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Carlos Murillo's DARK PLAY OR STORIES FOR BOYS received its world premiere at the 31st Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville in March 2007, and will be produced at Actors Express in Atlanta and Theatre @ Boston Court in LA in fall 2007. Carlos' other plays include: UNFINISHED AMERICAN HIGHWAYSCAPE #9 & 32 (OR THE BROKEN TRACTOR GRAVEYARD), MIMESOPHOBIA (OR BEFORE AND AFTER), A HUMAN INTEREST STORY (OR THE GORY DETAILS AND ALL), OFFSPRING OF THE COLD WAR, THE PATRON SAINT OF THE NAMELESS DEAD, SCHADENFREUDE, NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES WITH LENI RIEFENSTAHL, NEVER WHISTLE WHILE YOU'RE PISSING and SUBTERRANEANS. They have been produced in NY (NYC Summer Play Festival, En Garde Arts, Soho Rep, The Hangar Theatre Lab), LA (Theatre @ Boston Court, Circle X, Son of Semele), Chicago (Walkabout Theatre, DePaul University), Minneapolis (Red Eye), Seattle (The Group), Atlanta (Actors Express) and Austin (dirigo group). They have been developed at The Public, NY Theatre Workshop, The Goodman, South Coast Rep, Portland Center Stage, Madison Rep, the Sundance Institute, The Playwrights' Center, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, A.S.K. Theatre Projects, the Chautauqua Conservatory, Annex Theatre, UC Santa Barbara, the Loyola University Museum of Art and others. Two of his plays, A HUMAN INTEREST STORY and SCHADENFREUDE have been published in Theatre Forum International Theatre Journal (UCSD Department of Theatre and Dance). He was a Jerome Fellow at The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, and has received grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board and is a two-time recipient of the National Latino Playwriting Award from Arizona Theatre Company. He has received commissions from The Public Theatre, South Coast Rep, En Garde Arts, and Disney Creative Entertainment. As a director, he has staged productions and workshops of his own work in New York, Chicago and Minneapolis. He has also staged plays at The Walker Arts Center/Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, The Public Theatre New Work Now! Festival, the Mazer Theatre and Makor in NY. Carlos teaches playwriting and performance at The Theatre School of DePaul University in Chicago, where he lives with his wife Lisa Portes and their two children Eva Rose and Carlos Pablo.
- DARK PLAY OR STORIES FOR BOYS
- UNFINISHED AMERICAN HIGHWAYSCAPE # 9 & 32 (OR THE BROKEN TRACTOR GRAVEYARD)
- MIMESOPHOBIA (OR BEFORE AND AFTER)
- A HUMAN INTEREST STORY (OR THE GORY DETAILS AND ALL)
- OFFSPRING OF THE COLD WAR
- THE PATRON SAINT OF THE NAMELESS DEAD
- SCHADENFREUDE
- NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES WITH LENI RIEFENSTAHL
- NEVER WHISTLE WHILE YOU'RE PISSING
- SUBTERRANEANS
- STORYBOARDS OF A CRIME
DARK PLAY OR STORIES FOR BOYS
One-Act, 95 Minutes
3M, 2W
Flexible Set
A teenage boy's fictional Internet identity begins as a harmless game. But the game takes on a frightening reality when it's overwhelmed by real emotion. When the virtual world and the real one collide, Nick's fantasies of love, intimacy, obsession and betrayal spiral out of control, leading him to the brink of death.
World Premiere: 31st Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville (2007). Other productions: Actors Express, Atlanta (Fall 2007); Theatre @ Boston Court, Pasadena (Fall 2007). Workshops: The Goodman Theatre Latino Festival (2006); The Theatre School of DePaul University (2006); UCSB Summer Theatre Lab (2005). National Latino Playwriting Award (2006).
"Murillo's enjoyably hyper-theatrical play concerns the infinite latent possibilities within us, and the disturbing way in which our alienating and atomizing world encourages the furtive pursuit of our kinkiest desires. Dark Play underscores the instability and unconscious flux of contemporary character."--Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times
"It's provocative and sensual. And it probes the pressing question--the changing nature of identity in the virtual world."
--Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
"A shocking, revelatory look at how the internet blurs reality and virtual reality. Perhaps no play since Equus has so searingly explored the violently malleable world of pubescent male sexuality."--John Moore, Denver Post
"In dark play or stories for boys, a college kid rises from a post-coital stupor and tells, in riveting, disturbing and sometimes hilarious detail, the back story of how he got the scars on his belly. A jolting cautionary tale."--Christine Dolan, Miami Herald
"A new American play for a new America."--Rich Copley, Lexington Herald-Leader
UNFINISHED AMERICAN HIGHWAYSCAPE # 9 & 32 (OR THE BROKEN TRACTOR GRAVEYARD)
One-act With Songs, 100 Minutes
4M, 4W
Flexible Staging
Eight lone travelers journey the back roads and Interstates through the American night, grappling with their most secret thoughts in the dark as they escape their pasts and drive towards the terrifying uncertainty at the end of the road. Mysterious connections, dangerous dislocations and life-altering encounters shape this meditation on the myth of individualism on the American road.
World Premiere: Theatre @ Boston Court, Pasadena (2006). Workshops: Boston Court (2005); Madison Repertory Theatre (2003). Written with the support of a 2002 Rockefeller MAP Fund Grant.
"Funny and poignant. Murillo's fractured narrative and junkyard imagery poetically mirrors the displaced lives he chronicles telling a story… 'using all the stuff people throw away.'"--Philip Brandes, Los Angeles Times
"The beautifully crafted, intertwined portraits create an empathetic core – a kind of root American persona we can all empathize with…"--Pasadena Star News
"[Highwayscape] evokes the common and the uncommon, the sadness and gentle humor in the lives of ordinary people in small, almost forgotten towns. The images and words linger."--Pasadena Weekly
"Murillo pays tribute to the traditions established by two enduring works for the stage: Dylan Thomas' 1953 landmark Under Milkwood, and Charles Aidman's stage version of Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology. In a fair world Unfinished American Highwayscape could easily join this earlier pair of classic plays to become a triumvirate chronicle of our lives and times that could be presented in rep for the next few centuries."--Entertainment Today, LA
MIMESOPHOBIA (OR BEFORE AND AFTER)
Two Acts, 120 Minutes
3M, 3W
Flexible Set
They seemed like the perfect couple. Affluent. Attractive. Well-educated. Why did the husband brutally murder his wife and then take his own life? A desperate screenwriting duo struggles with severe writer's block to unearth the answer. The murder victim's sister reconstructs from the ashes a diary that may or may not contain the secrets. And a deranged academic, haunted by her own possible involvement, meditates on the American obsession with violence. In the face of inexplicable violence, whose myth will most closely resemble the truth of what happened?
NYC Summer Play Festival (2005). Development: Portland Center Stage JAW/West (2004); HPP South Coast Rep (2003); A.S.K. Theatre Projects (2002). Commissioned by South Coast Rep.
A HUMAN INTEREST STORY (OR THE GORY DETAILS AND ALL)
One Act, 70 Minutes
3M, 3W
Flexible Set
Somewhere in America, a man fantasizes about his best friend's wife. In another city, a young housewife momentarily loses sight of her children. Elsewhere, a politician relives a tragic second that forever changed his life, and a mother wonders where her teenage son got the gun. And in one town, a man watches all this unfold on his TV screen. A Human Interest Story is an unflinching portrait of an America obsessed with voyeurism that asks the question: Is the imagination more cruel and unforgiving than reality?
Productions: Walkabout Theatre, Chicago (2004); Son of Semele Ensemble, LA (2004); dirigo group, Austin (2006); The Hangar Theatre Lab (2003). Development: A.S.K. (2002); Public Theatre New Work Now! (2002); Annex Theatre (2001). Named in Best 5 New Plays of 2004 by New City Chicago. Published: Theatre Forum, Winter/Spring 2005.
"Murillo is a writer of great richness and technical brilliance. Not everyone will want to walk the dark side with him, but those with the stomach for it will not be disappointed."--Heddy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
"If the scenario depicted in Edward Hopper's Nighthawks were updated to the 21st century, it might resemble the world of this play. Author-director Carlos Murillo's impressively articulate text keeps us always cognizant of our narrative dimensions and the cast he has assembled for this Walkabout production embrace their universe with an intensity that renders significant every pause and twitch."--Windy City Times, Chicago
"This disturbing message is conveyed by Murillo with strong storytelling tools: a rich accumulation of details, a tantalizing unfolding of narrative, distinct voices."--Austin Chronicle
OFFSPRING OF THE COLD WAR
Three Acts, 140 Minutes
2M, 1W playing multiple roles
Single Set
Marcus' mysterious new neighbor Miranda storms into his apartment one morning, demanding to know why he spies on her. Fascinated by Marcus' reclusive existence and his collection of antique oddities, she discovers a magic portal in a wardrobe. The two embark on a journey through the 20th Century in which they relive the tragicomic fates of a century's worth of star crossed lovers. When they arrive in the present again, they're forced to confront their origins and the meaning of their love in uncertain times.
