c/o John Buzzetti
The Gersh Agency
41 Madison Avenue, 33rd Floor
New York, NY 10010-2210
(212) 634-8126
(212) 391-8459 fax
Agent Email:
jbuzzetti@gershny.com
Email:
newdramatists@newdramatists.org
David was
born and raised in Boston’s inner city. When he was 12, he received a
six-year scholarship to a prestigious New England prep school, and, being
the son of a factory worker and a fruit peddler, his view of the world has
bordered on the absurd ever since. Not surprisingly, David’s plays tend to
be peopled with outsiders in search of clarity. Walking a line between grave
reality and joyous lunacy, the world of his plays is often dark, funny,
blithe, enigmatic, hopeful, ironic, and somewhat cock-eyed.
David has received the LA Drama Critics Circle Award, a Garland Award, the
Kesselring Prize, awards from the Berrilla Kerr Foundation, the LeComte du
Nuoy Fund, Mixed Blood Theater, Primary Stages, the Tennessee Williams
Literary Festival, and the South Carolina Playwrights Festival, and
commissions from South Coast Rep, Dance Theater Workshop and the Jerome
Foundation. David is a graduate of Milton Academy, Sarah Lawrence College,
and the Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights
Program. He is also a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the WGA.
KIMBERLY AKIMBO
Two-act Comedy/ 100 minutes
Flexible Set
2M, 3W
Set in the wilds of suburban New Jersey, Kimberly Akimbo is a comic and
heart-rending play about a teenager with a rare condition that causes
her body to age four-and-a-half times faster than it should. When she
and her family flee Secaucus under very dubious circumstances, Kimberly
(played by an actress in her sixties) is forced to reevaluate her life
while contending with a hypochondriac mother, a rarely sober father, a
scam artist aunt, her own mortality and, most terrifying of all, the
possibility of first love.
Premiere, South Coast Rep, Costa
Mesa CA (2001); staged reading, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, National
Playwrights Conference (2000); staged reading, The Pacific Playwright
Festival, South Coast Rep (2000). 2001 Kesselring Prize Winner (National
Arts Club, NYC); 2001 LA Drama Critics Circle Award Winner, Playwriting;
2001 Backstage West Garland Award Winner, Playwriting; 2003 Best
Off-Broadway Play Nominee (NY Outer Critics Circle).
Other productions of Kimberly Akimbo: Hothouse Theatre, St. Louis, MO
(2003); Dobama Theatre, Cleveland OH (2003); Salt Lake Acting Co., UT
(2003); 6th @ Penn Theatre, San Diego, CA (2004); Performance Network,
Ann Arbor, MI (2004); Boston Theatre Works, MA (2004); Theatre Downtown,
Orlando, FL (2004); Chamber Theatre, Milwaukee, WI (2004); Ensemble
Theatre, Kirribilli, Australia (2004); Salem Repertory, Salem, OR
(2005); Theatre Arlington, Arlington, TX (2005).
“The comedy of the year. A haunting and hilarious new play. Mr. Lindsay-Abaire
is an expert at tweaking, skewing, and finally inverting established
formulas. His plays tend to slide right of predetermined pigeonholes.
Kimberly Akimbo is at once a shrewd satire, a black comedy, and a
heartbreaking study of how time wounds everyone.” – Ben Brantley, The
New York Times.
“A breezy, foulmouthed,
fleet-footed, warm-hearted comedy. There have been many dark comedies
about dysfunctional families, but this is one of the funniest.”—The Los
Angeles Times.
“I was bowled over by the singular theatricality of Kimberly Akimbo. The
way this harrowing and hilarious work continuously shifts from satire to
black comedy to realism could never work everywhere else…This is theatre
at its most original.”—Roma Torre, New York 1.
FUDDY MEERS
Two-act Comedy/ 100 minutes
Flexible Set
4M, 3W
This poignant and brutal comedy traces one woman’s attempt to regain her
memory while surrounded by a curio-cabinet of alarmingly bizarre
characters. It’s one harrowing and hilarious turn after another on this
roller coaster ride through the day of an amnesiac trying to decipher
her fractured life. A semi-unsettling farcical journey into the life of
a family trying to come to terms with a dark and violent past.
Premiere, Manhattan Theatre Club
(1999); commercial Off Broadway transfer to the Minetta Lane Theater
(2000); West End Premiere, The Arts Theatre, London (2004); Workshop
production, the Juilliard School (1998); staged reading, Eugene O’Neill
Theater Center, National Playwrights Conference (1998). 1999 John
Gassner Playwriting Award nomination (New York Outer Critics Circle);
1999 Heilpern Award Winner (The New York Observer); 1998 Primary Stages
Phil Bosakowski Bug ’n Bub Award Winner.
Fuddy Meers has received over two hundred productions in the US, and has
been produced internationally in Argentina, Canada, Germany, New
Zealand, Poland, Spain, Taiwan, and in London on the West End.
