c/o Julien Thuan
United Talent Agency
310-860-3791
Email:
newdramatists@newdramatists.org
Brooke Berman is the daughter of a Midwestern concert pianist and a gambler with literary aspirations. Brooke’s plays have been produced at the Humana Festival, The Second Stage, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, The Play Company; Naked Angels and others. Readings and Workshops: The National Theatre in London, The Royal Court Theatre in London, SPF in New York City, the Underwood Theatre, The O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Williamstown Theater Festival, The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, The Denver Center Theater Company, Soho Rep, the Childrens Theatre Company in Minneapolis, and others. She is the recipient of a Berillla Kerr Foundation grant, two Francesca Primus prizes, the Helen Merrill Award, two Lecomte du Nouy awards and a commission from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. Her play Defusion was included in Christine Jones’s “The Theater for One” project at New York Theatre Workshop and recently published in an anthology of one-act plays edited by Craig Lucas. Recently, Brooke has been working on a screenplay adaptation of Smashing for Natalie Portman, a new play for Arielle Tepper Productions and an original screenplay for Fugitive Films. Brooke is an alumna of the Juilliard School, a member of the MCC Playwrights Coalition and director of the playwrights lab for MCC’s Youth Theatre Company where she mentors New York City public high school students. Originally a solo performer, Brooke occasionally still performs her own work. She has been teaching playwriting and creative process labs for eight years.
A PERFECT COUPLE
Full-Length, 90 Minutes
2M - ISAAC, 40; JOSH, 25, any race
2W - EMMA, 39; AMY, 39. Best friends, any race
Unit Set: A house in the country. But, not necessarily a naturalistic set. The play is more suggestive than naturalistic. Set should feel OPEN.
Two best
friends, reunited for a weekend in the country, discover secrets that
threaten to unravel a 20 year friendship and an impending marriage.
A critical inquiry into contemporary ideas of marriage and of staying
single. A quartet. Commissioned by Arielle Tepper Productions (2005). Developed
at the Royal National Theatre in London with Orla O'Loughlin.
Readings: Naked Angels, directed by Trip Cullman.
UNTILWEFINDEACHOTHER
Drama/Dark Comedy
Flexible Set 3M, 3W
Three cousins with uncanny psychic abilities locate one another across
space and time in order to say goodbye. Sophy thinks she's the holy whore;
Miriam runs from the family; and Justin tries to keep them all together.
They share a powerful link, but must each wander alone. A play about
family, mysticism, love, sex, and Jewish-ness.
Premiere: Steppenwolf Theatre
Company (2002). Workshops: O’Neill Playwrights Conference (2002), and
Makor/Rising Phoenix Rep (2001). Reading: The Rude Mechanicals (2002).
SAM & LUCY
Dark Comedy 3M, 3W
Flexible Set
Lucy, clad in vintage Gucci, struggles with Saturn Return, ghosts, and her
mother’s lover.
Readings: Red Bull Theater,
Rattlestick, and The Juilliard School.
SMASHING
Two-act Dark Comedy 3M, 2W
Flexible Set
Twenty-one-year-old Clea's best friend Abby is the subject of a graphic,
exploitative first novel written by a former lover. The girls embark on a
spur of the moment revenge-trip to London, while desperately seeking
Madonna. A play about writers, cannibalism, and hero worship.
Premiere: The Play Company (2003).
Workshop productions: The O'Neill Playwrights Conference (2001) and The
Play
THE TRIPLE HAPPINESS
Two-act Comedy 2M, 3W
Flexible Set
On the verge of the millennium, a Vassar student, his suburban parents, a
movie star, a drifter, and an unlikely prophetess seek happiness in
Larchmont, New York and the mythological Triple Happiness bar. But can you
really have what you want?
Premiere scheduled: The Second Stage
(2004). Workshop production: The Hourglass Group (2001). Readings: The
Playwrights Center (2002), The Royal Court Theatre, London (2000), A.S.K.
Theater Projects (2000), and The Hourglass Group (2000).
