Melissa
James Gibson
c/o George Lane
George Lane
Creative Artists Agency
162 Fifth Avenue, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10010
Phone: (212) 277-9000
Fax: (212) 277-9099
Agent Email:
GLaneAsst@caa.com
Email:
newdramatists@newdramatists.org
[sic]
Two-act Comedy, 100 Minutes
2M, 1W
Unit Set
Three, young urban-failures navigate the slippery allegiances of their
triangular friendship. Babette, a frustrated editor, Theo, a terribly
blocked, classically-trained composer and Frank, a tongue-tied auctioneer,
share a world of quicksand needs and fickle urges, where there exists a
vast landscape between what is intended and what is construed, and where
ordering Chinese food is a deeply complicated matter.
Commissioned by Steppenwolf Theatre Company (1997); Workshop, Soho Rep
(1999); Production, Roadworks Productions, Chicago (2000); Production,
Soho Rep (2001). OBIE Award. Kesserling Prize. Published by Faber and
Faber and Dramatists Play Service.
or those that resemble flies from a
distance
One-act Comedy/75 minutes
2W, 2M
Unit Set
The boyfriends of two Ph.D. candidates are trying to talk their way into
the women’s apartments. In both the negotiation for access, however, and
the handling of two sets of found objects—film and cassette tapes—all four
of the play’s characters set up and subvert narrative in ways that reflect
human experience; the narratives are multiple, they digress, and, most of
all, operate at the behest of contradictory impulses. Or, to put it
another way: dissertations go nowhere; objects get found; boyfriends won’t
get lost.
Workshop, Soho Rep (2003). Production, Soho Rep (2004).
BROOKLYN BRIDGE
Music by Barbara Brousal
Two-act Children’s Play, Serio-Comedy, 90 Minutes
3W, 2M, 3 Musicians
Unit Set
Sasha is a latchkey kid living in Brooklyn, an only child whose single-mom
mother works long hours. Sasha is also an inveterate procrastinator, and
while she knows more than a ten-year-old has any business knowing about
the Brooklyn Bridge, the subject of her fifth grade research paper, she
has not begun to write. When the search for a writing implement impels
Sasha to knock on the apartment door of the neighbor she’s never met, she
effectively embarks on a journey—through both the architecture of her
building and the nature of kindness.
Commissioned by The Children’s Theatre Company / New Dramatists
Playground Program (2001).
GIVEN FISH
Two-act Serio-Comedy, 100 Minutes
3M, 3W
Flexible Set
A play with a film-within-a-play*, GIVEN FISH traces the crossed paths of
eleven players through two genres. A woman watches a rough-cut film on her
VCR inside an apartment in present day New York City. Set in Newfoundland,
1941, the film follows the chance entanglement of a man and a fishmonger
family over the course of several years. Meanwhile, back in New York, a
set of quasi-artistic twins are hired to participate in a medical
experiment, an estranged couple negotiates their status over an intercom,
and a coat check girl tells a story over a card game in a neighborhood
bar. The myriad narratives told through multiple lenses—live action, film,
tape recordings, etc.—offer a range of perspectives on the fraughtness of
giving and receiving.
*The twenty-minute film has been shot and edited (16mm film and video
formats).
Commissioned by Steppenwolf Theatre Company (1995); staged reading: ASK
Theatre Projects (1997); workshop: Playlabs (1997); workshop: Printer’s
Devil Theatre (2000).
SIX FUGUES
Two-act Serio-Comedy, 100 Minutes
3M, 3W
Flexible Set
Themes counterpoint as an unhappily married couple, a lost young woman and
a locksmith, a railroad engineer and an accident photographer, contemplate
physical and emotional barriers, literal and psychic geography,
and—especially—what happens after disaster?
Reading as part of Random Acts, McCarter Theater Center for the
Performing Arts (1995).
GOD’S PAWS
One-act Serio-Comedy, 90 Minutes
3M, 2W
Unit Set
The dog’s run away and the father’s disappeared, or is it the other way
around? In this anti-“family play” play each relation is plotting escape
on the one hand and desperately trying to suture broken ties on the other.
Then, too, there’s the question of all those shoes.
Reading, Williamstown Theatre Festival (1996).
NUDA VERITAS
One-act Serio-Comedy, 50 Minutes
4W
Flexible Set
An interwoven series of nocturnal ruminations—recollections, regrets and
wants—on the subjects of loss, love and teeth.
Production, Yale Cabaret (1994); Reading, New Georges (1995).