c/o Sarah Jane Leigh
International Creative Management
40 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
(212) 556-5636
(212) 556-5634 fax
Email:
newdramatists@newdramatists.org
- BREATH, BOOM
- FORCE CONTINUUM
- THE VENUS DE MILO IS ARMED
- SLIDE GLIDE THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
- SNAPSHOT SILHOUETTE
- SAFE BOX
- SOMNIA
- DIGGING ELEVEN
- SPLASH HATCH ON THE E GOING DOWN
- SEEKING THE GENESIS
- LIGHT RAISE THE ROOF
- ANCHOR ARIA
- SWEAT
- LIFE BY ASPHYXIATION
- WAKE UP LOU RISER
- CAGE RHYTHM
- CATNAP ALLEGIANCE
- COME DOWN BURNING
- UP
- SUCKLING CHIMERA
- 7-11
- FORBEAR STAR
BREATH, BOOM
Two-act Drama 1M: Black; 8W: 7 Black (19 Characters Doubled)
Multiple Locations
14 years in the life of Prix: fireworks connoisseur and understated,
ruthless leader of a New York girls’ gang. The play follows her through
periodic prison bouts, a loss of power under a new youthful leadership,
and ultimately “retirement” at 30.
Playwrights Horizons (2001); Royal
Court Theatre, London (2000); Yale Repertory Theatre (2002); Huntington
Theatre Company (2003); Commissioned by the Royal Court Theatre.
FORCE CONTINUUM
Two-act Drama 7 M: 5 Black, Including 1 Child; 2W: Both Black (29
Characters Doubled)
Multiple Locations
Dece, a 24-year-old black NYPD officer, lives with his grandfather, a
retired cop, and with pictures of his deceased parents, both cops. Dece
struggles with philosophical questions, like the paradox of being black
and an officer, and what it means to be a police officer. Along this path,
which encompasses flashbacks of his grandfather’s life on the force,
Dece’s world unexpectedly, and pivotally, crashes into that of Dray, a
black teenage victim of police brutality.
Atlantic Theatre Company (2001).
Commissioned by Atlantic Theatre Company.
THE VENUS DE MILO IS ARMED
Two-act Drama 3M: All Black; 5W: All Black, Including 1 Child
Unit Set
A quirky, bourgeois black family hosts a reunion, and bizarre things begin
to happen: a homeless man missing part of an appendage suddenly appears at
the family’s doorstep–-turns out to be the 30-year-old son who has not
been seen since his landmine injury in the Gulf War. And meanwhile, their
28-year-old stay-at-home, good-girl daughter is somehow implicated in a
string of landmine explosions in the U.S.
Alabama Shakespeare Festival (2003).
Commissioned by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.
SLIDE GLIDE THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
Two-act Drama 1M: A Black Child; 4W: Black, Including 1 child
Multiple Locations
Two 35-year-old identical twin sisters meet for the first time, and it’s a
rocky beginning. Erm is a web-connected loner on a farm and an authority
on everything, including human cloning. This is just what childless,
city-girl Elo is yearning for. Dead offspring and talking sheep are along
for the journey.
Actors Theatre of Louisville, Humana
Festival (2003); Mark Taper Forum (2003). Commissioned by the Mark Taper
Forum.
SNAPSHOT SILHOUETTE
Two-act Drama
Multiple Locations 1M: Black; 6W: 5 Black, Including two 12-year-olds and
a 5-year-old; 1 White (About 21 characters Doubled)
Two 12-year-old girls, one a Somali immigrant who lost her younger sister
to starvation, the other an African-American who lost her older sister to
street violence, cross cultural and emotional boundaries in search of
common ground.
The Children’s Theatre Company
(2004). Commissioned by The Children’s Theatre Company.
SAFE BOX
10-minute Drama 1W (Black)
Unit Set
Rame has kidnapped Spurl and locked him in the other room. She destroys
pages of her journals and wrestles a prosthetic breast from her dog. In
her living room she has built a safe box–carcinogen free–to protect her
expectant baby from the cancer that killed her young daughter. But her own
tumors are back: tonight she’s putting an end to it.
