playS
Plays available upon request.
THE MALL THE MALL THE MALL
5 actors minimum, 12 actors maximum - Mid Length (1 hour)
NAOMI: I don’t know who I am unless I’m broadcasting it to the world. That’s what it means to love something. People will see me, and they will say, “She loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
Kandace Mack as Viv, Danny Gadaj as Ricky. Photo by Rose Johnson. Directed by Eli Newell.
Best friends Naomi, Viv, and Charlie spend Friday nights at The Mall. When their beloved Hot Topic is robbed of all its Buffy the Vampire Slayer merch, they go on a quest to save their beloved mall. The besties must fight their way through Bath & Body Works, The Apple Store, Hollister, Build-a-Bear, and more to restore balance and rid the world of Fake Fans.
THE MALL THE MALL THE MALL is a love letter to mid-2000s culture, finding yourself at The Mall, and Pokémon trivia.
THE MALL THE MALL THE MALL had its world premiere in a four-week run as a part of Chicago’s ONCE AND FUTURE FESTIVAL.
THE MALL THE MALL THE MALL was directed by Eli Newell and starred Emily Zhang as Naomi, Kandace Mack as Viv, Andrew Cawley as Charlie, Danny Gadaj as Dennis (et al), and Haley Bolithon as Sylvia (et al). Set design and photo credits by Rose Johnson, costumes by Grace Barry, lighting design by Josiah Croegaert, sound design by Alex Levatter, and stage managed by Michal Brankin.
THE MALL, THE MALL, THE MALL has since been performed by Northwestern University’s National High School Institute Cherubs Program under the direction of Julianne Lang.
Emily Zhang as Naomi, Haley Bolithon as Jeanineiffer, Kandace Mack as Viv, Andrew Cawley as Charlie. Photo by Rose Johnson. Directed by Eli Newell.
THE SITUATION IS GETTING WORSE
6 actors - Full Length (2 hours)
MONICA: I always feel like someone is trying to shove a sock down my throat. The situation is getting worse, and I just wish we could go back to Cowmoss City.
The three Boeden sisters and their little brother live on a struggling corn farm with their parents. When their corn starts turning purple and their parents are microwaved in an accident at the Nuclearcoalpowerminefactoryplant, the now-orphaned Boeden siblings must keep a happy home by themselves.
Years pass, and new family members are added to the tiny farmhouse: a horny poet- boyfriend, a passive aggressive sister-in-law, and an incorrigible baby who might be an actual banshee. With a decaying earth, suicidal livestock, and no goddamn peace and quiet, the Boeden family must fight, perhaps in vain, to keep their heads above water.
Original art by the incredible Jake Freund.
The WOODS DECAY
5 actors - Full length (120 minutes)
Sinclair Daniel as Maya, Kadence Neill as Liz, and Jeffrey Brabant as Wes. Directed by Jack Serio.
ALICIA: What if I leave without having held everyone, without having told them how much they mean to me. How will they know they were everything, they were the point of being here at all?
Shira can't stop sexting.
Liz won't loosen her grip.
Maya needs answers.
Alicia needs to move on, but Wes won’t let her.
After their father’s death, Alicia, Shira, and Liz adapt to loss and learn to move on in three surprisingly human ways. A moving portrait of three sisters on the precipice of loss, change, and recovery, The Woods Decay is a shattering account of the way we grieve in the age of technology. Grief has many faces, and some may look familiar.
Mickey Galvin as Maya, Kadence Neill as Liz, and Helene Estes as Shira. Directed by Jack Serio.
The Woods Decay received a developmental production from Playwrights Downtown in 2019, directed by Jack Serio, and starring Sinclair Daniel, Jeffrey Brabant, Mickey Galvin, Kadence Neill, and Helene Estes. The set design was by Benjamin Pitt; the costume design was by Avery Reed (Ricky Reynoso, assistant); the lighting design was by Chris D’Angelo; the sound design was by Renee Yeong (Madeline Park, assistant); the projection design was by Madeline Park. The production was stage managed by Lizzy Blum. Special thanks to Christopher Oscar Peña for his mentorship.
The SUN CLUB
12 actors - Full length (90 minutes)
FAIRY: I’ve been meaning to talk to you about a new position open in the department
PEYTON: The department of fairies?
FAIRY: Yes. There is a new position open and I think you’d be perfect for it. It’s called The Best Little Boy in the Whole Entire World!
Jose Pelegri and Issac Lopez as Sexy Man in a Dog Costume and Peyton, respectively. Photo by Daniel Bedoya. Directed by Alex Bush.
Thea wants to get into a good college and needs better test scores. Peyton wants to escape bullying at his Jr. High by graduating into a private school (or as his Mom calls it, a “better school”).
As exam day approaches, the pressure mounts, and Thea and Peyton find themselves sacrificing relationships and their own wellbeing for better grades. Thea and Peyton’s separate yet shared stress nightmares get worse, and reality begins to warp. Thea begins to see a massive chorus of jazzercize-obssesed-80s-music-fanatics, and Peyton can’t escape the “fairy for the fairies” and her pet-human-in-a-leather-dog-costume. To make things more stressful, Thea’s sister is a witch, the school’s guidance counselor is off her rocker, and Peyton starts sexting a boy.
Exam day arrives, and the border between the tangible and the hallucinatory is no longer clear. How can you take an entrance exam when visions trigged by stress are playing “Faithfully” by Journey right in your ear? Our heroes take their respective tests despite the distractions, but after the test ends, there’s no “real world” to come home to.
