A MAP OF DOUBT AND RESCUE

 



PINTER REVIEW PRIZE IN DRAMA
SUSAN SMITH BLACKBURN PRIZE

OJAI Playwrights Conference – workshop
New York Stage and Film at Vassar - worskhop

Publications: A Map of Doubt and Rescue - University of Tampa Press
  
The landscape of this play is a small town, Hollywood, the canvas of our history, and the struggle of those who try to make sense of it all as they endeavor to create and connect. The characters who inhabit and run throughout the territory of the play are part of one another’s lives sometimes directly and sometimes in ways that are revealed as things unfold.

Map of Doubt and Rescue
On the dust jacket: Charlotte Saloman, "Life? or Theatre?" from the Collection of Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam.

THE GRAND DESIGN

The Grand Design will be released as a short film, starring Eric Stoltz and Frances Conroy, screenplay by Susan Miller

12th Annual One Act Festival
   - Winner's Circle Moving Arts Theatre, Los Angeles
Benefit for Cure Autism Now – starring Lily Tomlin and Eric Stoltz.     Directed by Robert Egan.
Brave New World Benefit: American Theatre Responds to 9/11
    - Town Hall, New York. With Marsha Mason and Scott Cohen
Finalist Heideman Award – Actors Theatre of Louisville

Publications: Great Short Plays Volume 6
 Playscripts, Inc,

Best American Short Plays 2003-2004 - edited by Glenn Young.
   Applause Theatre & Cinema Books
Take Ten, Vol. II - edited by Eric Lane and Nina Shengold.
    Vintage

 

For books and performance rights: contact www.playscripts.com

 

A scientist works on a new message about humanity to send into space, while his mother walks across the United States.






Eric Stoltz directing Frances Conroy


Frances Conroy


David Hyde Pierce and Lily Tomlin

MY LEFT BREAST

 

 

OBIE award in Playwriting
SUSAN SMITH BLACKBURN PRIZE (shared)

Premiered at Actors' Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival
    Performed by Author. Directed by Nela Wagman.

Vital Theatre Company - New York: benefit for Vital Theatre - October 2008
7 Stages Theatre - Atlanta, Georgia, "a new 3 character restaging" - February 2007
City Theatre of St. Louis – April, 2004
New Repertory Theatre - Boston - April, 2002
Theatre J - Washington, D.C. - April, 2001
Hampstead Theatre - London: Benefit for Breakthrough - October, 2000
Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati - May, 2000
Oak Street Theatre - Portland, Maine - 1998
Celebration Theatre - Los Angeles, California - 1998
Pennsylvania State University - 1998
Out North - Anchorage, Alaska - 1997
The Group Theatre - Seattle, Washington - 1997
Trinity Repertory Co. - Providence, Rhode Island - 1996
Walnut Street Theatre - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - 1996
Buddies In Bad Times Theatre - Toronto, Canada - 1996
Frontera Hyde Park Theatre - Austin, Texas - 1995
Watermark's Wordfire Festival at the Ohio Theatre - New York - 1995/96
Benefit for Gilda's Club - Skirball Cultural Center - Los Angeles - 1997
Naked Angels - New York - 1994
French production - Le Foyer Theatre du Palais Royal -Paris,

Canadian Touring Company - Shameless Hussy Productions

Publications:
O Solo Homo - Grove Press - Edited by Holly Hughes and David Roman,
The Best American Short Plays 93/94 - Applause Books - Edited by Glenn Young
Plays From the Humana Festival 1994 - Smith and Kraus - Edited by Marisa Smith
The Breast. An Anthology - Global City Press - Editor: Susan Thames
L'AVANT-SCENE - Paris, December

For books and performance rights: contact www.playscripts.com

“I am a one breasted, menopausal, bisexual lesbian mom -- and I am the topic of our times. I’m the hot issue. I’m the cover of Newsweek, the editorial in the paper. I’m a best seller. And I am coming soon to a theatre near you!”

Susan Miller in "My Left Breast"



READING LIST


Vital Signs, New Works Festival - New York
 

Publications: Great Short Plays Volume 6 -
  Playscripts, Inc,
"The Best Ten-Minute Plays
3 or More Actors 2006
" - Smith and Kraus
"The Best American Short Plays, 2004 - 2005" - Applause Books, Editor: Parisi, Barbara 2008

For books and performance rights:
contact www.playscripts.com


CAST: Kathryn Grody, Maha Chehlaoui, Bridgit Antoinette Evans, Jay Smith, Michael Rudko, Happy Anderson. Directed by Cynthia Croot

IT'S OUR TOWN, TOO

 

Fountainhead Theatre - Los Angeles
Finalist Actor's Theatre of Louisville's Ten Minute play Contest
VITAL SIGNS New Works Festival - New York
Numerous college productions

Publications: Actors' Book of Gay and Lesbian Plays - Penguin. Editors: Eric Lane and Nina Shengold
The Best American Short Plays of 1992-93 Applause Books. Editors: Howard Stein and Glenn Young

For books and performance rights: contact www.playscripts.com


A gay version/homage to Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.”



REPAIRS

Home For Contemporary Theatre And Art - New York

Publications: Facing Forward - Broadway Play Publishing.
    Edited by Leah Frank

 

Repairs of the basement and the heart

 

FOR DEAR LIFE


The Joseph Papp Public Theatre - New York
Finalist Susan Smith Blackburn Prize

Modern relationships



Joseph Lambie, Christine Estabrook, Tony Shalhoub, and Laila Robins

NASTY RUMORS AND FINAL REMARKS

 

 

OBIE Award for playwriting
The Joseph Papp Public Theatre - New York
The St. Nicholas Theatre - Chicago IL
Theatre On The Square - Indianapolis, IN
Finalist Susan Smith Blackburn Prize

Publications: Amazon All Stars - Applause Books.
    Edited by Rosemary Curb

 

“A serious social comedy” in which the friends, lovers, and son of a charismatic woman gather in a hospital waiting room, after she has suffered a sudden cerebral hemorrhage. Raleigh, 38, talks to the audience as she takes this journey toward her death. We see the dynamics of each relationship through their interactions with Raleigh and one another.