Production: Walkabout Theatre, Chicago (2002). Development: Sundance Theatre Lab (1999); Public Theatre New Work Now! (1999). Commissioned by The Public.
"Carlos Murillo is not an average playwright. He favors multiple what-ifs, darting around more or less in tandem, as if running with the bulls in Pamplona. Murillo has no shortage of actual, viable theatrical ideas."--Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
THE PATRON SAINT OF THE NAMELESS DEAD
One Act, 35 Minutes
1M
Flexible Set
A new immigrant to the Lower East Side takes the only job he can get--robbing graves and burning down tenements. He needs the money to bring his beloved to the land of the free. A missed encounter, a horrible crime, and a terrible irony condemn him to repeat his past until the end of time.
Production: En Garde Arts (part of The Secret History of the Lower East Side, 1998). Commissioned by En Garde Arts.
SCHADENFREUDE
Two Acts, 140 Minutes
4M, 3W with doubling
Flexible Set
Elisabeth Nietszche, caught between the two great loves of her life--her brother Friedrich and her anti-Semitic husband Berhard Forster--sets out on a wild journey to the jungles of Paraguay to found the colony of Nueva Germania, a proto-Nazi experiment. Facing the choice between her ailing husband and her insane brother, Elisabeth fuses their two irreconcilable world-views, becoming an indomitable force in early 20th Century Germany.
Productions: Circle X, LA (2001); Barat College of DePaul University (2003). Workshops: Public Theatre New Work Now! (1996); Sundance Theatre Lab (1996); PlayLabs (1996); Bay Area Playwrights Festival (1996). Published: Theatre Forum, Winter/Spring 2002.
"Philosophically dense, sometimes jarring, Schadenfreude is a provocative imagining with slivers of dark humor."--Los Angeles Times
"Probing and imaginative."--Backstage West
"Engaging and thought provoking. Schadenfreude literally translated from German means 'malicious joy,' an apt description of Murillo's hilarious and insightful vision of our often twisted world and the absurdity of the social graces practiced in most any time period."--Entertainment Today, LA
NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES WITH LENI RIEFENSTAHL
Two Acts, 120 Minutes
4M, 2W play multiple roles
Flexible Set
Farafra Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt. A local restaurateur at war with an eccentric local sculptor--an age-old blood feud between Bedouin families. When Claire, a Frenchwoman with a tortured history of her own, arrives from the West with her own ideas about the future of the oasis, the balance of power in town goes off kilter. The characters, torn between history and desire, find themselves on the perilous tightrope between prosperity and destruction.
World Premiere: Red Eye Collaboration, Minneapolis (1996). Workshops: The Playwrights' Center (1995); Public Theatre New Work Now! (1995); New York Theater Workshop Summer Retreat--Dartmouth College (1995).
NEVER WHISTLE WHILE YOU'RE PISSING
Two Acts, 100 Minutes
3M, 4W or 4M, 3W play multiple roles
Flexible Set
A young man returns to the United States after several months abroad. Detained at customs for a suspicious text he has in his backpack he finds himself thrust into a Kafka-esque landscape where his immigrant father is accused of crimes he never committed. A tragic-comic tale of the American Dream gone awry.
World Premiere: The Group Theatre, Seattle, WA (1998). Workshops: HPP South Coast Rep (1995); New York Theatre Workshop Hotchkiss School Summer Residency (1993).
"Murillo weaves the story into a fascinating structure that moves back and forth in time, blends reality with fiction. The end effect is like traveling through a surreal landscape of someone else's dream--or nightmare."--Seattle Times
"Murillo's script is tight. The plot twists and folds in on itself without ever becoming muddled. And in addition to being a good thriller, it's also smart and funny. Kafka would be proud."--The Stranger
SUBTERRANEANS
One Act, 90 Minutes
3M, 3W play multiple roles
Flexible Set
Roxanne's receiving anonymous love letters. At first she thinks she has a secret admirer, but when she learns these letters are written by George, the man she lives with, she's forced to confront what they arouse in her. Does she violate social taboo, or does she flee to the furthest place she can think of? Undecided, she does both. Months later, when George shows up on the eve of her marriage to another man, Roxanne finds herself forced to make impossible choices.
Soho Rep Summer Camp (1995); Nada (1994). Workshops: New York Theatre Workshop Just Add Water (1994).
STORYBOARDS OF A CRIME
10-Minute Play
2M, 1W
Single Set
A movie pitch for the theatre. A young auteur pitches his idea for his film to a jaded movie executive. The images he describe stun. As the film exec reaches the tipping point of closing the deal, the film maker can't find an ending.
Delaware City Theatre 10-Minute Play Festival (2000).