The Playwrights’ Center congratulates the playwrights of the 25th annual PlayLabs Festival (2007), one of the nation’s most revered new play festivals.

Jeremy Kareken   email   The Sweet, Sweet Motherhood

Shelley McAnn wants a baby – a human/chimpanzee baby. Shelley’s been spending too much time partying to build up a respectable grade-point average, so she proposes the following senior thesis: fertilize one of her eggs with the sperm from a chimpanzee and carry the hybrid “humanzee” to term – in her own womb. Professor Henry Stein must do everything he can to stop her. This play, inspired by a true event, examines the ethical implications of current, available biotechnology.

Masataka Matsuda   email   Like a Butterfly, My Nostalgia

A typhoon leaves a marriage in the dark. When a couple’s search for candles uncovers reminders of a forgotten tryst, a tide of memory and grief floods their lives.

Dan O’Brien   email   The House in Hydesville

In the winter of 1847 the Fox family moved from Rochester to a small house in the snow-covered fields of Hydesville, New York. Soon after, they began to hear strange sounds—rapping in the walls—amidst tales of a long-ago murder. Where was this knocking sound coming from? What secrets did the house hold within its walls? Inspired by the true story of the Fox sisters, founders of Modern Spiritualism, The House in Hydesville is a haunting drama that explores the mystery of family and the secret wellsprings of the soul.

Rosanna Staffa   email   The Interview

An American correspondent in Iraq, kidnapped on the verge of reporting explosive information, is brought to a makeshift hospital after having been released. But has she been released? Is this a hospital? Is the man questioning her a doctor? This may be the transition to final freedom or another, more deadly trap to find out what she knows, before being executed.

The Playwrights’ Center congratulates these playwrights, winners of the esteemed $9,000 Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellowships for 2007-08, who won with these excellent scripts:

Peter Gil-Sheridan   email   Topsy Turvy Mouse

When a photo of Sandy and Kenny torturing Iraqi prisoners is posted to their son Richie’s locker, they are confronted with the past they’re desperate to hide. Fifteen and endlessly inquisitive, Richie seeks to understand his parents’ actions by bringing the ghosts of the past to life with his best friend, Amit. Richie and Amit’s games lead them down a road of terrifying consequences in a small American town far from the fetid and dank prisons of Baghdad.

Cory Hinkle   email   Phosphorescence

In a desert prison, Chuck discovers “the methods” work well on the Arab mind, but that they may work even better on his own psyche.

Sally Oswald   email   Pony

On the other side of the forest from Büchner's Woyzeck, Pony, a transgendered man, becomes entangled with a woman named Marie whose real-life drama begins to eerily resemble a recent murder across the woods.

Deborah Stein   email   Bone Portraits

In 1895, a hapless inventor stumbles upon a light that burns through skin: in a flash, the X-ray is born. A wild ride of gothic horror, old-time vaudeville, and sweeping romance, Bone Portraits takes us back to this moment of discovery, when the world split open like an atom.

The Playwrights’ Center is pleased to present the following script samples written by recent participants in the 2006-07 Many Voices Residency Program, which supports early-career writers of color who show artistic promise in the field of playwriting.

Sarah Bellamy   email   Room 431

Room 431 tells the story of unfortunate lovers bound by layers of secrets. With the clock and an untimely snowstorm bearing down on them, the lovers begin finally to discuss their transgression in frank terms for the first time. It turns out the abortion is only one lethally punishable offense the couple has committed. Set in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, the play deals with the consequences of justice in a society ruled by chaos.

Anton Jones   email   Med(i/e)a

When Jason, a sports star/ musician/ humanitarian/ producer/ hotel & casino mogul, decides to leave his wife and business partner, Medea (a pop-culture icon with one too many cosmetic surgeries) for the president’s young daughter, the mass media has a field day. Late night television, tabloids, talk radio, and tell-all books all vie for a piece of the pop-culture pie as they package, exploit, and milk the “Divorce of the Century” for all that it’s worth while instigating and perpetuating Medea’s plot for ultimate revenge.

Vanessa Ramos   email   Cuentos

Everything begins with a story. Cuentos (Stories) is an invitation to fly into the unknown, to embark on a journey that reminds us of the struggle to find one’s story, to find one’s place in history, and to arrive at an understanding of those who elude us most. We are transported from a small adobe house in the deserts of El Paso and into the realms of the imagination, to a place where legends, myth, and folklore shiver in the branches.