FLUX

 



Second Stage - New York
The Public Theatre - New York
The American Repertory Co. - London
The Phoenix Repertory Co. - New York

A college instructor’s dilemma in the classroom and in her personal relationships. Caught between sentiment for the passion of previous decades and the present reality of her pragmatic, though bright students, Jess faces a crisis that puts everyone else to the test.

CROSS COUNTRY

 

The Mark Taper Forum - Los Angeles
Interart Theatre - New York

Publications: West Coast Plays, Vol. I
    Edited by Robert Valine

Using inventive prose as dialogue, the journey of Perry Chaiken, through her marriage, friendships, love affair with a student, motherhood and turning 30. A story of letting go and self discovery.

CONFESSIONS OF A FEMALE DISORDER

 


The Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference - Waterford, CT
The Mark Taper Forum - Los Angeles, CA


Publications:
Gay Plays - Avon. Editor William Hoffman

 

Growing up female. A humorous, and emotional look at the rituals of initiation, sex, friendship, ambition. The main character, Ronnie, goes from puberty to marriage. Her sexual ambiguity is explored with a college roommate, Coop. Her adult experience with love comes through her marriage to David. In the background of these scenes is a chorus of Cheerleaders and Lettermen, who later become her suburban neighbors.



ARTS AND LEISURE

 



Cast Theatre - Los Angeles, California
Semifinalist Dramatists Guild/CBS New Play Contest
American Theatre Association's National Conference
    - Reading presented by Joseph Papp

A contemporary comedy which explores the creation and destruction of modern heroes. An English professor and his graduate film student girlfriend invade the privacy of the famed, reclusive J.D Salinger and hold him hostage in return for all the unpublished manuscripts he has written over the years.

HUMAN AFFAIRS

Finalist for Actors Theatre of Louisville's Heideman Award

Standing on Ceremony - The Gay Marriage Plays
  The Attic Theatre, El Portal Theatre - Los Angeles

Two couples and their friendships

      Looking for someone, longing for someone. It's everyone's question. That and how am I going to die. There's this one inescapable and encompassing thing you have. Which is yourself. So the question, which belongs to everyone, which is everyone’s to ask, is—who is going to be with me? Who is going to make it less terrible to be me?

DENIM LECTURE

 

Finalist Actor's Theatre of Louisville Ten Minute Play Contest
Mark Taper Forum's Lab Theatre

A person turning a certain age goes on tour and speaks of jeans as metaphor. A dark comedy.


    LECTURER
(After gazing at his notes and sizing up the audience, he plunges ahead.)

The central issue ... and there's no beating around the bush, there's no point in asking me to manage myself - my notes. I won't. I can't. The central issue has assembled and collected around thighs, buttocks, crotches, and bellies. For me, at least. The way I see it, at any rate. The way it feels. The rough and tough of it. And everybody has something at stake here. It boils down to this -- THERE HASN'T BEEN A F--K DONE YET THAT'S AS GOOD AS THE PROPER PAIR OF JEANS. Resist. I'll argue that proposition to my death. LOVE IS DENIM! HARMONY IS DENIM!


SILVERSTEIN & CO.

 


Jews in America – a dark family comedy

ETHEL:
You're exhausted, Ernie. We'll have dinner in an hour. You want a drink first?
ERNIE: I have to make a few house calls tonight. What's for supper?
ETHEL: Ernie, listen, I'm very concerned about your daughter.
ERNIE: What?
ETHEL: It's Pam. She doesn't look well.
ERNIE: Is she complaining about anything?
ETHEL: No, it's just her general condition.
ERNIE:
Probably just growing pains.
ETHEL: Now what does that mean?
ERNIE: Let the kid alone.
ETHEL: She's deteriorating. You look at her. She's getting smaller... and she continues to dwell in the past.
ERNIE: She's only 16. How much of a past can she have?

A COMMOTION OF ZEBRAS

The Alice Theatre - New York City

An avant garde riff on women's relationships.

DADDY

The Alice Theatre - New York City

Racial role reversal in the context of the “family” unit.

NO ONE IS EXACTLY 23


 



Pennsylvania State University

Publications: Pyramid - Vol. I

 

A tango of identity

 

 


OTHER PUBLICATIONS:

A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer - Editor Eve Ensler
   Random House

Monologue - Conversations with My Son by Susan Miller


Women Writing Plays - Three Decades of The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize - Editor: Alexis Greene
    University of Texas Press

Ten Minute Plays for 3 or More Actors: The Best of 2002-2003 - Smith and Kraus

Humana Festival 2000 - Complete Plays -Editor: Michael Dixon, Amy Wegener,
    Smith and Kraus

Back Story – Anthology. Edited by Joan Ackerman - Dramatic Publishing, 2001

104 Scenes for 4 Actors (The Ultimate Scene Study Series, Vol. 4) – Edited by Wilma Marcus Chandler, Smith and Kraus – May 2001

Even More Monologues by Women - Edited by Tori Haring-Smith - Heinemann, 2001

Monologues For Women By Women - Edited by Tori Haring-Smith - Heinemann

The Best Women's Stage Monologues of 1994 - Edited by Jocelyn A. Beard - Smith and Kraus

One On One - The Best Women's Monologues For the 90's - Edited by Jack Temchin, Applause Books











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