Tropical Secrets,
or All the Flutes in the Sea

a TYA stage adaptation of the book Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle

3 W / 3 M / 1 drummer
(genderqueer casting welcome)

• Productions: Children’s Theatre of Charlotte

• Commission: CTC’s The Kindness Project

It's 1940, and Daniel is nearly 12. Paloma is almost 11. Daniel loves music and winter. Paloma loves birds and the sea. Daniel is trying to find his family. Paloma is trying to understand hers. And Daniel (alone and in a wool coat) just arrived in Cuba, Paloma’s home.

Adapted from the gorgeous, prose-poem, middle-grade book Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees In Cuba by Margarita Engle, this tender, poetic, shimmering stage adaptation follows two children on the verge of adolescence, buoyed by friendship, as they try to save themselves and others in an unjust, dangerous, adult-run world that’s failing them.

Commissioned by the Children’s Theatre of Charlotte to speak to our current world of borders and violence and family separation, TROPICAL SECRETS is a dark and beautiful theatrical quest for audiences ages 8 & up about the families we lose and the families we make, about how the world changes us and how we change the world, and about oranges and drums and becoming someone new.

Another Kind of Silence

6 W / 2 M
(with 2 rehearsal interpreters and
1 Director of Artistic Sign Language)

• Development: Colorado New Play Summit, Magic Theatre New Play Festival, PlayPenn Conference, Sewannee Writers’ Conference

• Fellowships: Playwrights Realm, Drama League New Directors/New Works

• Honorable Mentions: FEWW Prize,
  The Kilroys List

• Finalist: O'Neill National Playwrights Conference

• Nomination: Venturous Award

Perilous & luminous in equal measure, ANOTHER KIND OF SILENCE tells the story of Evan & Chap – 2 already-partnered queer women who cross paths in modern-day Greece and find themselves falling in love. Through a landscape lush with language, myth, humor, and intimacy, we watch as their affected partnerships navigate the elusiveness of desire, the failures of communication, the challenges of long-term commitment, and the mysteries of a changing self. Bilingual & bicultural, ANOTHER KIND OF SILENCE unfolds simultaneously in English & American Sign Language (ASL) as the 4 characters & their 4 souls (a Greek Chorus) traverse one of the hardest chapters in committed relationships.

Thrive, or What You Will
[An Epic]

Ensemble of 6 or more
(5 W/GQ/NB, 1 M)

• Production: American Shakespeare Center

• Academic production: Binghamton University

• Development: Wilma Theatre, Page 73, InterAct Theatre, New Georges Audrey Residency

• Winner: Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries

• Honorable Mention: The Kilroys List

• Finalist: Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Drama, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference

Okay so this is a story about a gender-nonconforming 18th-century herb woman who’s trying to carve out a larger sense of space… and ends up on a journey around the world. Her name was Jeanne Baret, and nearly everything we know about her life comes from the journals of the men who knew her. An epic tale of historical fiction about our country's present moment, THRIVE blends the style and language of our past and present in order to interrogate the nature of "discovery" and its legacy, of (mis)categorizing the world, of species & survival, of power & access, of gender & identity, and of the subjective nature of both history & self. Funny, gripping, poignant, and wild, THRIVE wrestles with the loss of Jeanne's perspective and tries to imagine possibilities of what it may have been. And as Jeanne journeys and changes, so too does her casting – in this ensemble-driven quest of self-determination. Meanwhile, we watch Jeanne and her companion Commerson on their adventure – from meeting to parting – across lands & seas & 6,000 plants – in a voyage that is part love story, part Latin taxonomy, part feminist wrestling with historiography, and part surrender into awe itself and the universal need to flourish.

Sand and Sam

1 W / 2 M

• City Theatre National Award for Short Playwriting finalist

An older conservative rabbi tries to connect with a young queer artist who watches an Afro-Cuban gravedigger bury her grandfather in Miami.

Silences

1 W

• InterAct Theatre One-Act Festival

• Culture*Park Theatre

• New England Center for Circus Arts

Verbally and physically, a young woman shares with us three key moments of silence in her life.

Yawper on Balch Bridge

4 W / 1 M

• Heideman Award finalist

Four selves of the same woman at different ages try to navigate her life through… Youth. College. Feminism. Sexuality. Fantasy. Identity. Aging. Loss. Loneliness. Reflection. Choices. Memory. And the pursuit of happiness. 

The Seven Lovers of Bluehat Whistletop: A Children's Play for Adults

2 W

• Longing with Language: A Performance Smörgåsbord

• InspiraTO Festival

• terraNOVA Collective

A whimsical and fantastical take on the journey we travel to find love (and ourselves) after losing a partner.

The Coupling Heuristic: A Minuet

Ensemble of 3

• Drama League DirectorFest

• Estrogenius Festival

• Commission & Reading: Theater Emory

• Published: The Book of Estrogenius 2009

A poet and a computer programmer meet, click, date – and learn each other’s language as they endeavor to stay open to the intimacy that love creates.

