Playwright Portrait, Crystal Skillman, Excerpt from Birthday

The Playwright Crystal Skillman, 2006

pswb©2012

Birthday

LEILA

In my building.

When it was snowing out of nowhere here last month.

All these seagulls fl y past my windows.

Fucking weird, right?

Right in the snow.

The way they moved, right up to the windows, glide

their bodies right by, then raise up, that’s grace I

thought.

I’d like to move like that.

Some people make mistakes but can move through

them, let them go and they don’t hurt.

They don’t cry in hallways and look like shit.

They sit in corners and keep it all inside.

But I can’t.

I have this wish, the way I want things to be.

And when I see it, in my head, it’s good, it’s good but

how can I make that…

I dream about it.

Being that.

I wake up.

It’s a feeling.

Alive like…

Like there are all these possibilities.

But I wake up.

I lose it.

Playwright Portrait, Gary Sunshine, Excerpt from Good Deeds for a Weary World

The Playwright Gary Sunshine, 2006

pswb©2011

GOOD DEEDS FOR A WEARY WORLD

MIKEY, standing next to the destroyed flame broiler, speaks to THE EMPLOYEE.

MIKEY

The flame broiler.

It's the heart of this.

The heart.

Maybe you could have done something.

Cause did you HEAR IT? HUH? Squeaking or grinding or.

Did you ask, like, did you say ¡Hola¡, Flame Broiler, how can I help you? Cause we all need you to suck the fat and the gristle and the sores out of the patties and leave nothing but the taste behind?

You could have asked, Can I restart you? Or grease you up? Reposition the element? Jigger your chains? Can I cool you down, is that it, are you overheated from all the hard work you've done for us? What can I do, Flame Broiler, you could have asked this in my absence, you could have gently asked the machine, YOU COULD HAVE ASKED!

But I'm sorry.

I'm out of line.

I've got a lot.

There's a lot.

Did a piece of your brain die?

Did the fence rip through your scalp when you crawled into this country?

Were you brilliant before?

Were you beautiful before?

Did you deteriorate?

Because you didn't tell me. When I hired you. You never said. You didn't say that was your plan.

To deteriorate.

Nobody ever says.

You understand, though. I'm going to have to.

EMPLOYEE

Fire me?

MIKEY

Kill you. No. I meant. Lay you off. Cause there’s no work.

FROM THIS JOAN by Gary Sunshine

JOAN

Adrienne’s teaching me to be guiltless.

HOWIE

A little guilt never hurt anybody.

JOAN

And frank.

HOWIE

Which I find to be very sexy.

JOAN

And liberal.

HOWIE

Oh how unique, a liberal Jew from New York--

JOAN

--I was completely dependent on my husband for everything but money and I refuse to get into that situation again--

HOWIE

--Your husband’s dead, dear. (Beat.) Look. I know what it’s like for you. I can see. Down here, older. By yourself. You feel like no matter where you go, you never leave any footprints. You’re still alive but there’s hardly any trace of you. But I could be your footprints, Joan. Let me change the way you walk on this earth.

Playwright Portrait, Ann Marie Healy, Excerpt from What Once We Felt

The Playwright Ann Marie Healy, 2007

pswb©2011

WHAT ONCE WE FELT

ASTRID

Macy

You haven’t even touched—

Look at this food:

This is beautiful food!

You never get to eat at Panet

This food will change your life //

Enjoy enjoy my dear

MACY

Change your life

ASTRID

(Pulling a kumquat out and eating it with her fingers)

You really should try one

They’re stuffed full of liquor

Like sucking a shot from a wet sock!

MACY

What did you offer Claire to entice her?

ASTRID

I shouldn’t have

It was ahem

A very unconventional contingency //

I shouldn’t have even tried

MACY

What did you offer her?

(Pause)

Playwright Portrait, Daniel Talbott, Excerpt from Slipping

Daniel Talbott,

Playwright, Actor, Dramaturge,

2006,

pswb©2011

SLIPPING

by Daniel Talbott

ELI

I loved him.

………

Short silence.

When we did.

When it felt right.

Sometimes.

The few times.

Beat.

It felt like kids. Like little kids.

Like eating dog food or stealing shit from a store.

Silence.

I’d think about him.

I’d think about the ocean.

About the sun.

His skin.

Surfing.

Changing behind the passenger door of his car.

Stuffing himself inside his wet suit.

His navel. His abs.

Beat.

I’d think about sharks.

The water.

How deep it was.

I’d imagined cuts all on his body.

Him swimming out to sea…

Confident.

Secure.

Cocky.

His blood mixing with the salt and the tide.

Short silence.

I’d think of a shark falling in love with him the way I did.

His body. His blood.

