Ian August is an award-winning, internationally-produced playwright. His plays include: All the Emilies in All the Universes (Winner, PlayPenn 2022), Zero (Winner, 2020 Ashland New Plays Festival; Semi-Finalist 2020 BAPF), Everything You Can Do (to Make the World a Better Place) (Selection, Catalyst: A Theatre Think Tank 2020; Semi-Finalist Blue Ink Playwriting Prize), The Excavation of Mary Anning (Selection, 2019 Powerhouse Theater with NYSAF / Vassar; 2018 Ashland New Plays Festival; 2018 DVRF New Playwright Program), Brisé (Selection, 2019 Great Plains Theatre Conference; Finalist, 2019 Seven Devils Playwrights Conference; Finalist, 2020 Lark Playwrights Week), Donna Orbits the Moon (Scripps Ranch Theatre; Tiny Dynamite Productions; NJ Repertory Company; Utah Contemporary Theatre), Interviewese (Winner, Garry Marshall Theatre New Works; Finalist, B Street Theatre New Comedy Fest), The Goldilocks Zone, (Passage Theatre Company; Semi-Finalist, 2015 O’Neill Conference), and Missing Celia Rose (NYC Summer Play Festival; Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s “Playfest 2009″; Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society). Mr. August’s newest YA play, Stay Safe!, premiered at the 75th Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, 2022. He is a founding member of the American Theatre Group’s Playwrights Lab, and a graduated member of PlayPenn’s playwriting lab, The Foundry. Several of Mr. August’s plays have been published by Sam French Inc., Smith and Kraus, and Pipeline / Applause Books. He was a 2019 Playwright in Residence at the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kansas, and a recipient of a 2021 Independent Artist Fellowship from the NJ Council for the Arts. Mr. August lives at a boarding school with one husband and four cats: Lentils, Kimchi, Clementine, and Thomas'. He is currently represented by the Gurman Agency, NYC.
Susan Gurman, Gurman Agency LLC,
14 Penn Plaza, Suite 1703, New York, NY 10122-1701, Tel: 212 749 4618, Email: susan@gurmanagency.com
Plays
Deep in the woods of rural Connecticut lies a brick-laden Victorian mansion, the St. Vedastus Academy for Misguided Teens, a refuge for the newly violent, mildly sinister, and willfully corrupt. Nil is at least two of these things, and even in the eyes of more deviant classmates, suffers social death for it. But when schoolmate Harrison discovers a seemingly bottomless pit in the forest floor behind the school, Nil sees an opportunity to claw a way to the top of the heap. And unbeknownst to them, the pit appears to be getting larger and larger and larger. ZERO is a narrated tale of the inexplicable and the unspeakable, a darkly comedic allegory about the relationship between addiction and empathy, the danger of simple solutions, and whether ‘nothing’ actually exists anyway.
Following a nasty fall, professional dancer Paul is diagnosed with a rare form of dementia. In a daily video diary, Paul details his day-to-day life with his new condition. But when his estranged mother arrives, Paul is forced to face hard family truths that had been buried for years, even as everything else slips away. Brisé is a one-man play about voice, about movement, and about holding on tight to the things we try our hardest to forget.
Amidst the groaning cliff sides and weather beaten shores of southern England, fossil hunter Mary Anning combs the earth for glimpses of the ancient past. Armed with only her determination, her lucky hammer, and her erstwhile companion, Tray, Mary uncovers secrets that redefine science and religion and philosophy. But 19th century geology is a nobleman’s game, and Mary’s discoveries are buried beneath the rubble while the stars of her male counterparts grow ever brighter. The Excavation of Mary Anning is a historical fantasia about things that come from the earth and things that go to the earth, and one woman’s quest to reclaim her legacy in a society that refuses to acknowledge her worth.
The economy sucks, the job market is hell, and four women arrive to the lobby of Hapdo Technologies Incorporated to vie for the coveted position of Senior Accountant: Wilma Bluckle, a brainy introvert with an extraordinary memory; Janet Janet, the model of positivity; Beverly Weathers, an experienced ex-executive with ambition in spades; Poppy Szank, who may or may not have just slept in the wheel well of 747. A voice on the intercom reveals that the interview will begin in ten minutes, but as the women get to know each other, test each other, taunt each other, they begin to fear that the interview may never come. Each becomes more desperate, more impassioned, more competitive, until an unexpected emergency forces them to band together to save themselves from total disaster! Four women enter--only one may leave with a 401K. Interviewese is an absurdist comedy about corporate ambition, ethics and morality, and the lengths that any sane person would go to for the perfect job.
Something is not quite right with Donna: She's a loving mother, a devoted wife, and a minor celebrity to all the bake sale planners in town--but something is making her spacey, and she's not sure what it is. Therapy is out of the question--and church isn't the place to share one's distress. Donna will need to pass through space and through time--all the while listening to an unlikely voice--and try to break free from her gravitational pull to learn just how she can land.
How can life be created when the universe is working against you? Both Andy, in his relationship with Matt—and Franny, in her relationship with Ray, are struggling to answer this question when fate (and the internet) brings them together. Through their budding friendship they believe they find the answer, but their partners have astronomical concerns. The Goldilocks Zone is a comedic drama about love and resentment, independence and obligation, and the ability of two couples to figure out just how to create the perfect environment for sustaining life.
1921, Georgia. The small town of Harlan was established fifty years before on the heels of the uncertain and unforgiving Reconstructionist era. Pulling together all they had, former white slave owners and newly freed slaves set aside their predjudices and their pasts to create a new community—one where race is the least of their problems. On a bleak Autumn evening, a young white boy named Geoffrey Pitts discovers that the beloved wife of the black Baptist Minister, Mrs. Celia Rose Richards, has stolen the only car in town and vanished without a trace. His parents, his teacher, the townsfolk—no one knows any specifics concerning this mysterious flight. With the aid of his friend and confidante, Taffy Prull, Geoffrey decides to find Celia Rose and uncover the truth about her disappearance. But in doing so, Geoffrey uncovers secrets of the town that will change Harlan forever. Missing Celia Rose is an examination of the limits of faith, the limits of love, and the limits of tolerance in the unforgiving world of a decimated South.
Downpatrick, Northern Ireland, 1982. Set against the bloody backdrop of the Troubles, the Regan family have their own battles to fight: Fiona, the daughter, has been newly inducted into a militant branch of the IRA by her handsome young beau; Colin, the son, is led to bloody violence by a spirit who claims to be his dead mother; Owen, the father, can barely keep his rage contained long enough to hold them all together. But a grim family secret threatens to blow them all apart, while pushing them deeper into the darkness of war. The Aisling is a riveting drama about the dualities of fantasy and reality, sanity and madness, light and dark, and one family’s struggle to survive.