FULL LENGTH PLAYS
MSREMEMBERMENT - (3W, 2M) Development Lab (MsRememberment ) CoHo Theatre/Portland OR, Selected Reading Last Frontier Festival 2019; Womens Theatre Festival International, Toronto 2020. A young woman destroys myths both new and ancient, with the help of the first wronged woman, ISTHTAR..
THE ONE YOU FEED - (4W, 2M) SERENA is a sought-after conflict resolver who mediates online since her son, Alex, left to join the Islamic State. When Alex stops sending encrypted messages, Serena expects the worst, until he asks her to help him escape. The One You Feed is a highly mediatized piece, which encourages audience members to engage with Serena as she uses screens to recapture her humanity. Also written as live digitized performance for Zoom and other formats. Finalist at: Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation, The Lila Acheson Wallace Fellowship and Sundance Mena Program
OCOTILLO - (4W, 1M). A denizen of the fashion world (KATE) returns to her Waco roots, disturbing the fragile emotional hold her family has on existence. Ocotillo wrestles with the Branch Davidians, prescription pharma and fracking and only two get out alive. Finalist: Ebell, Susan Glaspell Prize, Route 66, Centenary Stage, Portland Civic Theatre Guild
OUT THERE RIGHT HERE (3M, 1W) It’s Autumn, the Santa Anas are blowing and LA’s on fire again. JASPER MOLLOY is an aging Apollo astronaut diagnosed with Alzheimer's, who’s been stashing Oxycontin in the bookshelves until he has enough to off himself. Daughter LUCIE was an archeologist until her son was killed by a philandering neighbor's pool man and she found the Lord; while son HUBBLE is a SETI researcher and atheist who spends his days searching for life in the multiverse. Then in walks RANDY, a contractor Lucie meets online, who shakes things up with his open heart and mind. OUT THERE RIGHT HERE takes place at the intersection of science and faith, and asks, “What does it mean to believe in anything?” WINNER: Playfest Santa Barbara, Caltech Mach 33 Science Play Prize, Reading Pasadena Playhouse
VILLA THRILLA (6M, 4 W) The Holidays, Night. A once magnificent manor house on the coast near Atlantic City. A storm rages as guests arrive for what they think will be a merry, mod, madcap murder mystery event, while inside the actors—or are they?— prepare for their guests. But as the first body falls, no one is who they appear to be. Are they just bad actors? Or playing roles for other nefarious ends? A new twist on a classic theatre cliche-- the English murder mystery. Villa Thrilla bends genres to highly amusing ends. Produced: Atwater Village Theatre, Los Angeles
INCUNABULA (6M, 6W ) Based on the true story of Stephen Blumberg. A lonely bibliokleptomaniac seeks advice about women from the literary figures who inhabit his stolen library assisted by the most successful book thief of all time. Love, sex and stolen books. Currently being adapted into a musical. Available on Audible.
BIRDS OF AMERICA - (6M w/doubling, 3W) Three intertwining stories—a Latino farmworker and his son, a wealthy, long-married couple who discover they don't know each other at all, and an idealistic young female employee of the EPA caught in the hypocrisy of Washington bureaucracy and sexual politics. The play travels between King’s County California, a townhouse in Boston and officse in Washington, D.C.
I LOVE PARIS (1W to play 9 characters) Emma McMenemy-Goodwood is a thirty-eight year old career woman wrestling with the idea of motherhood, encountering everyone from a crazed gynecologist to a midwife from the 15th century. First Produced at Portland Women’s Theatre, directed by Ron Orbach and performed by the author.
LU/LOU (3W, 1M) A love triangle between a man, a woman and her horse. First produced and directed by Dorothy Lyman at ADT in Los Angeles.
STUFF ( 4W, 1 M ) Dierdre, a spokesmodel for a feminine hygiene product, goes home for Thanksgiving to find that her drunken mother, Jean, has been bamboozled by conniving realtors into selling the family home. Dierdre’s grown siblings, Stuart and Evie, are panicked—they’ve never left. Gran is visiting from Philadelphia and Jean claims "Mr. Reynolds," her imaginary suitor, is coming to dinner. The last supper in the old house is anything but calm when Stuart shoots off his shotgun, the turkey ends up on the floor and Dierdre makes an announcement that sobers everyone up.
WRITING WAR (2M, 2W) The turbulent love story of Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, the third of his three wives, beginning with the Spanish Freedom movement, which drew them together.
THE BEAVER SUITE (2M, 2W) A trio of interrelated one acts. All are set in abstract space and/or time-- A futuristic job reassignment office, a café where secrets are revealed and a house with terrible feng shui. Designed to play back to back by the same 4 actors. For dialogue sample, see Turning Tables under short plays. Produced in Los Angeles at Friends and Artists Theatre and by Metropolitan Theatre Group in New York.
SHORT PLAYS
THE VOICE IN MY HEAD (2W, 2M) Two people meeting through a dating app are tormented by their inner critics. Selected for Cascades Festival 2020
VESUVIUS (2W, 2M) One couple in a falling down mansion, another about to arrive for the kind of dinner party no one wants to attend—when you are the dinner. (written for Red Bull Theatre in the style of Noel Coward)
TURNING TABLES (3M, 2W) A trendy café. Two couples with an unexpected connection; and a young man, their waiter—or possibly a doctor. Produced multiple places.
PETTING ZOO STORY (3P, race/sex blind) A riff on Albee’s The Zoo Story set in the Petting Zoo in Central Park. First performed as part of Primary Stages Detention series and winner of NY Plays shorts contest
OUR DARK CONNECTION, THE ELEGANT DINNER & SEARCHING FOR MARY JANE All commissioned and performed as part of the Odyssey Theatre’s award-winning Theatre in the Dark. Review here.
BINNIE’S BAD MEMORY BOOK CLUB (6 W) A group of lady book clubbers in a retirement home. Performed as part of Sacred Fools’ serial killers series
SWIMMING (1W, 1M) A high school swimmer and her lecherous male coach. Adapted into a short film by Darius Mackenzie
THE LEVELED FIELD (2P, race/sex blind) Two homeless people engage in Beckett-esque, existential conversation.
AR is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the New Play Exchange where some of the plays listed here are available to read.