Eliza Rasheed   email   Shadowz

Set in the future really far away, a group of refugees from different regions is placed together on the island of Samos. Their lives are the remnants of their histories and traditions. But as the leader of the community dies, "the book" is lost, and a serial killer remains at large, the community must grab on to what they know (and love) to survive.

Kiseung Rhee   email   arirang, or how i became guiltless

Garbage. When we toss our trash away we tend to forget, or not bother to consider where it goes. Keith, the new Sanitation Department Head of Orange County, unfortunately has to remember, document, and file what we like to forget. But as he digs a little deeper into the garbage of his position, he finds more than he bargains for.

Rebecca Wall   email   Trickster Tales from Around the World

Have you ever played a trick on anyone? In the Midwest lives a young boy named Jordan, who loves to play tricks more than anything else in this world. The problem is he must learn that life isn’t about laughing at someone else’s expense. His mom, fed up with her precocious son’s practical jokes, issues an ultimatum to not only clean up his room, but his attitude as well. With the aid of a quirky Spirit Guide— who hasn’t taken his afterlife very seriously— they embark on a journey with only a book, a drum, and their imaginations to guide them amongst fellow tricksters from around the world. Some of these tricksters you may know, some you may not, but all are sure to teach and delight. Adapted for the stage from the compilation of the same name, Trickster Tales from Around the World is a magical, musical, multi-cultural adventure filled with lessons and laughter.

Aamera Siddiqui   email   CHUPA

Two estranged sisters come to terms with their relationship after the death of their mother. Growing up straddling two communities and cultures amidst secrets and taboos, one sister, Saima, has chosen to stay close to home and close to the traditions of her South Asian, Muslim upbringing. The other has chosen a different path. She has left home, married outside of her faith and left herself open to the judgement of family and community members. On the surface it appears that Maleeha has chosen to reject her faith and her family, but as the play unravels, Maleeha’s choices don’t seem so simple.

Layla Dowlatshahi   email   Ogham Stones

Mary, her two middle-aged daughters and her sister, Fiona struggle to survive on the dole on an isolated farm in southern Ireland. Embittered by her failures, Fiona blames the other women for her unhappiness. Weary of her disparagement, the other three women conspire to rid themselves of her once and for all.

The Playwrights’ Center congratulates these playwrights, winners of the prestigious $25,000 Playwrights’ Center McKnight Advancement Grant for 2007-08, who won with these excellent scripts:

David Adjmi   email   The Evildoers

Martin and Judy are married under fake auspices: he’s gay, and she hides in the shadow of their relationship and becomes a scapegoat for his frustrations. But Judy’s false security is torn to pieces when Martin, unwittingly spurred by his best friend Jerry, abandons her to pursue an “authentic” life and true love. He goes to live with Jerry and Carol temporarily, where he is exposed to Jerry’s rather unorthodox (and somewhat ill-conceived) idea of “Christian Ethics” – which involves stripping people of their false contentment and mirroring back to them the ‘true circumstances’ of their lives – so that Real Love can flourish.

Christina Ham   email   After Adam

After Adam is a supernatural drama that explores the history of an African-American family—a dynamic, but subtle take on the Oedipus myth. This piece exorcises the notion that we become or marry what we simultaneously desire and loathe. As two estranged brothers must learn to cope with their father’s suicide, psychological warfare ensues in an effort to reclaim family legacy, psyche, and identity. This play is a vigil to one man’s life and its self-fulfilling purgatory.

The Playwrights’ Center is pleased to present the following script samples written by Core Members, who are committed playwrights with significant professional achievements upon whom the Center has conferred distinction.

Lonnie Carter   email   Brer Clare

The character is based on Uncle Tom from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel and the fictionalized Supreme Court Justice of the same name. The Play moves back and forth in time between the late Twentieth Century and the 1850’s, between Washington, DC and New Orleans. The characters sometimes retain their 19th Centuryness 150 years later and sometimes not. The play uses as many 19th Century conventions of melodrama and vaudeville/minstrel as I could ram in. It also has a “message” of a sort.

Catherine Filloux   email   Lemkin's House

Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer whose family died in the Holocaust, invented the word genocide and dedicated his life to convincing the U.S. to declare it an international crime. Lemkin died in 1959, but when the U.S. finally signed his law in 1988, (the 98th country to do so), two of the world’s bloodiest genocides occurred. Lemkin’s House imagines what would happen if the atrocities that occurred after Lemkin’s law was passed hounded him in the afterlife.

Mark Steven Jensen   email   On-Line

Although John hangs dead from the ceiling of his small apartment, his computer program, Annabelle, attempts to maintain the facade that he is still alive.

Dan O’Brien   email   The Dear Boy

A student has written a disturbing short story for Mr. Flanagan’s high school English class that seems to include Mr. Flanagan as a character. The confrontation between student and teacher sends Flanagan out into the night and New York City to the faculty holiday party, where he begins an unlikely romance with a colleague. The Dear Boy is a piercing character study about the choices we make and the lives we could have led.

Sherry Kramer   email   When Something Wonderful Ends

Recounting her quest for the moment our way of life began unraveling, playwright Sherry Kramer's remarkable monologue moves between 1963 and now, between Tehran and Springfield, Mo., between radicalized mullahs and vintage Barbies, to unearth truths about America's pursuit of Middle Eastern oil and her personal history, before arriving at her mother's grave and the intersection of geopolitical interests and individual responsibility. As timely as it was revealing and as witty as wise. (Taken from “Top Ten Theatrical Treasures of 2006” by Robert Faires, Austin Chronicle)

The following plays are presented in cooperation with Theatre Without Borders, an informal group of individual theatre artists around the world who are working to support international theatre exchange.

Deborah Asiimwe   email   Lagoma Is Searching

A two-character play based on the true story of a Ugandan young man in his early twenties. Dive Lagoma has grown up with his mother and an abusive stepfather. As he grows up and realizes that the one he calls his father treats him differently from the rest of his siblings, he wants to know why and his search starts. In his search for a “password” to life, to joy, to acceptance—to what you would call noble and good—Lagoma finds himself entangled in alcohol, drug addiction and prostitution. At the verge of committing suicide, he meets Aside Kashi, a theatre practitioner who performs with former street children, it is then that he decides to share his life’s story, his search. Does he find the password, or does the search continue?

The story of a Romanian family – before, during and especially after the 1989 Revolution. The dream of a father – Ion – to build the perfect Romanian family. The saga of a country on its way to European integration. All the cultural stereotypes regarding Romania and more – mixed with current social issues in a musical cocktail revolving around a “snapshot scene” structure.

Three young people meet accidentally in a disco-club called Space. Maria has three jobs, no stable relationship, and no sexual life so she decides to go out with her gynecologist. Paula used to be a copywriter, but she resigned because she had enough of selling “mothers” in stupid commercials. Rolando is a DJ, but not cool enough for the standards, so he must push his tempo a little bit more. After they meet in Space, they decide to leave together in Maria’s car for a threesome that draws their minds closer together than their bodies.

Among the dire symptoms and consequences of the Islamic Republic of Iran, one was the coup de grâce on the concept of revolution itself. The last generation of fighters and strugglers— that over a span of century and a half had lived with the dream of achieving a social order based on reason and justice and had idealized revolution as the ultimate instrument for the realization of such an order— this selfless generation, on the day after the revolution, was driven from the threshold of humanity as guest of a few days.

Inspired by stories from volunteers of Doctors Without Borders, Alive in the Mortuary probes the struggle of a Hong Kong surgeon in Angola who is trapped along with an engineer in the mortuary of a temporary hospital due to the local warring parties' attack. In this desperate situation, the two argue about medical issues and meaning of life, eventually recognizing that they share the same mission and face the same trouble.

As a pedestrian hit by a bus lies dying on a Rio street, a passerby stops to cradle him in his arms and kisses him on the lips as a parting gesture of human solidarity. But the scene is witnessed by an unscrupulous reporter, who proves so successful in convincing a scandal-hungry public that the men were lovers that even the wife of the Good Samaritan comes to doubt his masculinity.

Justin Fleming   email   The Starry Messenger

Rachel, a playwright, is in Florence writing about the year 1600 when Vincenzo Galilei and his team are working on the world's first opera, while his son, Galileo Galilei, discovers that the earth moves round the sun. The father and son's separate efforts both cause mayhem. But in unexpected and gradually chilling ways, the past invades Rachel's life, placing her and her ardent lover, James, at the centre of a dangerous web of intrigue.