c/o Patrick Herold
ICM
40 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
(212) 556-5782
Email:
pherold@icmtalent.com
Email:
newdramatists@newdramatists.org
John Belluso's plays include: A Nervous Smile (produced by the Actor's Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival of New Plays), The Body of Bourne (produced by the Mark Taper Forum), Henry Flamethrowa (produced by Trinity Repertory Company, Victory Gardens Theatre and Studio Dante), The Rules of Charity (produced by the Magic Theatre), Body Songs, created with legendary theatre director Joseph Chaikin (Eugene O'Neill Center/ NPC, workshopped at the NYSF /Public Theater), Gretty Good Time (produced by the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Perishable Theatre, Falcon Theatre , and by VSA arts at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts). Awards and Honors include a National Endowment for the Arts / Theatre Communications Group Playwright-in-Residence Grant for a residency at the Atlantic Theatre in New York, the AT&T On-Stage Award, the Mark Taper Forum's Sherwood Award, the VSA arts Playwright Discovery Award as well as grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Berrilla Kerr Foundation Award and honorable mention for the Kesselring Prize. In addition, from 1999 to 2005 he served as the Director of the Mark Taper Forum's Other Voices Project for Disabled Theatre Artists—one of the nation's only professional developmental labs for theatre artists with disabilities. Mr. Belluso received his Bachelors and Masters degrees from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing Program where he studied with Tony Kushner, John Guare, Tina Howe, and Eve Ensler, among others.
HENRY FLAMETHROWA
Full-length Drama
Single Set
2M, 1W
Loosely based on a true story, HENRY FLAMETHROWA tells the story of
sixteen-year-old Henry, a confused and emotionally isolated young man who
writes letters to the Devil, unbeknownst to his deeply religious father,
Steven. Henry’s younger sister Lilja lies silent in a coma from a
mysterious childhood accident in the family swimming pool. For a number of
years, Lilja has been visited by miracles. The sick have begun flocking to
this silent child’s bedside, praying to be healed, and hundreds claim that
their prayers have been answered because of Lilja. When a reporter from
NPR, Beth, comes into the house to do a story about Lilja and her
miracles, Henry opens up to her and confesses that he plans to disconnect
Lilja’s breathing ventilator and allow her to die. Beth must then decide
whether she should expose Henry’s plan. Along the way Beth must confront
her own assumptions about Faith, Spirituality, and the intrinsic value of
human life.
Trinity Repertory Company, World
Premiere (2001).
GRETTY GOOD TIME
Two-act Comedy/Drama
3M, 3W
Unit Set
Set in 1955, GRETTY GOOD TIME is a dark comedy that tells the story of
Gretty, 32, who has been forced to live her life in a nursing home after a
childhood bout with polio left her paralyzed. Gretty is visited in her
dreams by Hideko, a young Japanese woman whose face was disfigured in the
atomic bombing of Hiroshima. They climb onboard Gretty’s flying wheelchair
and soar backwards through time to confront the painful memories that
haunt them. Mixing historical fact, poetic flights of fancy, and an Epic
Theatre sensibility, GRETTY GOOD TIME explores contemporary issues through
the framework of a strong character journey.
“Gretty Myers is quite a character. As written by John Belluso…this
young woman is funny, flirtatious, sexy, sly, mischievous and mean. She’s
a good friend and a nasty enemy, who can charm you one second and turn on
you the next. Belluso’s talent for caustic humor and satire mingles in
these scene with his keen sense of the wellsprings of guilt and regret…Gretty
Myers is the riveting focus at the compassionate heart and thoughtful soul
of Belluso’s gripping Gretty Good Time which applies high drama and sharp
satire to questions of life and death and to dreams of altering the past.”
– New York Times
“In its themes of death and illness, Gretty shares some territory with
Margaret Edson’s Wit. But as sharp as Edson’s work is, Belluso’s textured
drama is in some respects the more complex piece. Belluso is a good
writer. His language is intelligent without being arch or overly clever.”
– Time Out New York
“Gretty Good Time has an important story to tell, one that is decidedly
not just about persons with disabilities. It can speak to us all about
creating our own freedom within whatever bonds hold us.” – The Providence
Journal
Workshopped at the Mark Taper
Forum’s 10th Annual New Work Festival. Produced by Ensemble Studio Theatre
in NY and Perishable Theatre in Providence.
THE BODY OF BOURNE
Two-act Comedy/Drama
3M, 3W
Varied Set
Set against the background of the cultural renaissance of the early 1900s,
THE BODY OF BOURNE examines the life of Randolph Sillman Bourne, a writer,
social critic, and disabled man, whose short but meaningful life was
forever affected by his physical disabilities. His face and ear were
twisted and deformed from a difficult birth, and he suffered from a bout
of spinal tuberculosis at the age of four, which added to his physical
difference by leaving his body dwarfed and hunchbacked. Through dramatized
scenes, personal letters, essays, and the classical music Bourne played,
we see the picture of a man firmly committed to progressive ideas, the
multi-cultural potential of America, and the vital need for society to
understand the experience of the disabled.
Workshopped at the Mark Taper
Forum’s 12th annual New Works Festival, directed by Lisa Peterson. World
Premiere production May 2001, Mark Taper Forum.
THE RULES OF CHARITY
Two-act Comedy/Drama
3M, 2W
Single Set
Loretta thinks she is a machine. Her father Monty seeks independence and
a place in History. Will Loretta learn the secret she needs to hear?
Will Monty forgive her for a slap across the face that broke the rules?
A play about the body, love, and contradiction.
Staged reading at the Trinity Rep
1999 Providence New Play Festival, directed by Oskar Eustis.
TRAVELING SKIN
Comedy/ Drama
4M, 2W
Unit Set
The world of early twentieth-century freak shows and late
twentieth-century New Jersey converge to tell the story of Tam, a
disabled young woman living in New Jersey and working as a waitress in a
diner. Tam has cerebral palsy and struggles to make ends meet with the
money she makes at the diner and the small amount she collects from
Social Security. The diner is owned by Jerry, a handsome and athletic
man, who is also Tam’s current lover. Things take a complicated turn
when Tam’s ex-lover, a woman named JJ, shows up at the diner to renew
the relationship they once shared. JJ accuses Tam of settling into a
relationship with Jerry at the expense her independent spirit. The play
juxtaposes Tam’s story with the stories of various people exhibited in
“freak shows”—Ella Harper (a.k.a. The Camel Girl), Chang and Eng Bunker
(the original Siamese twins), and Marrineli the Man-Snake—in an effort
to dramatize two different cultural moments in the history of people
with disabilities and to unravel the socio-political fabric of these
complicated periods.