Karl Gajdusek
c/o Val Day
William Morris Agency
1325 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10019
(212) 903-1192
(212) 632-1286 fax
Email: VDay@wma.com
Email:
newdramatists@newdramatists.org
Karl's Web: http://www.karlgaj.com/THEATRE/
Karl Gajdusek was born in San Francisco and now lives in San Diego with his wife and son. He writes plays, screenplays and television. He has taught Playwriting at San Francisco’s School of the Arts, U.C.S.D., ISOMATA, and The Playwrights’ Center. B.A. in Literature from Yale University, member of Annex Theatre in Seattle, M.F.A. in Playwriting from the University of California at San Diego. Karl’s plays include Fubar, Fair Game, Silverlake, Minneapolis, Dr.S F.S in the Terminal Ward, Big Sun Setting Fast, The Gilded Garden of Patcheww, Malibu, and Waco, Texas, Mon Amour. Screenplays include Higher, 9 Days Wonder, Widow’s Walk, Reunion, Wonderman, The Next Best Thing (not the one with Madonna), and the independent film 58, which he wrote and directed. Story Editor for the Showtime show DEAD LIKE ME. He founded the script publication service Big Sun Publication. He is the recipient of the 1991 Jacob K. Javits fellowship, 1996-97 & 1998-99 Jerome Fellowships, the 1997 McKnight Screenwriting Fellowship, and the 2000 MAG fellowship. When not writing for the theatre, Karl spends his time surfing So Cal breaks, writing movies for pro wrestlers, and lovingly changing diapers.
FUBAR
Comic Drama
3M/2W
Multiple settings/Naturalistic
Mary and David, living amidst the boxes her abused mother left behind,
unpacking this small San Francisco apartment while outside, people
self-actualize like crazy. When Mary herself is the victim of an
unprovoked act of violence, it leads the two of them down different
paths of addiction and realization, one to the violence itself, one to
the abuse of cat tranquilizers. Meanwhile, Richard is a benevolent drug
dealer working on his book while Sylvia wants to use the internet to
double her life. Four people trying to recognize the people they have
become in a time that’s totally F.U.B.A.R.
FAIR GAME
Realistic Drama
2M, 3W
Dual settings/Naturalistic
Who is to be most admired, the person who cleanses themselves of
compromise and hypocrisy or the person who dives into the whole
corrupted world of politics and somehow comes out the other side having
done something good? As a political mother runs for the highest office
in the land, her teacher son falls into scandal through an inappropriate
student relationship. At the hands of the whirling campaign manager, the
scandal is turned to the good of the campaign’s polling through a hasty
marriage. But at what cost to the candidate? Finally, the opponents meet
in a show-down between what a person believes, and how a person can say
it. Fair Game attempts to show the best and the worst of a world where
every act of right or wrong can be turned into its opposite.
“Gajdusek’s political thriller examines
the seductive pull of politics that lures well-meaning candidates into a
downward spiral of compromises, white lies, bluster and brinksmanship
that passes for strategic planning and sincerity. It’s wickedly funny,
smart and as up-to-date as last night’s “Crossfire” conflict.”—Pittsbugh
Tribune
“Clear, smart and contemporary, alert to important ideas but eager to
tell a good story.”—Pittsburgh Post Gazette
SILVERLAKE
Realistic Drama
2M, 2W
Single Room/Naturalistic
The Pool. The Drinks. Chinese Food. From sunset to sunrise, in a house
lost among the hills of Los Angeles. SILVERLAKE tracks four people over
one dark night. Old and new love is the subject of the exploration as two
couples mismatched in age and experience survive a night of turning tables
and unexpected truths. Set against a background of the glare of Hollywood
money, where the rewards and sacrifices are instant and giant, SILVERLAKE
is a very human play about people pushing each other to their limits. Do
we ever escape our first loves? Does money really change everything? In a
place where illusion is a precious commodity, how do we tell the truth?
"In the same way that Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
forced us to confront America's illusions and realities in the late 20th
century, Karl Gajdusek's Silver Lake is a brilliant reflection of that
same struggle moved into a technology enhanced lotus land of huge money
and vicious manipulation." – KMSP Minneapolis
"Linguistically rich, structurally tight…it heralds the arrival of a major
playwriting talent in the American theater." – Minneapolis Star Tribune
The Jungle Theatre, Minneapolis, MN (2000).
MINNEAPOLIS
Environmental Dark Comedy
6M, 4W
Environmental Set
In the last cold days before the snow, Christin Strange is getting married
to All-American Chad because he has promised to take her away. The wedding
is hosted by a mail-order pastor and best-selling author Robert DeLange.
