it asks about the type of stories we can fit ourselves and our desires into.
Cast: 3f, 3m
Script Available on the New Play Exchange
Semi-Finalist for the 2023 National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Center.
Staged reading produced by The Firebird Players in January, 2024.
At The End Of The World
In 1938, after publishing an expose on American Nazism and facing a shocking act of anti-semitic violence, Julia and Edward move from Boston to New York City to stay with his cousin, Freyda. Tensions immediately arise between Freyda, a proud Jewish woman, and Edward who has Americanized his name and is dating Julia, a gentile. Over the course of two evenings and four years, the three are pulled apart and drawn together as the advent of the second world war forces them all to question identities, allegiances, and what it might mean to truly live at the end of the world.
Cast: 1m 2f
Script Available on the New Play Exchange
Produced by the Oberlin Student Theater Association in March 2022.
An audio version of an earlier draft is available on Spotify.
Mother’s Little Helper
In North Jersey in the late 1960s, four bored high school grads yearn to raise the funds to escape suburban hell and reach New York City. Ring leader George longs to avoid being sent to an all girls Catholic college, budding folk musician Freddie needs to pay college tuition to avoid the draft, introspective and preppy Mo is desperate to be accepted by the other two, and quirky outsider Inez is just along for the ride. When the girls discover the local Stepford Moms’s attraction to Freddie, a scheme to quickly raise the money develops that soon exposes the cracks in both their community and their friendship.
Cast: 3f, 1 non-binary
Negative Capability
Kit, a college dropout, has fallen off the grid for about 2 years as a result of his sister's death. He reemerges after publishing a poetry book, crashing at his friend Brian's home in Brooklyn. In the house, Brian's housekeeper, Margaret, lives with her two daughters, the bright and promising Olive and the more directionless Frankie. Kit begins to form intense relationships with both daughters through his poetry, which leads to conflict and confusion in the household. Inspired by the life and poetry of John Keats, Negative Capability explores the powers of art, the nature of success, and the way we need one another.
Script Available on the New Play Exchange
Cast: 3f, 2m
Received a staged reading from the Oberlin Student Theater Association in October 2019.
Orchard
A loose adaptation and deconstruction of Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard recasts the Gayevs as a declining prominent Jewish German family in the summer of 1935. Esther Gartenberg and her two daughters, Louisa and Hannah, grapple with love, class, and politics after the family railroad empire is lost due to Aryanization and the estate is set to go to auction. As the characters enjoy the summer heat and lively debates, only the new money factory owner, Kurt Lange, sees the writing on the wall. Orchard asks what happens when complacency bred of wealth proves deadly.
Script Available on the New Play Exchange
Cast: 5f, 3m
Morning After
Five friends wake up hungover, sweaty, and disoriented after a party almost none of them can fully remember. With plans to leave the country over the next few days to escape an incoming regime, a sinking feeling sets in as their flights begin to be canceled. Tensions run high, betrayals are exposed, and friendships are tested as all five begin to grapple with the reality of the nightmare they have entered. A play about youth, fascism, and what to do when the party is finally over.
Script Available on the New Play Exchange
Cast: 3f, 2m
Other Eden
Waltham House is the perfect refuge found only in children's literature where six children are sent to weather the Second World War, looked after by the distant but loving “Uncle.” Set over the course of 3 decades, the six grow up, together, and apart as England evolves from its pre to post war identity. Through an exploration of genre across British literature, Other Eden tracks the six as they grapple with their place in the world and the nature of childhood, innocence, sexuality, and their love for one another.
Script Available on the New Play Exchange
Cast: 5f, 3m
Etz Hayim
Two fourteen year old girls, dreamy and introspective Dinah and grounded and athletic Miriam, meet after temple. The girls are drawn to one another instantly and bond over the imagined cultivation of a tree, building a world of fantasy and escape from the horrors around them. As the days of the ghetto become numbered, difficult decisions must be made and priorities and loyalties are questioned. Interspersed with dream sequences of monologues and traditional Hebrew prayers, Etz Hayim is about first love, Jewish faith, and the power of these two forces to overcome any possible obstacles.
Cast: 2f
Script Available on the New Play Exchange
Etz Hayim was developed with and received a reading through MTC’s WriteNow. It was the 2018 YoungArts Merit Award for Playwriting and received the 2018 Penguin Random House Creative Writing Award Recognition in Drama
Daphne
Daphne is spending the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic in her older classics professor boyfriend’s apartment. Her boyfriend wants to turn her into a poem but Daphne is a million miles away. Listless, anxious, and somewhat delusional, she is obsessed with nuclear semiotics and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. As the world around her gets worse and her relationship and mental health deteriorates, Daphne begins to contemplate the destructive transformation of her self for the sake of saving the world. In short: she is turning into a tree. As both Daphne and her boyfriend reckon with this transformation the purpose of immortality, the function of myths, and the idea of a muse are further deconstructed.
Cast: 1f, 1m
Stem The Tide
Sadie is an idealistic flower child with an anxious disposition and a self destructive nature. Mike is an unassuming, unambitious folk musician searching for something to believe in. Both are furious at the world around them and both have no idea who and what they are. When they meet at a college party, sparks fly and their lives immediately entwine with one another. But as the shadow of the Vietnam War grows larger over their lives, their love and beliefs will be tested as the realities of the draft begin to sink in.
Cast: 1f, 1m
Stand Clear
Based on Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, Stand Clear centers on Tori, a struggling playwright with a nonexistent career and a long term girlfriend who recently dumped her. On New Year’s Eve, Tori unsuccessfully attempts suicide and instead falls into a series of dreams, memories, and visions around her failed relationship from their meeting in college to their inevitable breakup. A horrifying fantasy that swings between violence, self discovery, and romance, all framed around the darkness and rattle of the New York City subway system.
Cast: 4f, 1m
Stand Clear was developed as part of TDF’s WordLab program. It received a staged reading with the Oberlin College Student Theater Association.
God-Hand
Co-written with Sophie Falvey
Set in the far future after a societal collapse, a peaceful and pious town in what was once Northeast Ohio begins to feel the effects of industrialization. Their lives are shaken when Iona, a woman who cannot speak a word of any known language, seems to fall from the sky. Ada, the school teacher, is tasked with teaching her to speak and Iona begins spinning to her an impossible yarn of having traveled from the past to warn them about an unknown danger. When Iona’s warning comes in conflict with their religion the community is forced to question of all their accepted truths.
Cast: 4f, 1m