Dramaturgy

Established Plays

As a dramaturg, my specialty is plays in development, but I’m always up for getting my hands into a new-to-you play with queer or intersectional feminist themes. Below I’ve included snippets from some of my favorite recent projects and the actor packets I created for them. I love to include sound, color and something of the lighting and costume design concepts in the layout of the packets so that the core emotion of the show is present from the first look. I also like to add a fun element for the actors to interact with, like a Buzzfeed personality quiz or sheet music that plays itself.

Head Over Heels

Sarah lawrence college

conceived by Jeff Whitty
adapted by James MacGruder
directed by Stephen Tyler-Davis
with Maura Hrynczyszyn (PAMELA), Gill Hartley (MOPSA), Claire Bronchick (PHILOCLEA), Ryan Arecco (MUSIDORUS), Brendan Hickey (BASILIUS), Lilly Clausen (GYNECIA), Richard Krauss (DAMETAS) and Quinn Michaels (PYTHIO)

A fierce new musical comedy adaptation of Sir Philip Sidney’s prose romance, the Arcadia. Set to the music and lyrics of iconic girl group The Go-Go’s, Head Over Heels follows the royal family of Arcadia on their journey to keep their famous "beat." This jukebox musical is a 16th Century rock-and-romp of physical comedy, mistaken identities, queer love and a celebration of the non-binary.

This production leaned heavily into the zany colors and bright personalities of 1980s New Wave, the Memphis Group and 1950s Pop Art. A combination of six separate time periods in fashion, art and social change, the challenge was finding the bits of each period that carry through to the next, in order to make the wild combination feel genuinely cohesive. For example, Elizabethan men’s breeches turned out be an early precursor to hammer pants, the Go-Go’s once did a photo shoot where they dressed like late 1950s housewives, and the physique of the character Pamela represents how modern day standards of beauty have evolved so that many now idealize what was also the most highly coveted feminine body type in Ancient Greece. The four colors used in the packet’s headings were taken directly from a Memphis Group sofa from 1981 that inspired the geometric shapes in your local bowling alley carpet and Saved By the Bell. These colors were then included in the final design of the set and projections. For this packet, I created Buzzfeed quiz results pages for each character as if they had taken a quiz titled “Which Go-Go’s Member Are You?”

Men On Boats

downstage theatre company

by Jaclyn Backhaus
directed by Candace Hudert
with Clarissa Campo (POWELL), Gill Hartley (DUNN), Sophie Evans-Katz (SUMNER), Allegra Dubus-Brandolini (OLD SHADY), Samantha Raskin (BRADLEY), Marivel Magsaysay (O.G.), Sarah Morse (SENECA), Parker Sela (GOODMAN), Mara Edelstein (HALL) and Isabel Pecora (HAWKINS)

Ten explorers. Four boats. One Grand Canyon. The true(ish) history of an 1869 expedition, when a one-armed captain and a crew of insane yet loyal volunteers set out to chart the course of the Colorado River!

Athena

downstage theatre company

by Gracie Gardner
directed by Kyrie Ellison
with Katie Warner (ATHENA), Maria Schreiner (MARY WALLACE) and V Yoffee (JAMIE)

Mary Wallace and Athena are brave, and seventeen, and fencers, and training for the Junior Olympics. They practice together, they compete against each other, they spend their lives together. They wish they were friends.

Top Girls

sarah lawrence college

by Caryl Churchill
directed by Claire Marieb
with Kasey Britt (MARLENE), Gabriella Pizzo (DULL GRET/ANGIE), Kaia Parnell (POPE JOAN/NELL), Gill Hartley (JOYCE/MRS. KIDD/WAITRESS), Kate Kenworthy (ISABELLA BIRD/SHONA), Jade Barnett-Irons (LADY NIJO/LOUISE), Clarissa Campo (KIT/JEANINE) and Hallie Riddick (PATIENT GRISELDA/WIN) 

A history play about the lives women lead under the oppression of the patriarchy, incorporating Thatcherism and its antithesis: female artists. Whose side are you on and why?