Short pause.

I’d listen to it devour him.

His screams being sucked up into the surf and air.

Sinking together. To the bottom.

Into the darkness.

Short pause.

Playwright Portrait, Martin Epstein, Excerpt from Vera Similitude

Martin Epstein,

Playwright and Master Teacher, 2006

VERA SIMILITUDE

SCENE: OUTSIDE A CLOSED SAN FRANCISCO MOVIE THEATRE SHOWING A HITCHCOCK RETROSPECTIVE. IT IS 2 AM. VERA, A HUNGARIAN GIRL-WOMAN IN A RAINCOAT DROPS TO HER KNEES AND KISSES THE PAVEMENT.

VERA:
(FACING THE HOUSE)
Cinema is the true religion of everyone I know. Regardless of how we were raised, or what we profess ourselves to be, the gods we love the most and would die for are all movie stars. If you think I'm joking, try to go three days without talking about movies. If anyone else brings the subject up, keep absolutely silent. If they persist, walk away. But prepare to be ostracized like a bad odor. I tried it once. Two days later, I was ready for the loony bin. (SHE KISSES PAVEMENT AGAIN, AS A FIGURE IN A BLACK SKY MASK ENTERS BEHIND HER) And this is why, my first day on American soil, I take this special moment to pay tribute to the star-spangled universe of celluloid bandits who stole my heart and kept it from despair through so many difficult years. Katherine Hepburn and company, god bless you. And thank you, America, for putting the idea in my head that the great adventure in this life is to find that special someone you can go to the movies with! Not just once, but over and over and over again, regardless of what's playing! (THE MASK ADVANCES) Yes, I'm talking to you, Mr. Mystery Man! (MASK STOPS) My shy, as yet invisible moving going pal--You jumbo jet sized egotist, who long long ago roared into my life and made yourself the absent center of all my sweetest dreams...(MASK ADVANCES) Shame on you! (MASK STOPS) Shame O shame for making we wait so long! (MASK ADVANCES) Shame for making me waste my time with incompetent boys from 17 different countries before I realized you just had to be an American guy! (MASK ADVANCES) Shame most of all for still keeping yourself hidden when I've practically thrown myself at your feet! (MASK ADVANCES) But be forewarned, Sir. When you finally choose to make yourself known, I'm going to punish you, and how! Even if you turn out to be as gorgeous as the Marlboro Man and twice as rich, you're going to pay for every second you kept me waiting. For every second you kept me waiting, I'm going to drag you deeper and deeper down, until you've gorged yourself on the pleasures of the damned! (THE MASK GRABS HER HAIR, PULLING HER HEAD BACK. IN HIS OTHER HAND, AN OPEN RAZOR) Stop!

Ruth Maleczech of Mabou Mines, circa 1982

Ruth Maleczech avec petit fils.

circa 1982

pswb©2011

Playwright Portrait, Lynn Nottage, Excerpt from Ruined

              The Playwright Lynn Nottage, 2010

©pswb2010

RUINED

SALIMA:

He called me a filthy dog, and said I tempted them. Why else would it happen? Five months in the bush, passed between the soldiers like a washrag. Used. I was made poison by their fingers, that is what he said. He had no choice but to turn away

Do you know what I was doing on that morning?

I was working in our garden picking the last of the sweet tomatoes. I put Beatrice down in the shade of a Frangipani tree, because my back was giving me some trouble. Forgiven? Where was Fortune? He was in town fetching a new iron pot.

"Go," I said "Go, today man or you won't have dinner tonight!" I had been after him for a new pot for a month. And finally on that day the damn man had to go and get it. A new pot. The sun was about to crest, but I had to put in another hour before it got too hot. It was such a clear and open sky. This splendid bird, a peacock had come into the garden to taunt me, and was showing off its feathers. I stooped down and called to the bird. "Wssht, Wssht." And I felt a shadow cut across my back, and when I stood four men were there over me, smiling, wicked schoolboy smiles. "Yes?" I said. And the tall soldier slammed the butt of his gun into my cheek. Just like that. It was so quick; I didn't even know I'd fallen to the ground. Where did they come from? How could I not have heard them?

One of the soldiers held me down with his foot. He was so heavy, thick like an ox and his boot was cracked and weathered like it had been left out in the rain for weeks. His boot was pressing my chest and the cracks in the leather had the look of drying sorghum. His foot was so heavy and it was all I could see, as the others..."took" me. My baby was crying. She was a good baby. Beatrice never cried, but she was crying, screaming. "Shhh" I said. "Shhh." And right then...

(A moment)

A soldier stomped on her head with his boot. And she was quiet.

(A moment. Salima releases-)

Where was everybody? WHERE WAS EVERYBODY?!