Also featuring plays by Emma S. Rund, Dylan Kinnett, Barbara Bryan, Cameron Sheppard, Matt Brown, and Andre Thespies. With introduction by Shaun Vain (editor)
In the first anthology of this series, Chicago and Baltimore playwrights share short plays written for the stage. Performance-ready new ideas, contained within insightful dialogue and monologues span, the pages of this anthology.
Since America earned its title as "the melting pot" by most historians, Future Publishing House combines with playwrights and theatre artistry to create this unequivocally dynamic collection of work. As artists living with the freedom to create meaningful new work, the plays in this first volume inform the beginning of a millennia of performance art.
Plays comment on universal themes:
- Emma Rund's characters in To Fix a Dinosaur deal with conditional forgiveness.
- The struggle of political power to overcome scientific knowledge comes through in John Joseph Enright's Starry Night.
- Women's liberation ideas are featured in Easy as Pie by Melania Coffey.
- Gentrification is discussed in poetic verse in Alexander Scally's Chalked.
- Jealousy, envy, and the future of humanity are addressed in Dylan Kinnett's Party Planet.
- A scene from a play by Cameron Sheppard is dramatic and biographic
Some pieces in this anthology fall into symbolism, surrealism, and absurdism, such as Barbara Bryan's Leaving the Universe. Other plays are written as melodramas, such as Love, Lust, Lyrics & Stamps by Matt Brown and Andre Thespies.
Cover design by Kiirstn Pagan.
Coffey, Melanie: - Melanie Coffey's work in exploring female characters in theater, television, and film has been performed, read, and/or screened in NYC, Chicago, San Diego, LA, Connecticut, and London. She is a member of the Chicago Dramatists Guild and the Playwright's Center and her work in theater, television and film has been performed, read and/or screened in NYC, Chicago, San Diego, LA, Mystic, Connecticut, Edinburgh, Scotland and London, England.
Enright, John Joseph: - John Joseph Enright is a playwright and poet from the South Side of Chicago, best known for his full-length romantic comedies and short science-fiction plays. His plays are usually first produced in Chicago, which has an energetic theater scene, but he is always happy when something he wrote receives a production elsewhere. On the poetry side of things, John is the author of Starbound And Other Poems, and he is known on the internet for his "rhyme of the day" posts, which are mostly humorous observations based on current events and doings. He is currently working with composer Anne Tan on Charmin: The Musical, a short comedy about the great bathroom tissue shortage of 2020. He also enjoys acting and feels that the experience of performing on stage helps him to write pieces that allow actors to reach out to an audience.
Scally, Alexander: - Alexander Scally works with Submersive Collective. His one-man show, Building Your Emotional Home, was featured in Charm City Fringe Festival. He produces shows with his wife, Caitlin Bouxsein, as BOUXSCAL Productions.