Goodman Theatre (1999); Signature
Theatre Company (2001). Commissioned by Regina Taylor and the Goodman
Theatre.
SOMNIA
10-minute Drama 2W: Arab; 2M: Arab, Including 1 Child
Unit Set
In a Basra hospital, an Iraqi mother who has lost two small sons and a
husband to the Persian Gulf War and its ramifications waits with an ill
daughter, a hyper son and a math-brilliant teen brother.
Refuse ’n’ Resist’s IMAGINE: IRAQ,
Cooper Union (2001).
DIGGING ELEVEN
Two-act Drama 3M: All Black; 3W: All Black, Including 1 Child
Unit Set
Twelve-year-old Ness struggles to maintain her relationship with her
25-year-old brother Io, who is too exhausted from his factory work to pay
attention to her. Io struggles with the demands of his job and the
increasing dissatisfaction of his co-workers, including family friend
Carter (Io’s secret lover, married to a woman, a family friend). Ness, as
a girl growing into her womanhood, also struggles to preserve what little
lucidity is left in her only female family role model, her grandmother.
Hartford Stage Company (1999).
Commissioned by Second Stage Theatre.
SPLASH HATCH ON THE E GOING
DOWN
Two-act Drama 2M: Both Black; 4W: All Black
Multiple Locations
The protagonist is a very bright, pregnant 15-year-old in Harlem living
with her parents and her 18-year-old husband. Though Thyme can cajole her
best friend, also 15 and pregnant, into getting into the tub with her so
she can experiment with water birth techniques, her encyclopedic knowledge
of environmental racism (Thyme's latest social-academic obsession)
tragically does not provide her with the emotional tools necessary to
witness her husband's rapid health deterioration by lead poisoning.
Donmar Theatre Warehouse, London
(1999); Yale Repertory Theatre (1998); Center Stage, Baltimore (1997); New
York Stage and Film (1997)
SEEKING THE GENESIS
Two-act Drama 6M: 4 Black, Including 1 Child, 2 White – May Be Doubled;
4W: All Black, 1 Child
Multiple Locations
A mother of two sons—one, a hyperactive child, the other, a teenager
involved in gang violence—is confronted by members of the community, who
claim that violence may be genetic. The mother struggles with the truth of
the claim, along with the task of preventing the younger son from choosing
his brother's path. The older son, meanwhile, undergoes monumental changes
that challenge him to reexamine the direction of his own life.
Manhattan Theatre Club (1997);
Goodman Theatre (1996). Commissioned by the Goodman Theatre.
LIGHT RAISE THE ROOF
Two-act Drama
Multiple Locations 23 Characters (could be portrayed by 11 actors,
possibly less):
5M: 3 Black, 2 White; 6W: 2 Black, 1 Asian, 1 White, 1 Woman of Any Race,
and 1 Black Child.
Cole, a homeless man who builds homes for other homeless people, ventures
down into the subway looking for help from an old friend. He runs into a
Vietnamese woman who was once an active spokesperson for the homeless.
Cole is disturbed by the fact that overworked and exhausted, he built a
slipshod home (which later crumbles with the help of the cops) for a young
man newly expelled from an institution for the mentally ill. Cole’s
energies are directed toward finding a young man and renovating an old
abandoned school into apartments for the homeless.
New York Theatre Workshop (2004).
Commissioned by the Manhattan Theatre Club through an NEA/TCG residency
grant.
ANCHOR ARIA
10-minute Drama 1W (Black or Asian)
Unit Set
A twenty-year-old in a tuberculosis-induced delirium explodes with the
weight of her struggle as a black-Chinese woman in 1920.
Ma-Yi Theatre Company (2001); Mark
Taper Forum Square Project (1997). Commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum.
SWEAT
30-minute Radio Drama 3W: Black; 4M: Black
1920s Florida. Adaptation of the Zora Neale Hurston short story about the
relationship between a brutish husband and a Christian wife’s redemption.
The Public Media Foundation, Boston
(2002). Commissioned by the Public Media Foundation.
LIFE BY ASPHYXIATION
Full-length One-act Drama in 13 scenes
Unit Set 5M: 3 Black, 1 Native American, and 1 White; 2W: 1 Black, 1 White
Jojo has been on death row for 31 years. Now his number's almost up.
