Photo taken by Christopher Brown of Alexis Macnab in “Trigger Happy Jack” HERE Arts Center, 2008
NOTE: I’m in the process of combining this section with Essays and Multimedia Collaborations
plays and operas
Character-driven works that begin in emotional realism and gradually bend the world into something stranger, funnier, and more fragile. These plays explore memory, failure, and human connection through heightened language, unconventional spaces, and intimate theatrical encounters.
I prefer working in site-specific spaces (I have a deep love of subway cars, bath tubs, and elevators as performance spaces), festivals, and black box theatres. Some of these venues include LaMama Ect, The Ohio/SoHo Think Tank, The Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Flea, HERE Arts Center, Bowery Poetry Club, The Ontological-Hysteric Theater, The Off-Center, Salvage Vanguard, Seattle Fringe Festival, The New York International Fringe Festival,
screenplays
Narrative-driven screen work rooted in character, rhythm, and visual storytelling. These scripts explore how private emotional lives collide with public myths, often blending grounded realism with stylized or surreal elements.
immersive media
Experiential projects designed for audiences to move through, interact with, and complete the story themselves. Drawing from theatre, film, and installation art, this work treats space, technology, and participation as essential storytelling tools. The Howl Festival, and The Re/Mix Festival. You can check out 64, in which I wrote 64 plays for 64 painting by Jennilie Brewster, at this link here.
creative non-fiction essays.
Personal essays that braid memoir, cultural criticism, and narrative storytelling. These pieces examine grief, place, art, and identity with humor, vulnerability, and an attention to structure and voice. Warning: Several of my essays dealwth digs, and wiull amke you cry.
podcasts
Narrative and conversational audio projects focused on storytelling, memory, and creative process. These podcasts blend reflection, interviews, and sound design to explore how stories shape, and sometimes save us.
Old Stuff That will be removed soon.
I've written around 130 plays and operas, most of them one-acts, most of them awful. I call my esthetic “American Baroque.” I start with an organic, character-based story, often dealing with American issues, and then build the setting around the wants and needs of the characters. Then I stretch and twist the worldas if it were a reflection in a funhouse mirror. I try to ground the audience in something they can relate to, while adding separation with the fantastic. I focus on structure, shape, emotion, and the time and space those elements need to be communicated.
Samples of my work are listed in this next section. Please note: the material on this site is under copyright. .
The Story of Jacob Murakami, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Realized Sacred Cows Make The Finest Cheeseburgers
The Coney Island Mermaid Parade, orMy View From The Gershwin Hotel
Smashed
Trigger Happy Jack
At The Bottom Of The Sea, or The Bathtub Play
Giants, or The Play About The Misplaced Family
The Pretenders, or The Semantics of an Unincorporated Meta-Theatrical
6, or The Great Not-to-Be-Named
Lucy, The Rodeo Queen of Lulling, or In The City On The Edge Of Forever That Is In No Realtion To Harlan Ellison
The Hotel Vanya, or A Metaphysical-Paradigm At The End of Everythingness
Three, or The Sound of The Great Existential Nothingness
Photo taken by Christopher Brown of Alexis Macnab in Trigger Happy Jack
HERE Arts Center, 2008