Short Plays
Aija Reke and Carley DeFranco in Absent Grace, Boston Opera Collaboraitve, 2018. Photo by Dan Busler.
Ryan Kelly and Amy Warren in Absent Grace at the Museum of Dysfunction IV, directed by Elizabeth Seabolt-Esparza, 2013. Photo ©Gentle Bear Photography.
Absent Grace at the SHOBI College of Music in Japan, 2016. Photo by Lenshi Fukuyama.
Absent Grace
“Iridescent”—Boston Globe
“Haunting … beautiful, succinct”—Boston Musical intelligencer
Synopsis. At a crossroads, a man who keeps seeing his dead friend finally confronts her. 1W, 1M.
Ben Paper and Cameron Wehemeir in Absent Grace at the University of Northern Iowa, directed by Thayne Lamb, 2019.
Performances. SUNY Potsdam, 2019; University of Northern Iowa, 2019; Youth Ensemble Theatre, Woodstock, NY, 2019; Marlboro College, VT, 2017; Dordt College, Sioux Center, IA, 2017; Kent Denver School, Englewood, CO, 2016; Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2016; SHOBI College of Music, Tokyo, Japan, 2016; Niagara University Short Play Festival, Niagara, NY, 2016; She Said, He Said: Love & Life without a Net, Readers Theatre Repertory, Portland, OR, 2015; Museum of Dysfunction VI, Mildred’s Umbrella and Wordsmyth Theatre Company, Houston, 2013; Ten for Tenn! Tennessee Wesleyan College, 2012.
Opera composed by Marti Epstein. Performed at Boston Opera Collaborative, 2018.
Published in The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2013.
Almost certainly not real
(a short play inspired by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin)
Nancee Moes and Elizabeth Bojsza in Almost Certainly Not Real at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, directed by Steve Marsh.
Synopsis. It’s 1924, and young Harvard astronomers Cecilia Payne and Adelaide Ames are celebrating an “impossible” achievement.
Developed at Pipeline-Collective’s Salon, Nashville, 2022.
Performance. North Park Playwright Festival, North Park Vaudeville & Candy Shoppe, San Diego, 2023.
First-place winner of the Science Playwriting Competition, Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, Stony Brook University, 2024.
Renee Panagos and Carl Hoffman in The Clock Strikes 17 at Playwrights at Night, directed by Carl Hoffman, 2022. Photo by Sheila Duane.
The CLOCK strikes 17
(a pandemic anti-play)
Synopsis. A couple draws on the theatre of the absurd for pandemic inspiration. 1W, 1M.
Developed at Pipeline-Collective’s Salon (Zoom), 2020.
Reading. Playwrights at Night, Jersey Shore Center for the Arts, 2022.
Devoted
Synopsis. In this love triangle (minus the love), revelations only strengthen the status quo. 2W, 1M.
Published in The Art of the One Act.
Door to Door
Synopsis. A perky teenager meets an ominous intellectual. 1W, 1M.
Performances. 19th Annual Original Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival, 1994; Sixth Annual Love Creek One-Act Festival, New York, 1994.
Published in Dramatics, March 1993.
Sarah Lutz in Eden at Crack the Glass Theatre Company, directed by Polly Rose Edelstein, 2011. Photo by Jack E. Kapp.
Eden
Synopsis. A nude photo of Eve may lead to the end of Eden. 1W, 1M.
Readings. Best Medicine Rep, Gaithersburg, MD, 2018. Nantucket Short Play Festival: Cupid’s Nightmare, 2010; People’s Branch Theatre, Nashville, 2009; Mid-America Theatre Conference Playwriting Symposium, Kansas City, 2008.
Performances. Crack the Glass Theatre Company: An Evening of One Acts, Philadelphia, 2011; Short Women’s Play Festival, Independent Actors Theatre, Columbia, MO, 2010.
Published in I Love You Terribly: Six Plays.
Emily Dickinson's Sister
Synopsis. In the State Lunatic Asylum in 1874, three woman fade away. 3W.
Reading. Mid-America Theatre Conference Playwriting Symposium, Chicago, 2009.
Published in Poems & Plays 16.
He Killed My Bird, or Now That We’re in Heaven
Katie Robertson, Brittany Shumaker and Alli Vaughn in He Killed My Bird, or Now That We're in Heaven, directed by Emily A. Rollie in the Caffe Cino Project, 2014. Photo: Cassie Burton/The Courier.
Synopsis. When I teach Women Who Kill, a survey of American drama by women, I’m amazed at how easily my students side with the murderesses, particularly when the plays are based on true stories, and real-life society ostracized these women. Why do audiences respond so receptively to these re-tellings? With characters inspired by the women who inspired Trifles, Machinal, My Sister in This House, and Self-defense, or death of some salesmen, my play examines how these stories work and what they reveal. 5W, 1M.