Jack and Jeannie Strange prepare for their daughter's wedding. Christian
winds up on the upper level of the Mall of America parking garage and Chad
has fallen love with the elderly Jewish woman who lives down the block.
Down by the tracks, the kids who live there are hanging out. Mary, their
leader, has found an alien object. In the elderly Jewish home, Ruth and
Avi Rosenthal are tucked into their memories of a child lost in the war.
By the end, there are three new families. Extraordinary families that
shouldn't work, but do.
Readings at The Playwrights Center, Minneapolis, MN; Bottom's Dream,
Los Angeles, CA.
WE ANIMALS ARE
Poetic Drama
2M, 2W
Spare, Suggested Set
Two simultaneous stories of love and loss. Two couples are tracked through
vastly different experiences: a 20-year relationship through friendship,
love, and death, and a 3-month whirlwind of romance and separation.
Meanwhile, a lone wolf strays into civilization and is struck down by a
car.
A celebration, and a dirge in language and character, for the impossible
situation of modern love. The play uses stream-of-consciousness dialogue
alternated with natural moments to tell its simple and small story.
Readings at The Playwrights' Center, Minneapolis, MN; Undermaine
Theatre, Dallas, TX.
MALIBU
Dark Comedy
5M, 4W, 1 young woman
Environmental/Several Suggested Spaces
ONE: DARKNESS. Richard Nixon, kinky sex, executions. High powered
corporate births. We meet a group of people frantically holding on to
memories of what were. Richard Nixon has died -- will we now be free?
TWO: SMOKE. A long Chekhovian scene on the porch of a well-to-do lady from
an earlier play (Judy). Characters wait for the next thing. People
rearrange their love patterns, break old connections and try new, equally
dissatisfying relationships. A gunman attacks, art is uneventfully
revealed. Annie takes what is rightfully hers. Eddie is taunted until
violence is the only answer.
THREE: CLEAR AIR. What happens after the apocalypse? New, cleaner, meaner
people. The only hope left is either through Jonathan climbing the great
tower toward the new planet or Chris going into the valley.
Annex Theatre, Seattle, WA (1996); Soho Rep, New York, NY (1995).
WACO, TEXAS, MON AMOUR
Surreal Drama/Dark Political Comedy
3M, 3W
Single Room and Suggested Other Locations
WACO, TEXAS, MON AMOUR:
Is about the reasons for radical isolation, both personal and political.
Is about a mother and a daughter who can't see eye to eye.
Is about government conspiracies.
Is about the personal act of taking control of one's life, by any means
necessary and at any cost.
Is about what it feels like to be in Texas when it's hot.
Is about kids these days.
Is about how we destroy the thing we love.
Is about how the police do not mean you well.
Is about the power of making things up.
Is about family.
Is about total compassion for people we do not understand.
HERE, (Clubbed Thumb) New York, NY (1997); The University of California
at San Diego, in the Madell Weiss Forum Theatre (1994).
THE GILDED GARDEN OF PATCHEWW
Mythical Drama
2M, 2W, 1 young adult
Multiple areas suggested. A Mythic Garden.
A woman witnesses a terrible act of senseless violence and sets out to
raise a child immune to such tendencies. In her magical garden she
attempts to grow a boy with no violence in him. Judy, a modern and lonely
woman is her friend. Mark may be psychotic, but these days you can't be
choosy. In and around the story strides the alternatingly burly and
devious SamthemanSam.
THE GILDED GARDEN OF PATCHEWW is a play of earthy tones and dark places. A
journey through language and some of the darker sides of sensuality.
Half-in and half-out of the stream-of-consciousness of the principle
character, DelilahDelilahDedalus. THE GILDED GARDEN…is a story of the
limits of what we will do for companionship.
The Underground Company, New York, NY (1993); Annex Theatre, Seattle,
WA (1994); UCSD New Play Showcase, San Diego, CA (1993).
DR.S F.S. IN THE TERMINAL WARD
Postmodern Mythic Comedy
2M, 3W
From Bare Stage to Surreal Landscape
A wildly enthusiastic play which attempts to dramatize the theories of a
somewhat-known critic and primate researcher named Donna Haraway. Her
essay entitled "A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and
Socialist Feminism in the 1980's" is the foundation for this play, which
introduces Mary and Percy Shelly, Frankenstein and his monster, Helen of
Troy, and a host of evil government agents. A no-holds-bar dive into
postmodern pastiche and poetry, with huge language and games of history
culminating in a great victory of resistance. Mary Shelly literally walks
off into the sunset.
The Fritz Theatre, San Diego, CA (1994); Annex Theatre, Seattle, WA
(1992); The Trumbull Dramat at Yale University, New Haven, CT (1992); UCSD
New Plays Showcase, San Diego, CA (1991).