Funny Story

1 W

• Flush Ink Productions

• Carlotta Festival

• Yale Cabaret

• Heideman Award finalist

A young woman delightedly shares with us a funny story from her past, and in the sharing of it comes to realize darker themes at play. A play about growing up female in a patriarchy.

When It Rains

(one-act)

2 W

• Performance: The Flea Theater

• Published: In Times of Disaster (Broadway Play Publishing)

An estranged mother visits her daughter in college in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Asteroid Belt

Ensemble of 3:  1 young woman / 2 parents (any gender)

• Multiple national productions

• Heideman Award finalist

• Published: Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing (Cengage Learning),
  Best American Short Plays 2006-2007 (Applause Books)

While two parents are up waiting for their teenage daughter to return home from rehearsal, she realizes that she’s inescapably about to be in a car crash. Time slows down. Thoughts and things happen.

Gumshoe

(full-length, interactive, immersive)

Ensemble of 6

• Production: New Paradise Laboratories

Gumshoe unites New Paradise Laboratories, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Rosenbach in a large-scale immersive performance experience. It’s an on-your-feet adventure in detection that will move between two exhibitions of rare detective literature at the two libraries, taking you deep into the mystery of Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue and the emergence of the detective novel. 

A roller coaster through public and non-public spaces, forgotten rooms and lost books, blending infiltration, disguise, and serendipity to identify the difference between fact, fiction and falsehood. 

War of the Worlds: Philadelphia

(full-length interactive game & theater performance)

Ensemble of 3

• Devised with Swim Pony and created in collaboration with the Drexel Entrepreneurial Game Studio

An intergalactic force of unknown origin called “The Forgetting” is infecting Philadelphia, causing citizens across the city to lose their memories. You are invited to join an exclusive team of terrestrial freedom fighters working to avoid a catastrophic future where our collective memory is lost. Explore the storied rooms of the Calvary Center for Culture and Community to unlock the secrets of this mysterious ‘alien’ disturbance. Join forces with your friends and neighborhoods to protect Philadelphia’s stories. This interactive game invites you to hear and share community stories, solve puzzles, and discover hidden histories.

And If You Lose Your Way,
or A Food Odyssey

(full-length)

Ensemble of 7

• Production: The Invisible Dog

• New York Innovative Theatre Award nomination

Devised with Pirronne Yousefzadeh, Nick Choksi, and the ensemble

A retelling of the story of Penelope and Odysseus (and their son, Telemachus), spanning from ancient Greece to 2015, taking us through their parting day, their twenty years apart, and their reunion – with food remaining as the emotional bridge between them. As the play progresses, the events in The Odyssey become metaphors for the evolution of our national food industry and food culture. Performed in the round, And If You Lose Your Way is an immersive, communal experience featuring original songs, audience games and participation, gems of improvisation, and an ongoing sharing of food, prepared by the actors throughout the course of the play and culminating in a feast shared by actors and audience alike. A theatrical experience that forges community and connects us to our shared history, our own childhoods, one another, and the ground itself.

Lady M

(full-length)

1 W / 1 M / and a Chorus of women & queers

• Production: Philadelphia Live Arts Festival / Swim Pony

Devised with director Adrienne Mackey

A radical, feminist adaptation of Macbeth through the eyes of Lady M and of the Witches, who know that the story is doomed to play out the same way every time, every performance, with every re-staging of this classic play, until the queen can see the circumstances that constrict her, the society that controls her, and dare to make a different choice that may at last change the outcome.

The Life and Works of JC as Told by the Heretics
(formerly The Apocryphal Project)

(60-70 mins)

Ensemble of 3

• Workshop production: Yale Cabaret

Devised with Michael Walkup, Brian Hastert, Carter Gill, and Alex Knox

With just a sandbox, a pole, a ladder, and 3 actors, this play weaves together the untold tales of the man named Jesus, the unexpected things he taught and shared, and the fate that befell the many uncanonized gospels that contained these gems. Through song, dance, movement, and text of all kinds, The Life and Works… celebrates the multiplicity of viewpoints and raises the questions of who gets to shape truth, and what gets lost in the shaping of it?

Now/Not Now
{a one-woman play with trapeze}

(35-40 mins)

1 W

• Performance: HOT! Festival at Dixon Place

Devised with Diana Y Greiner

An aerialist has a story to share. About her attack in NYC, and the injury to her brain, and the process of her brain slowly repairing itself, and the way her community rose to support her. And to help share this story, she has a trapeze.

Grey Gone and August

(20-25 mins [Grey Gone]; 35 mins [August])

1 W (and 1 accompanist optional)

• Performances throughout the U.S.

• Residency: Sewanee University of the South

Devised with Fay Simpson & Mike Donahue

Moving through all of the chakras of the human spirit, an outwardly timid, inwardly fierce woman named Claudia tries to manage the crises of raising children, and a flamboyant and traumatized man named August grapples with the complications of love.