Readings. Guerl-rilla Theatre, Columbia, MO, 2019; IV International Conference on American Drama and Theatre, Seville, Spain, 2012.
Performance. Caffe Cino Project, Knox College, Galesburg, IL, 2014.
Published in Old Stories, New Readings: The Transforming Power of American Drama.
Henry
Synopsis. This indeterminate reunion explores the past, present, and future of a man and woman once (or twice) in love (or not). 1W, 1M.
Readings. Best Medicine Rep, Gaithersburg, MD, 2018. Bridgestone 10 x 10 Festival of Short Plays, People’s Branch Theatre, Nashville, 2009; Mid-America Theatre Conference Playwriting Symposium, Minneapolis, 2007.
Published in I Love You Terribly: Six Plays.
Finalist for The Seven: Something Left Unsaid, Fusion Theatre, 2008.
Highway 16
Synopsis. A modern-day retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, inspired by the numerous (real) vanishing women in British Columbia. In this coming-of-age play, Granny is a brothel keeper and the Wolf may be Red's fairy godmother. 3W.
Readings. Swan Day CLE. Cleveland, 2013; Estro Xtended, Manhattan Theatre Source, 2012.
Published in Qu: Literary Magazine.
I Love You Terribly
Synopsis. A couple tango their way through their tangled lives. 1W, 1M.
Readings. Best Medicine Rep, Gaithersburg, MD, 2018. Mid-America Theatre Conference Playwriting Symposium, Cleveland, 2010.
Performances. Connected in the Deep: Round 2, Wake Forest University, NC, 2020 (audio play); Stratton’s Postcards: A Festival of Short Plays, Stratton Players, Fitchburg, MA, 2011; Shoestring Radio Theatre, 2010.
Published in I Love You Terribly: Six Plays.
If Only in My Dreams
Synopsis. A Mexican immigrant learns to read English by immersing herself in Wendy Marquam's novel, If Only in My Dreams. Commissioned by the People's Branch Theatre in partnership with the Nashville Adult Literacy Council.
Staged readings. People's Branch 10x10x2 Festival, Nashville, 2010. Mid-America Theatre Conference Playwriting Symposium, Minneapolis, 2011.
Nathan Bryant and Brooke Underwood in Lillie Meant Murder at Independent Actors Theatre, directed by Elizabeth Braaten Palmieri, 2012. Photo by Amanda Sohaney/KOMU.
Lillie Meant Murder
Synopsis. Set in 1888 Chicago. Lillie Richmond discovers that her husband of two years is not really her husband at all, so she dresses as a man to shoot him incognito and frees herself in an unexpected way. 1W, 3M.
Performances. One-Act Play Festival, National Cathedral School, Washington, DC, 2019; Sweet Bites, Strathalbyn Players, South Australia, 2016; The Best of the Best Short Plays, Roger Williams University's Barn Summer Playhouse, Bristol, RI, 2015; Short Women’s Play Festival, Independent Actors Theatre, Columbia, MO, 2012.
Published in The Best American Short Plays, 2011-12.
Mice into Horses
Synopsis. In this mouse-eyed view of Cinderella, a rodent mother grooms her daughters to attend the ball, but the dutiful stepdaughter wins the mouse prince. 4W.
Performance. The Thalia Festival, the AlphaNYC Theater Company, New York, 2017.
Published in Ponder Review 2.1.
Natural traps
Synopsis. Sylvia’s dicing onions, but that’s not why she’s wielding the knife. Edgar’s been here too long, and she wants him gone.
Developed at Pipeline-Collective’s Salon (Zoom), 2021.
Finalist for the 2021 City Theatre National Award for Short Playwriting.
Jamie H. Jung and Jen Grigg in Palooka at Fusion Theatre's The Seven: Strange Bedfellows, directed by Aaron Worley, 2016.
Palooka
Synopsis. Deep in the woods, someone's punched Wil in the face. Surprise! It's his fiancée. 1W, 1M.
Winner of the Andaluz Award Jury Prize, Fusion Theatre. 2016.
Reading. Best Medicine Rep, Gaithersburg, MD, 2018.
Performance. The Seven: Strange Bedfellows, 11th Annual Short Works Festival, Fusion Theatre, Albuquerque, NM, 2016.
Published in The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2017.
Pear Morte
(a monologue)
Synopsis. A woman paints to battle death. 1W.
Published in InterJACtions: Monologues at the Heart of Human Nature, volume 3.
Please Let Me Shoot YOu
(a monologue)
Synoposis. A cetologist philosophizes about genealogy and extinction with a humpback whale.
