playwriting

Salt. Fruit.

Two solo performance pieces that can be performed together or separately. A love letter to feeling lost, to lies, truth, confusion, memory, trauma, innocence, individual pain, collective pain, the stories we tell ourselves, and the simultaneous torture and fortitude we find inside our minds. Salt. follows Jo, who struggles to process and share a long held trauma. Fruit. follows Alma, the soul, who struggles to process and cope with the inevitable pain at the heart of human existence.

Production History:

Salt. at Gallery 40, 2024; Directed by Deborah Coconis and Chris Burney

Fruit. at the New York Theater Festival, 2023; Directed by Ella Talerico

Salt. Fruit. at Vassar College, 2023; Directed by Ella Talerico

Salt. at Vassar College’s Steerman 10-minute New Play Festival, 2022

It’s Something for Sure!

Fiona, a once prolific and prodigal young artist, finds herself depressed, lost, and struggling to find the will to live. She falls asleep, and wakes into a theatrical dream world where, instead of a struggling young artist, she is a struggling young actor on stage faced with a very real audience and the immediate burden of creation. Supported by friends, inspired by her muse, and challenged by fantastical characters both hilarious and terrifying, Fiona's dream forces her to wrestle with her demons and rediscover her light - the essential will to keep living and trying.

Production History:

Production at Vassar College, 2022; Directed by Ella Talerico

Staged Reading at Vassar College, 2021; Directed by Ella Talerico

Production at Ensworth High School, 2021; Directed by David Berry

Wormball.

Freti and Mawn, two early-twenties, college juniors, are stumbling over each other on their journey towards self-discovery, self-acceptance, and peace within a system which dictates at every turn the opposite: self-repression, self-flagellation, and an irrepressible urge to gaslight oneself into complete self-destruction. What happened is never a simple question. The truth of our trauma and our memory is rarely black and white, clean, or simple. Victimization is perverted and tempting. A disturbing and charged exploration of shame and its manifestations, the lies in truth, the truth in lies, and the ways oppressive norms and stigmas shape our collective psychological imagination. Plus: worms.

Production History:

Production at Vassar College, 2023; Directed by Ella Talerico

Birds with Orange Bellies

Everyone is starving. There’s a tree that produces fruit… but it’s poisonous. A play that follows a motley crew of poor and struggling misfits as they struggle to live in a dying world. Every act feels like act five. Every person on the verge of complete self-destruction. No one is safe… except, of course, the rich.

Production History:

Production, 2023; Directed by Ella Talerico