Death, The Dance, and the Girl by Elijah Bell
Death, the Dance, and the Girl follows Death, a councillor to the recently passed, preparing with his assistant for the final client of the night: a young woman named Aphrodite. As Death tries to move Aphrodite through the DOOR TO WHAT COMES NEXT, they realize just how much in common they have with each other.
What do we do when it all goes away?
Death – Death. Professional, emphatic, level headed, used to the routine, a little weird. Has an air that he’s pushing something down. Male, twenties.
Aphrodite – The Girl. Spunky, cool, outspoken, impulsive, defensive, endearing. Full of life. Female, twenties.
Grant – Death’s assistant. Cheeky, capable, caring. Knowledgeable, quick-thinker, hilariously level toned. Male, any age.
The Risotto is Burning by Sophie Underwood
A long-standing couple, Annabelle and Benjamin, get ready to host their first dinner party at their new apartment. The guest list? Annabelle’s university best friends, Leah and Maddy, and their respective partners. It’s been years since the three of them have been together properly.
Tensions run high and wine flows freely as Leah arrives with her new girlfriend Layla, a 20-year-old vegan she picked up at a Buddhist retreat.
Things take a turn for the absurd when Maddy arrives with her new partner Jeremy – a fuzzy blue puppet. Throughout the night the six of them are forced to hash out what it means to love and be loved in a rapidly changing world, and whether it’s better to be with someone wrong than to be with no one at all. Annabelle and Leah’s past is brought into question, and old feelings resurface. But at the end of the night – who’s going home with who?
ANNABELLE – Mid/late-twenties. High-strung and suddenly deeply unmotivated.
BENJAMIN – Mid/late-twenties. Annabelle’s boyfriend. Funny, upbeat, can’t read the room. A bit useless.
LEAH – Mid/late-twenties. Quick, headstrong. Struggling with unresolved feelings.
LAYLA – Early twenties. “Spiritual.” Self-involved, righteous, and ready to take on the world. Leah’s new girlfriend.
MADDIE – Mid/late-twenties. A past performance artist. Sick of being alone. The actor must be able to PUPPETEER Maddie’s partner, Jeremy, who is a fuzzy muppet-style puppet.
Director
Designer
Lighting Designer
Set and Costumes
Stage Manager
Game Night by Scott Allen
A group of friends play a game of Monopoly only to descend further and further into madness. But it’s all just fun and games right?
Role: Jo Description: Aloof stoner with minimal aspirations who has never played Monopoly before.
Role: Leighton Description: Uptight, buttoned-up and controlling, but has a soft spot for their friends.
Role: Tyler Description: Does accents (Poorly), and longs to be found interesting.
Role: Angus Description: Enjoys Board Games. Passionate as he beats to the sound of his own drum, but takes things too seriously.
Role: Mr. Monopoly Description: Larger than life representation of greed and desire. Attempting to allure and entice people to a greater purpose: Capitalism.
Stage Manager
Lighting Designer
Motherland by Lloyd Davis
Winter, 1942. An area outside Stalingrad. The Soviet army has suffered greatly in the war so far, losing much territory and tenfold more lives than most other major nations. Moscow is at risk of falling to the enemy.
The play takes place near the frontlines, in and around a barracks that houses this women’s sharpshooter unit. The trio are lethal, elite soldiers. The commander’s quarters are nearby, as are additional Soviet housing compounds and headquarters.
A relationship develops between Dasha and a prisoner of war. This play asks the us to consider what it means to see the humanity in the enemy, choosing a possibly life threatening freedom over life threatening loyalty to the regimes we are conscripted into. It is uncomfortable, but so is truth.
Dasha: Description: Mid-20s, renowned sniper. Discrete, collected, disillusioned.
Petra: Description: Mid-20s, sniper, high school friend of Dasha, dutiful, hopeful, practical.
Marina: Description: Division commander. Matriarch, intense, merciful.
Anya: Description: Younger, sniper, the Soviet version of bubbly. Ambitious, anxious, proud.
Hans: Description: Mid-20s, German soldier. Traitor, hopeful, disillusioned.
Lighting Designer: Description: Someone who is well versed in programing, intrigued by the macabre.
Set Designer: Description: Someone who enjoys a period piece, is fond of research, and is interested in pushing the boundaries of realism to align with post-war surrealism.
Stage Manager: Description: Someone who can handle time–sensitive work, enjoys supporting the artistic vision as a whole, and has good aim to throw balled paper at a distractible director (very good for relieving tension!)
