plays
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New Play Exchange
let's pretend
Maddie and Tyler are best friends. Best friends always mend each other's wounds. But then Maddie and Tyler go to a party, and something happens to Maddie... and something happens to Tyler... and these wounds are ones they don't know how to mend. So they run away to an abandoned fairground to play pretend under a rollercoaster for the rest of their days. But something's watching Maddie. And Tyler can't stop drinking. And all this role-playing kind of makes them feel like more than just friends??
A modern retelling of Peter Pan, let's pretend asks us to consider: does growing up really mean forgetting?
WITCH PLAY
It's 1563...ish, and Anny Chapman wants to get pregnant. No wait, Anny Chapman is supposed to want to get pregnant, or else she could be tried as a witch. Problem is, Anny Chapman has never… had… an orgasm? And everyone of the time knows a husband and wife must both do such a thing in order to conceive. As secret fertility treatments from the local alewife, Besse, births an unexpected love between them, the world outside threatens to knock down their door. Meanwhile, the second coming has arrived. It's the Virgin Mary, and she wants her autonomy back. A dark comedy, a love story, a ritual, a spell; Witch Play searches for all the places our pleasure may go, after we’ve chosen to unleash it.
Selected: Great Plains Theatre Commons New Play Conference 2023
Finalist: Soho Rep Writer Director Lab 2022-23
Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, 2023
RUSALKA
1943. Amsterdam. The resistance. Two young girls return to their old stomping grounds, a neighborhood jazz bar now catering to the secretly jazz loving Nazi SS. The younger of the sisters, Nessa, is the lookout, the older there to seduce a Nazi officer to the woods to meet his maker. When Nessa finds herself the object of the officer’s affection, she must quickly learn how to turn herself from prey to predator in a body she is just starting to understand.
“Magical... An irresistible dance of seduction and threat.”
--Theatre is Easy (A Theatre is Easy Best Bet)
Development: Planet Connections Festival Workshop Production
Recognition: 5 Planet Connection Festival Awards, including Best Script and Best Production, 2018
Elizabeth Kensek & Erika Phoebus; Photo by Travis Emery Hackett
KISS IT, MAKE IT BETTER
A first kiss under a swing set. Over the years, what else might Nadia and Ty have left there? And what happens when it wakes up again? A play about growing pains, schoolyard games, and friendships that were meant to last.
“Raw and poetic, the play falls upon you as a tsunami of engrossing pain, untamed passion, and tenderness.” On Stage Blog
Development: Workshop Production, New Ohio Theatre (Theatre 4the People), 2016
Erika Phoebus & Brian Miskell; Photo by: Yvonne Allaway