DIRECTOR . PLAYWRIGHT . VISUAL ARTIST
ARTS LEADER, EDUCATOR, CREATIVE CONSULTANT
PLAYWRITING
Folklore is the blood and bones of my work. I think of myself as a maker of contemporary myth and legend. Seed ideas spring from a central question, a nursery rhyme, a daily obsession. They develop through conversations, interviews and artistic play with collaborators of varying perspectives. I root out the dark currents, the absurdity, the longing, the stories we tell ourselves and the stories that go untold. Everything becomes the work at one point or another. The pavement, the graffiti, the traffic, a teapot, that bag of Cheetos... I enjoy finding the place where the mythic world crosses paths with the mundane details of every-day life. I’m interested in characters that have a yearning, a quest or question…characters that collide and change each other in unexpected ways.
REDWOLF
a journey from girlhood to wolfhood
co-written with Anthony Clarvoe
Everyone thinks the predators are gone. But what if they've just gone... inside?
Inspired by Little Red Riding Hood, the most sexually charged of folk tales, REDWOLF is ripe with hunger, sexuality, and the conflict between the paved and the wild.
TIME SENSITIVE
The City swallowed the world. It ate the day and the night. It ate the tides and the seasons. Now there are only seconds and nanoseconds and a constant insatiable GO. Speed is power, status is vertical, and time is literally up.
Time Sensitive is a daring new play combining clockwork choreography, rhythmic fugue and ice art into a fantastical tale that urgently asks:
How do we hold a moment if we constantly crave the next big thing?
MAYBE BABY
songs by Kate Kilbane
P = Probability. P = Pregnant.
Human population has exceeded 7 billion.
Inspired by real life interviews, Maybe Baby follows the stories of three women, each on the road to conception. Bound to a state of perpetual waiting, the potential mothers struggle to grasp the unseen forces at play. Delving into chaos theory, infinity and zero as a cosmic womb, Maybe Baby uses divination and teapots to explore the relationship between choice, chance and children.
An original dark fairy tale inspired by the story of Bluebeard. A woman is drawn to the edge of a river. She is ferried across to wed a man with a blue beard. The next morning he is gone. What remains is a key and a series of doors all of which she may open and one which she may not.
OPEN examines the process by which women (specifically, but not exclusively) are enculturated, civilized, and made appropriate for mass consumption.
It asks the question: How are we complicit in our own dismemberment?
OPEN.
It began with a beard...
HANDLESS
Sometimes it is those cataclysmic moments, the ones that damage us, alter us, and drive us toward our deepest maturity.
Grace has an unusual gift. She can heal a fallen bird with her hands. But when a visitor comes to stay the night, all of that changes. A random act of cruelty alters her future forever. With the loss of her hands, Grace must regain her will to live and her love of life. Based on the folktale The Handless Maiden, HANDLESS explores the way in which we heal ourselves. When faced with a violent act, how do we reclaim some faith in our future?
SO MANY WAYS TO KILL A MAN
Our parents made some BIG mistakes. Can we break the cycle? Or are we doomed to repeat the mistakes of our predecessors?
An original re-invention of the Oresteia, SO MANY WAYS busts open the inner lives of classic characters to explore the cycles of violence and vengeance in this notorious dysfunctional family. Featuring puppets and songs.
SHORT PLAYS INCLUDE
Significant People
produced by Eugene O'Neill Foundation, Playwright's PlayGround
People's Choice Award, Best of PlayGround Festival
Structural Instability
Playwright's PlayGround, People's Choice Award
Getting Ahead BOOKENDS THE RUNNER
Short works created for PlayGround
No Outlet a short film featured in FORTUNE: THE COMPLETE WORKS
Produced by Ragged Wing Ensemble
Your Name Is Here
Tu Nombre Está Aquí
produced by Ragged Wing Youth Ensemble