Violinist/ Violist: Description: Someone with an interest in blending music with performance art, someone who will feel comfortable being present and active onstage in the show. There is room for some composition/ improvisation, though not required.
Finer, Further, Faster by William “Bill” Allen
In the far off future, four androids, all possessing the memories of a corporate enlistee they are based on, voyage across the galaxy to escape their creators and find their mother; a woman whom they all remember but have never technically met.
Zero: The original android, possessing the memories of Duster, the corporate enlistee they were built to emulate. They are confused by the logistics of their existence, and long to escape from their corporate creators.
Duster: The corporate enlistee that the androids are based upon. They are rebellious, yet caring, being willing to sacrifice their morals to a degree in order to support their loved ones however they can.
Banks: The corporate inventor who created the androids. They are obsessive, and go about their work with a childlike glee, regarding their creations akin to how a child would regard their favorite toys.
Nolan: An android copy of Zero, created to be subjected to tests. They are mute, having had their voice box removed, but possess a rebellious spirit against the creators who keep them and their fellow androids captured.
Up Your Game written by Peter Campbell
Synopsis James Fergus, a polished city councillor, lives alone in his ocean-view home, estranged from his wife and daughters who have grown weary of his controlling ways. Into his ordered life storms Rebecca Morey, a young, hungover journalist — and daughter of Marlene, the woman James loved and abandoned decades earlier. Rebecca arrives ostensibly to share memories of her recently deceased mother, but her motives soon turn darker. What begins as awkward reminiscence unravels into an emotional reckoning: accusations, revelations, and the exhuming of old letters filled with lust, regret, and unfinished forgiveness. Rebecca weaponizes Marlene’s words, exposing James’s youthful chaos and hypocrisy, while revealing her own lifelong scars — a childhood overshadowed by her mother’s addiction, activism, and self-destruction. Through their verbal sparring, it becomes clear that both are haunted by Marlene: James by guilt, Rebecca by loss and confusion over the woman she both adored and resented. Their confrontation spirals from bitter sarcasm to near-violence before settling into uneasy understanding, as each begins to glimpse the pain beneath the other’s armour. The play ends in silence, the sound of waves rising as James faces his own reflection — a man learning too late that control is no substitute for connection, and that forgiveness, when it finally comes, demands surrender.
JAMES FERGUS (early 60s) ~ A senior city councillor who built his life on the virtues of order and process. Polished, articulate, James has built a life defined by achievement and containment — a stable marriage, successful daughters, political authority. Beneath that discipline lies a man shaped by instability in childhood and haunted by the relationships he managed rather than nurtured. He is not cruel, but emotionally risk-averse; not heartless, but practiced at justification. Beneath the discipline is unresolved guilt surrounding the one woman he could not manage, rescue, or leave behind cleanly.
Stage Manager
Stage Hand
The Landlord’s Game by Sean Weeks
“Landlord’s Game” is a musical farce about the feminist game designer Elizabeth J. Magie Philips (a.k.a. “Lizzie”) and humanity’s addiction to Monopoly, which is a game we all love to hate and hate to love, but is nevertheless the best-selling game of all time.
It contains one musical number which already exists in the public domain (“After You Get What You Want” by Irving Berlin), one that is already written, and possibly one opening number. The playwright will also compose in close cooperation with whoever plays the lead role.
In the early 1900s, Magie created “The Landlord’s Game” as a political lesson. Players would first play the “Monopoly” rules, which are the ones we “enjoy” today. Then they would play “Prosperity,” a set of rules informed by Magie’s Georgist ideals about property. The “Monopoly” rules were thus a summation of capitalism.
After a man “discovered” (a.k.a. stole) Monopoly, the second set of rules were jettisoned and the first were kept.
“The Landlord’s Game” is partly a biography, a celebration of Magie’s past, but also a lament about what could be.
Lizzie Magie – 38, stenographer, inventor, comedian, and designer of The Landlord’s Game
Madeline Aberforth – 29, co-worker of Lizzie and wife of Jonathan Aberforth
Jonathan Aberforth/CHAIRMAN – 35, husband of Madeline, installs heaters
Charlie Parker/TOWNIES; #1/CHAIRMAN/JENKINS – 40, co-owner of Parker Brothers/random passerby/chairman of the Ludological Society/member of the Society
Edward Parker/TOWNIES; #2, #3/ARCHIBALD – 40, co-owner of Parker Brothers/random passersby/member of the Ludological Society
Director Set Designer
