River Timms was born in Alabama and raised in the sticks. They graduated from Belmont University with a B.A in Theatre in 2018 after years of trying to find their "thing". As an up-and-coming playwright, River's work has been seen in multiple staged readings and productions with Woven Theatre. Their style is influenced by leftist politics, magical realism, Christian liberation theology, and the LGBT experience. River is part of the New Works 615 cohort, a local playwriting cohort under the umbrella of the Nashville Rep's Ingram New Works project. They currently live in Nashville, acting as the Resident Playwright and Literary Manager of Woven Theatre.
Plays
Noah is just like any normal millennial; he is burdened with thousands upon thousands of dollars of student loan debt, and he copes with his stress by consuming large amounts of marijuana. His job as a barworker doesn't pay nearly enough to keep the bills in order or even pay rent, and he survives by the grace of his boyfriend and roommate, Ryan. As Noah begins to look for options in maneuvering through his own personal debt crisis, his encroaching deadline to begin payments draws ever closer, and the stress pushes him to the limit as he tries to juggle his relationships, his finances, and his health the best he can.
'burnout.' is the prequel to my play 'Tall Tales' and part one of the two-part series that I lovingly call 'Noah's Arc.' You don't need to read both to understand this story. They are separate narratives; they just recontextualize one another when read as a set.
(FULL LENGTH, HORROR/DRAMA, 1.5-2 hours)
Alabama is equally haunted by Christ and ghosts, and this is a play about both.
After losing his job and breaking up with his boyfriend, Noah is forced to return to his hometown in rural Alabama. He meets his childhood friends to find that his old world has changed dramatically in the eight years that he’s been gone; his tiny town is dying as the city nearby expands, most of his friends are stuck in dead-end jobs that they never wanted, and his first ex-boyfriend has returned to church and is now engaged to a woman. As Noah tries to find his new place in what he tried to leave behind, murders begin to occur, scandals are brought to light, and tragedy strikes in this slow-burn horror play about being othered in the Deep South.
(FULL LENGTH, MODERN FANTASY/ADVENTURE, 2-2.5 hours)
Dakota is a new player in Animal Town, a storytelling game invented by his friend Mason to create weird stories and better the lives of the players. When a mysterious villain called The Fox sends his player character to Hell, Dakota meets a skeleton named Ronald Opus. However, Hell is not a place of fire and brimstone in Animal Town, but rather “just another place to live." As Dakota becomes more attached to Opus and his own Animal Town experience, the barriers between the real world and the world of Animal Town begin to fade, and the story becomes much too real for Dakota's own good.
Successes
Became Resident Playwright for Woven Theatre