Published in Identity, Culture, and the Science Performance, volume 2.
Precipice
Synopsis. A trip down memory lane ... minus the memories ... 1W, 1M.
Readings. Best Medicine Rep, Gaithersburg, MD, 2018. DC Swan Day Staged Reading Marathon, Georgetown Theatre Company, 2011.
Published in I Love You Terribly: Six Plays.
Emily Gittelman in The Pretty Young Girl at Metropolitan Playhouse, directed by Laura Livingston, 2011. Photo by Beth Wexelman.
The Pretty Young Girl
Synopsis. Fourteen-year-old Rosie becomes so lost in the world of her romance novel that she poisons herself like its heroine. Based on the 1894 true story of Rosie Czeisler, who was found unconscious on a front stoop beside a bottle of carbolic acid and a novel called The Pretty Young Girl. 2W, 2M.
Performance. East Village Chronicles Festival of New Plays, Metropolitan Playhouse, New York, 2011.
Bailey Hampton and Cheramie Hopper in Serena at the Museum of Dysfunction X, directed by Bree Bridger, 2018. Photo ©Gentle Bear Photography.
Serena
Synopsis. Serena was everyone’s best friend in high-school—or was she? Two former classmates confront the past in this play about malice and penance. 2W.
Performance. Museum of Dysfunction X, Mildred's Umbrella, Houston, TX, 2018.
Sex Lessons
Synopsis. “Jack” and “Sally” celebrate his birthday. 1W, 1M.
Reading. Best Medicine Rep, Gaithersburg, MD, 2018.
Performance. Short Women’s Play Festival, Independent Actors Theatre, Columbia, MO, 2011.
Published in River Styx 80 and I Love You Terribly: Six Plays.
SHERYL’S MOTHER IS DEAD
(a monologue)
Synopsis. A woman's prayers are answered when God smites her foe. 1W.
Performances. Walking the Wire: Too Much Information, Riverside Theatre, Iowa City, 2013; Whispers of Fall: Autumn One Acts. Brief Acts Company, New York, 2012.
SIX FEET
Synopsis. in this bittersweet comedy about love and math, a woman hellbent on distance encounters a man who wants to be near her.
Developed at the Experimental Theatre Writing Workshop and Pipeline-Collective’s Salon (Zoom), 2021.
Reading. The Second Seven, Fusion Theatre, Albuquerque, 2022.
Published in The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2023.
Brooke Maroldi and Caroline Humphrey in Strumento at the Act 1 One Acts Festival, directed by Lauren Terry, 2020. Photo by Lauren Terry.
STRUMENTO
Synopsis. Eusapia Palladino (1854-1918), an Italian “spiritist,” was the subject of extensive scientific research. In this one-act play, inspired by an interview with an anonymous female reporter published in the New York Times (5 Dec. 1909), two women use trickery, charm, and wit to show they’re not mere instruments. 2W.
Developed at the Salon, Pipeline-Colletive, Franklin and Nashville, TN, 2019.
Performances. Guerl-rilla Theatre, Columbia, MO 2020 (Zoom); Act 1 One Acts Festival, Nashville, TN, 2020.
Swimming in the afternoon
Synopsis. A poet finds herself transformed into a puppet for “the good of the nation.” 3W.
(Swimming in the Afternoon is a scene from Witches Vanish.)
Reading. Ten-Minute Playhouse, Nashville, 2011.
Published in River Styx 93.
Till Death
Synopsis. Julian and Felicity contemplate love, death, and Robert Browning. 1W, 1M.
Reading. Best Medicine Rep, Gaithersburg, MD, 2018.
Performances. Undergraduate Directed One-Act Plays, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2015; Plays with Poetry, East Haddam Stage Company, East Haddam, CT, 2008.
Published in Santa Clara Review 98.1 and I Love You Terribly: Six Plays.
VELB
(a monologue)
Snippet. What if Gregor Samsa were red? Imagine his garnet bejeweled belly, his oxblood coral exoskeleton. Would his family shove him aside, hide him under a couch, if his ruby forewings had emerald spots? Or, faced with such splendor, would they recognize his true worth? 1W.
Published in Original Middle School Scenes and Monologues.
VELVETEEN
Synopsis. Esther Lederberg presents to her husband a hypothesis that will forever change science--and for which he will win the Nobel Prize.
Developed at Pipeline-Collective’s Salon (Zoom), 2021.
Finalist for Kairos Italy Theatre 2021 International Playwrights Series.
WHEN I Died
Synopsis. At his funeral, Vivian professed her love for Ethan. But now he’s not dead.
Developed at Pipeline-Collective’s Salon, Franklin, TN, 2019.
Published in Shift, volume 6.