PLAYING HOUSE
Comedy, 75-90 Minutes 2M, 2W (one character could be cast either way)
No Intermission
Comedy about depression, healing, and the yearning for viable alternative
family structures. Cory is married to David; June was their flower girl.
They all live together in a loft under the Brooklyn Bridge, playing house,
grappling with the meaning of relationship, family, and growing up.
Patrick just wants to go clubbing.
Workshop: PatchFilms, Brooklyn. NY
(2002). Readings: Denver Center US West Fest (2000), New Georges (1999),
and The Juilliard School (1999). Winner of the Francesca Primus Award
(2000).
CAKE
Short Play, 50 Minutes 2M, 2W
A delicious short play about adultery and sweet things. Alice is about to
turn 30 and married when she meets Benjamin, a 20-year-old student, and
starts an affair with serious implications. Like her namesake, Alice in
Wonderland, she eats and drinks, grows big and small.
Workshop: The Juilliard School
(1999).
DEFUSION
Short Play, 20 Minutes 1M, 1W
A delicious short play about loss and desire. DEFUSION chronicles an email
affair. A one-person, ten-minute version is available.
Workshop: The Juilliard School
(1999). Production: The Round Table Ensemble (2001). 10-minute Adaptation
produced at New York Theatre Workshop as part of Christine Jones’ “Theater
For One.”
WONDERLAND
Full Length 6M, 5W (double casting)
A collage-like, rock music, comic spiritual awakening in Los Angeles.
Performance artist Mia goes to LA to develop a sit-com and meets Jesus
Christ, who is also in L.A. looking to play the lead in "The River Phoenix
Story." All your favorite TV sitcom characters appear.
Readings: The Rude Mechanicals
(1999), The Denver Center Theater US West Fest (1998), Dance Theater
Workshop (1997), New Georges (1995). Winner of the Francesca Primus Award
(1998).
THE LIDDY PLAYS
A Collection of Plays 2M, 3W (double casting)
(The first two plays may stand alone as One Acts.)
A collection of interwoven plays following Liddy and Emerson, an enigmatic
brother and sister pair, as they confront the death of their mother, fall
in love with dangerous people, learn to meditate, and remember growing up.
A humorous and sad collage built around memory, desire, and the mind.
Workshops: Walker Space/Rising
Phoenix Rep (2001), The Hangar Lab (2001), and HERE (1999). Readings:
Rattlestick Theater (2001, 2002) and MCC Theater (2002).
BLESSINGS FOR THE URBAN DWELLER
Five Ten-minute Plays and a 20-minute One Act Flexible Cast
Flexible Set
Included in this collection: DANCING WITH A DEVIL, THE QUIET BAR, BLOODY
THANKSGIVING, BLISS, FRENCH TOAST AND PARSLEY, HOME, or CHARLES BUKOWSKI
WAS NOT A MAGICAL REALIST, and A FREE MAN IN PARIS.
Selections produced at: Actors
Theater of Louisville's Humana Festival (1999), Roadworks (2001), Soho Rep
(1999), The Cherry Lane Alternative (2000), The Round Table Ensemble
(2001), MCC Theater, The Ohio Theater (2000), Rising Phoenix Rep at the
Wax (2001), Rising Phoenix Rep at the Blue Heron (2002), and New Georges
(1998).
STRANGE KINDNESS
Dark Comedy
3W, 3M
Sarah Fields is a 25-year-old virgin with an adopted father who believes
himself to be Blanche DuBois and a missing mother who might be Audrey
Hepburn in a trailer park. When Sarah meets Kenneth, her spiritual boy
twin, mama-hunger is released and change must ensue.
AMAZING
Dark Comedy, 90 minutes
No Intermission
2W, 2M
Three eighteen-year-old friends discover the intricate nature of
passionate, no-holds-barred friendship one summer while living on the
roof, looking for the perfect mocha and trying to not go home.
Commissioned by Childrens Theatre Company.
Unencumbered. (2003)