Sinclair Daniel (foreground) as Thea. In background, from left to right: Mikey Fiocco, Michelle Kariuki, Declan Zhang, Char Nakashima-Conway, Rachel Keteyian, Lizzy Gesensway. Photo by Daniel Bedoya. Directed by Alex Bush.
In the end, Peyton and Thea’s hard work pays off, but getting what they want might have been a fool’s errand all along.
The Sun Club was written in the NYU Tisch London playwriting program is association with the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. The Sun Club was given a reading at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London in 2016, and then a production at Dixon Place in 2019, directed by Alex Bush and produced by Daniel Bedoya.
Photography by Daniel Bedoya.
PSYCHOTROPIC
2 actors of any gender - Full Length (80 minutes)
ZACH: They named the Hurricane after Jessica Chastain?
LARA: Yeah. They ran out of regular names so they had to start using celebrities.
PSYCHOTROPIC tells the story of two actors in a rehearsal room trying to make a play about climate change. Motivated to make a difference, the performers discuss possible ways to build a show that will inspire action without being too preachy. As their attempts prove more absurd and ultimately feeble, they begin to question whether or not it's possible to "tell a story" about a topic as existential as climate change using the medium of theater. As their chipper resolves fade, the world around them begins to blur. What starts as a benign rehearsal escalates into a madhouse series of transformations.
PSYCHOTROPIC was commissioned by The Meisner Studio as a part of their Lab program. The play was developed with director Fritz Ertl and actors Dean Scotti and Lauren Greenlees. The play received two staged readings on consecutive evenings at The Meisner Studio in May 2019. PSYCHOTROPIC continued in development with Iris Dukatt and An-Li Bogan.
PSYCHOTROPIC had its first full production in the summer of 2022 at RoleCall Theater in Atlanta. Directed by Maddy Roberts and starring Roz Sullivan-Lovett and Alexa Lauren.
JEWDOG
6-8 actors - Full Length (80 minutes)
JARED: It’s a children’s book about a dog named Shmuley the Retriever. Shmuley just wants to play baseball with all the other kids, but they won’t let him play because he’s a dog.
KRIS: Wait, I thought they wouldn’t let him play because he’s Jewish?
Jared is a successful author of children's literature, but now he wants to write a picture book about antisemitism. His book centers around Shmuley, a cartoon golden retriever who only wants to play baseball. Jared’s family, friends, and Jewish community are less excited about his project than he'd hoped. Ever the stubborn artist, Jared develops an obsession with Shmuley, and it transforms him beyond recognition.
RAVENOUS
2 actors - Short play (40 minutes)
PORTIA: I thought you were scared…
TAMARA: I was, but now I’m angry, and I want to hit this bird with a broom.
Ravenous is a short spooky play in a series of one-act Edgar Allan Poe plays. It features flying menaces, jelly sandwiches, and piles and piles and piles of books. Ravenous was produced as a part of the Proformer Festival at Playwrights Horizons Theater School and was later given a reading at Book Culture as a part of their Upstairs Reading Series. The production was directed by JB Douglas, and the reading was directed by Sarah Cook.
From Left to Right: Nile Assata Harris, Miranda Lichtman. Lighting by Katherine Craig, costumes by Queen Tiye-Akamefula, set by JB Douglas.
ALL THE JUNK IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD (AND THE KIDS WHO SORT THROUGH IT)
10 actors - Full length
Book by Philip Kenner, Music and Lyrics by Laura Galindo
“When the chaos dies down after someone graduates tomorrow, we’ll still be here, incinerating away. Milly will do her thing, I’ll do mine. Synergy, I think. That’s a word right? Synergy?”
There is no world outside the warehouse. There is only the Process of Practical RePurposing, the incinerator, and your friends, but everyone is getting older and someone has to leave. What else can you do but Rock the System? All the Junk…. is a full-length musical about imagination, climate change, and inheriting a world that might not hold you. All the Junk in the Whole Wide World and the Kids Who Sort Through It was conceived and developed as a part of a two week inaugural intensive organized by The Musical Project. The initial workshop went up in January of 2017 and was directed by Alex Bush. The book was cowritten by Philip Kenner, Kieran Graulich, and Laura Galindo. All the Junk was programmed by Clubbed Thumb and Playwrights Downtown in their 2017-2018 Mainstage season where a new full length version was created with a book by Philip Kenner and music and lyrics by Laura Galindo. The full-length production was also directed by Alex Bush.
From Left to Right: Adam McDonald, Evie Brandford-Altscher, Dylan Tashjian, Chi-Wen Chang, Rae Bryan, Brenna Donahue, Issac Lopez, Emma Schwartz, Talia Oliveras, Noah Burgess. Lighting by Alexa King, costumes by Ben Stevenson, set by Karma Masselli.
HADES & GEHENNA
8 actors - Full length
YAEL: I cried. I wanted to beat the sky. I wanted to prove I could make more water.
Hades & Gehenna is a new American myth set in Boise City, Oklahoma, in 1932. The play follows a chosen family made of farmers, orphans, caretakers, artists, and spirits. As dust storms consume their livelihood, the family must choose between unity and survival. Inspired by the photography of Dorothea Lange and the music of Brandi Carlile, Hades & Gehenna looks to our past to wrestle with the manmade environmental crisis of our present.
The script is currently in development.
Photo by Dorothea Lange