Before he goes, he watches his two new neighbors, Crazy Horse and Nat
Turner, walk their last miles. His loneliness is assuaged somewhat by
Andy, the prison guard and Jojo's best friend, and Katie, the teenager
whom Jojo had raped and murdered—a frequent visitor to Jojo's cell all
these years.
Playwrights Horizons (1995).
WAKE UP LOU RISER
Full-length Drama in Four Scenes
Multiple Locations 4M: 1 Black, 3 White; 6W: 4 Black, Including 1 Child;
2 White, Including 1 Child
A family of young black siblings in contemporary America challenge the Ku
Klux Klan, and lose. Four sisters (ages 12-24), vow revenge by donning
black Klan robes, kidnapping the man they believe to be responsible for
their brother's death, and preparing to lynch him. As the man stands on
the chair, noose 'round his neck, however, the girls suddenly are
uncertain—terrified they may have the wrong man.
Delaware Theatre Company (1996);
Circle Repertory Company Lab (1992).
CAGE RHYTHM
One-act Drama in Twenty scenes
Unit Set 7W: 5 Black, Including 1 Child, 2 Black or Non-Black (14
Characters, 10 Women and 4 Children, That Are Doubled.)
Incarcerated women in a U.S. prison dealing with the humiliation, violence
and monotony, find various ways "out," including physical love, rhyming,
and astral projection.
Sightlines Theater Company/The Point
(2001); Long Wharf Theatre (1993).
CATNAP ALLEGIANCE
Two-act Drama
Multiple Locations 5M: 3 Black, 2 White; 1W: Black; 4 Others: Doubled
Roles, Race and Sex May Vary
Scenes of a young Gulf War soldier's struggles: in the desert battling
racism and morality and at home dealing with his bitter Vietnam veteran
father.
Commissioned by Manhattan Theatre
Club through a Van Lier Fellowship.
COME DOWN BURNING
Intermissionless Drama in Seven Scenes 1M: a Black Child; 4W: All
Black, Including 1 Child
Unit Set
A childhood accident left Skoolie paralyzed below the waist, but using her
flat cart, she is quite able to get around her renovated shack. She
supports herself as a hairdresser, but out of necessity has recently
returned to her former profession: coat hanger abortionist.
American Place Theatre (1993); Long
Wharf Theatre (1993).
UP
10-minute Drama 4W, Including 1 Child: All Black
Flexible Unit Set
Tem, tourist from NYC, visits the Watts Towers and is given a private tour
by Koli, who knows everything about the towers, including how to scale
them; she demonstrates this for him as her bright 10-year-old, Shay,
observes. Tem returns eight years later, after the Northridge ’quake.
There are many changes: the towers are covered in scaffolding; 18-year-old
Shay, injured in the disaster, is slower mentally; and Koli no longer
climbs.
Audrey Skirball-Kenis Theatre Projects (2000). Commissioned by Audrey
Skirball-Kenis Theatre Projects.
SUCKLING CHIMERA
30-minute Radio Drama 3M: 1 Black, 1 White, 1 Native American Child;
2W: 1 Native American, 1 Black
1890: The growing tender relationship between a young black soldier, who
joined the military for “adventure,” and a Lakota teenage girl.
WNYC, NY and nationally syndicated
(1998). Co-commissioned by National Public Radio and The Public Theater.
7-11
10-minute Drama 2 M: 1 Black, 1 Arab; 1 W; 1 Other of Either Sex
Unit Set
Just after 9/11, an Iraqi-American arrested on dubious charges shares a
prison cell with a black American.
Brave New World Project at Town Hall
(2002).
FORBEAR STAR
Two act Drama 5 M; 3 W; 2 Girls, 1 Black, 1 Asian, Requires Some
Doubling of Arabs with Blacks
From 1934 when Ida was a child and her father a leader of a black union,
through her career in the ‘50s as a star performer until her downfall in
the Red Scare, to the present, fall 2001, living her grandson Carm in New
York. Carm’s girlfriend is Palestinian, and her immigrant parents
mysteriously disappear after 9/11.
Commissioned by the Royal Court
Theatre.