Plays
Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy
At the infamous (real-life!) Internet Research Agency, professional internet trolls work 24-7 to influence American popular opinion, creating the illusion of consensus—or conflict. There are floors for twitter, for facebook, memes, fake news, and comments sections.
RUSSIAN TROLL FARM imagines the daily lives of these workers as they invent characters, stage conflicts, and create conspiracies. What happens to your grasp on the truth when your whole job is lying? How does your identity shift when you impersonate Americans for a living? Does anybody want Thai food? From Thai Palace or Thai Pavillion?
(2W, 3M)
Development History
[2024] Full in-Person Off-Broadway Production at NYC's Vineyard Theatre, in association with Dori Berinstein (dir. Darko Tresnjak)
[2023] Full In-Person Production at Geva Theatre (dir. Darko Tresnjak)
[2022] Full In-Person Production at Forward Theatre (dir. Jennifer Uphoff Gray)
[2020] Full Online Production at Theaterworks Hartford/Theater Squared/The Civilians (dir. Jared Mezzocchi and Elizabeth Williamson)
[2020] Online Workshop at TheaterSquared (dir. Jared Mezzocchi and Elizabeth Williamson)
[2019] Workshop and Reading at New Dramatists via the Play Time program (dir. Kip Fagan)
[2019] Workshop with New Dramatists (dir. Rachel Chavkin)
[2023] OBIE Award Special Citation
[2020] NY Times Best Theater of 2020 list
[2020] NY Times Critics' Pick
In development with Pine Tree Entertainment
I'll Get You Back Again
A bittersweet comedy with music set in Berkeley. Struggling stand-up comedian Chloe is sitting in for her dead father as the bassist for his seminal psychedelic rock band. As rehearsals progress, Chloe finds herself navigating increasingly delicate emotional terrain as old conflicts flare up and old flirtations reignite.
By turns comic and tragic, scathing and tender, the play is a meditation on what we inherit from the sixties; the joys and frustrations of collaboration; and the search for transcendence in art and comedy.
(4 M, 2 W)
Development History
[2017] World Premiere at Round House Theatre (dir. Rachel Chavkin)
[2016] Workshop and Staged Reading at Seattle Rep's The Other Season (dir. Rachel Chavkin)
[2015] Workshop and Staged Reading at Steppenwolf's First Look Festival (dir, Rachel Chavkin)
[2014] Roundtable reading at The Lark (dir. Portia Krieger)
[2013] Workshop and Staged Reading, Ars Nova Out Loud series (dir. Rachel Chavkin)
[2016] Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival
[2016] Honorable Mention, the Kilroys' List
[2015] Wait List for The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep
[2015] Honorable Mention, The Kilroys' List
[2013] Finalist, Playwrights' Week at The Lark
[2013] Nominee, Playwrights of New York Fellowship
The Place We Built
In a deserted neighborhood in post-communist Budapest, young bohemians squat in an abandoned building and build a bar. Reclaiming the Jewish identity their parents' generation abandoned after the Holocaust, they create a vibrant new subculture that combines big ideas and intense debates with wild parties. Friendships form and fray, couples recombine, people change, the neighborhood is transformed. But when authoritarianism and antisemitism make a surprise comeback in the country at large, will the place they built survive? Part of the larger 7th project.
A tale of friendship, idealism, and coming of age, set against the backdrop of Hungary's current terrifying slide into dictatorship—and the global rise of right-wing populism.
(7W, 4M)
Development History
[2019] Newly updated draft read at New York Theater Workshop (dir. Danya Taymor)
[2016] World Premiere at the Flea Theatre Mainstage (dir. Danya Taymor)
[2015] Staged Reading in the Women's Voices Theater Festival with Mosaic Theatre of DC (dir. Eleanor Holdridge)
[2015] Workshop and Staged Reading with OPEN Festival, Jewish Plays Project (dir, Benjamin Kamine)
[2015] Workshop and Staged Reading with The Playwrights' Realm (dir. Benjamin Kamine) (Writing Fellows selection)
[2013] Workshop production at NYU’s Lee Strasberg Institute (dir. Portia Krieger)
[2018] Top 10, Jewish Play Project's Best of the First 10 Years
[2016] Winner, AR Gurney Prize
[2016] Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival
[2015] Top 10 for Jewish Playwriting Contest
[2015] Honorable Mention, the Kilroys' List
[2013] Clifford Odets Ensemble Play Commission.
Seder
Twenty-first century Budapest. The old headquarters of the Hungarian KGB has reopened as a museum dedicated to Communist atrocities. Retired typist Erzsike is eager to visit her old work place. That is, until she comes face to face with her own photograph on the museum’s Wall of Murderers—and learns her estranged daughter put it there. As Erzsike and her family wrestle with their history, deep secrets are revealed, big questions are raised, and the moral and political waters are muddied. Can Erzsike exonerate herself? Should she?
Set during a secular Jewish family’s first-ever Passover seder, Seder is an intimate epic about how one Hungarian woman survived the 20th century, from the darkest days of Stalinism to the fall of the Soviet Union and beyond. Inspired by a true story. Part of the larger 7th project.
(4 M, 3W)
Development History
[2017] World Premiere at Hartford Stage (dir. Elizabeth Williamson)
[2016] Workshop, Hartford Stage (dir. Elizabeth Williamson)
[2012] Workshop, Sirály Arts Center, Budapest (dir. András Dömötör)
[2012] Semi-Finalist, O'Neill National Playwrights Conference
[2011] Staged Reading, Quarter6Quarter7 Festival, Budapest (dir. András Dömötör)
[2011] Staged Reading, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Omaha (dir. Benjamin Graber)
[2011] PlayLabs Selection, Great Plains Theater Conference 2011
[2010] Staged Reading, NYU Tisch Goldberg Theatre (dir. Oliver Butler)
[2017] Edgerton Foundation New Play Award
[2017] Hartford Courant Best Production of a Play, 2017
[[2017] Finalist, Sky Cooper New American Play Prize
[2017] Finalist, Premiere Stages' Play Festival (dir. John Wooten)
[2017] National Jewish Playwriting Contest, Top 10
[2016] Semi-Finalist, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize
[2016] Honorable Mention, The Kilroys' List
[2015] Honorable Mention, The Kilroys' List
[2010] Finalist, Six Points Fellowship 2010
Klauzál Square
Klauzál Square tells the story of Klara, a precocious preteen new to Budapest’s seedy 7th District. Ostracized and humiliated by the neighborhood mean girls, she starts hanging out with a strange companion: the ghost of a thirteen year old girl. With the ghost’s help, Klara strikes back at her tormenters and takes over their group. But over time, the girls’ adolescent power trips and mind games morph into something much older and darker. Inspired by a real Budapest playground built on what was once a Nazi mass grave. Part of the larger 7th project.
(5W)
Development History
[2018] Included on Steppenwolf's The Mix list
[2012] OPEN New Jewish Theater Residency via the Jewish Plays Project (dir. Jen Wineman)
[2012] Staged Reading in the 2012 Quarter6Quarter7 Festival, Budapest, Hungary (dir. Eszter Kalman)
[2014] Honorable Mention, The Kilroys' List
[2013] Semi-finalist, P73 Fellowship
[2012] Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival