Time: New Year’s Eve, 2022
Place: downtown Cincinnati, OH
Set: the limited view of a hotel room represented by two adjacent chairs facing the audience. One chair holds the hotel’s festive welcome basket.
Synopsis: A young unmarried couple arrive at their hotel room to continue their New Year’s Eve celebration and end up making memories of the evening’s planned and unplanned surprises.
Continue reading… "What Doesn’t Kill Us: A Ten-Minute Play"Characters
Anton: 22 years old at the start of the script. Ukrainian Jewish American.
A BA/MA student in Columbia University’s Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern
European Studies program. Boyfriend to Winston.
Winston: 23 years old at the start of the script. Taiwanese Indonesian American.
An interior designer in VOCI D’s Los Angeles location. Boyfriend to Anton.
Note from the script writer: Each quote at the beginning of every scene is from a poem in Carl Phillips’ poetry collection The Rest of Love.
Continue reading… "Acts of Love"Cast of Characters
MR. B., a wealthy local politician who has helped a lot of people in the area and has a sterling reputation; fortyish
PAM, a young woman who worked on Mr. B’s latest reelection campaign
TELEVISION ANNOUNCER 1 (voice)
TELEVISION ANNOUNCER 2 (voice)
NEWSPAPER REPORTER (voice)
PAM’S MOM (voice)
MARCHERs, four diverse women who join Pam’s protest march
Act I, Scene 1
Continue reading… "Pamela, Shamela, and Me: A modern take on Richardson’s Pamela and Fielding’s Shamela"(Two humans sit on rubble, paddles propped up beside them. A carries a newspaper and a paper sack with a few bits of food. B carries a backpack. Overpass above. Water all around.)
A. Let’s peel the egg, shall we? We’ve a little salt.
B. Crocodiles float by. Rotting carcasses.
Continue reading… "The Slice of Learning Between Them"SETTING:
One bedroom apartment in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota.
CHARACTERS:
MELVIN, 19, a part-time poet/ part-time window washer. He is wiry in build with mid-length dreads.
DEBRA, 25, homemaker/songwriter. She is slightly heavy set with unruly artist’s hair. This part requires singing and some guitar playing.
RICE STREET MAN, 22, looks haggard and worn. He has been dead for eight years, therefore, he is a ghost figure, functioning more for the audience than to interact with the cast.
(Curtain rises with MELVIN scratching away in a notebook. A kitchen table serving as his desk. He goes through a series of scribbling and scratch outs.)
Continue reading… "The Bard of Frogtown: A Play in One Act"CAST (w/ brief backgrounds*)
SYMONE EDWARDS: Middle-aged adult, married to Henry Jones (not in attendance); one of their adult daughters (also not in attendance) is a vegan.
DEREK JONES: Young adult, single, Quentin’s young cousin. Intra-generational competitor with ROSE.
QUENTIN JONES: Senior adult, Derek’s older cousin (married with adult children not in attendance.)
Continue reading… "The Jones Family Reunion, Inc."A new treat from the street vendors: duck grease on a stick.
Do I need it…
or do I need innovative voice solutions?
Do I need a look that’s as young as I feel?
Do I need a truck that works as hard as I do?
Continue reading… "What’s Needed"Scattered leaves cover the stage floor, the suggestion of roots and trees nearby. We are in a forest clearing, the river not far away. Two girls, 16. ELIZABETH guides a blindfolded SAMANTHA, called SAM.
Continue reading… "The Root People"All my life I have had this recurring dream. It’s late at night and I’m running across a field during a lightening storm. My mom and dad and my brothers are with me. And lightening is exploding all around us. Everyone knows to lay down on the grass. Everyone, but me.
Continue reading… "Women of Fredonia: The Legacy of a Nuclear FamilyPASCAL:
Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished colleagues, friends. My purpose here today is to demonstrate a new surgical procedure which will change, nay, has already changed the treatment of… oh, let’s say, nervous disorders. No, let’s not say that. Messy term. Let’s call