“A deftly zany absurdist comedy. Wicked fun. The evening explodes with
laughter. Call the play errant, aberrant, or Abairant, Lindsay-Abaire
proves a bare less minimum less funny than Ionesco, whose true heir he
is.”—John Simon, New York Magazine.
“A dark, sweet and thoroughly engaging comedy. Willfully silly and
grotesque, yet there’s a cool satisfying strategy in its piecing
together of its jigsaw puzzle of a plot. It acquires a surprisingly
touching depth that sets off sharp, far-reaching sparks of thought about
women whose lives are determined by men.”—Ben Brantley, The New York
Times
WONDER OF THE WORLD
Two-act Comedy/ 100 Minutes
Flexible Set
3M, 4W
A woman hops a bus to Niagara Falls in search of freedom, enlightenment
and, possibly, the meaning of life. Nothing will prepare you for the
dirty little secret Cass discovers in her husband’s sweater drawer.
Fleeing to the honeymoon capital of the world, our heroine embarks on a
journey of self-discovery that has her crossing paths with a blithely
suicidal alcoholic, a salty sea captain and a strange caper involving a
gargantuan jar of peanut butter, all of which push her perilously close
to water’s edge.
Premiere, Woolly Mammoth Theatre
Co., Washington DC (2000); NY Premiere, Manhattan Theater Club (2001);
and over 50 regional productions including: Alliance Theatre, Atlanta,
GA (2003); Eastenders Repertory, San Francisco, CA (2003); Profiles
Theatre, Chicago, IL (2003); City Lights Theatre, San Jose, CA (2004);
Actors Theatre of Charlotte, NC (2004); Timberlake Playhouse, IL (2004);
West Coast Ensemble, Los Angeles (2004). 2001 Helen Hayes Award
Nomination, Best New Play (Washington Theatre Awards Society).
“Full frontal lunacy is on display. A most assuredly fresh and hilarious
tragicomedy of marital discord run amok. Lindsay-Abaire’s flair for the
absurd combines nicely with an ability to pull laughs out of any
situation. Absolutely hysterical. A perfect season ender.”—Variety.
“People in psychic pain have never agonized so hilariously as in David
Lindsay-Abaire’s revved-up, joyously zany play.”
—The Washington Post.
A DEVIL INSIDE
Two-act Comedy/100 minutes
Flexible Set
3M, 3W
On his 21st birthday, a young man is told that his 400-pound father was
murdered while hiking through the Poconos to lose weight, and now his
death must be avenged.
Premier, Soho Rep, NYC (1997);
Theatre IV, Richmond VA (1997); Brown University, Providence RI (1998);
Echo Theater Co., Los Angeles CA (1999); Augustana Theatre, Sioux Falls,
SD (2001); Madcap Players, Washington DC (2002); Nomadic Theatre,
Washington DC (2002); Penn Avenue Theater, Pittsburgh, PA (2002); The
Little Theatre, Monroe, MI (2002); Penn Avenue Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA
(2002); Bug Theatre, Denver, CO (2002); Northside Theatre, San Jose, CA
(2002); Actors Theatre of Sacramento, CA (2002); Chrysotheres Theatre,
Athens, Greece (2004).
“Imagine Jules Feiffer channeling Lewis Carroll and you’ll get some idea
of Lindsay-Abaire’s indescribably wacky play, which blends elements of
Greek tragedy, Russian literature and millennial angst into one
effectively paranoiac and savagely well realized pastiche.”–The Los
Angeles Times.
“Murder, gore and psychosis. All purposeful and funny. A Devil Inside
keeps the house laughing for two hours.”—The New York Times.
SNOW ANGEL
One-act Serio-Comedy for teens/ 75 Minutes
Flexible Set
8M, 8W (all teenagers)
Told through journal entries of a 10th grade class, Snow Angel is a
funny and dark tale of teen angst, discovery and the power of believing.
The quiet town of Deerpoint, Vermont is hit by the biggest blizzard in
107 years. A mysterious girl named Eva steps out of a snow bank and into
the lives of 15 confused teenagers who are asked to help her in her
search. What Eva’s searching for and who she is, is a mystery that
baffles, divides, and energizes the teens of Deerpoint.
Commissioned and premiered by
Andy’s Summer Playhouse, Wilton, NH (1998); Next Stage Theatre, Ketchum,
ID (2000); Lincoln Center Directors Lab, HERE, NYC (2002); Long Lake
Camp for the Arts, Long Lake (2003); Wilsonville High School, OR (2003);
Lakeside School, Seattle, WA (2003); Whitehall High School, MT (2003);
Henderson High School, NC (2003); University Hill Secondary School,
Vancouver, British Columbia (2004); Breed Middle School, Somerville, MA
(2004); Stanton College Prep, Jacksonville, FL (2004); Fuquay-Varina
High School, NC (2004).
THE LI’L PLAYS
Five Comedies/ 10-15 minutes each
Flexible Set
Varied cast size
A collection of short, comic plays, ranging from an urban farce about
bigotry to an absurdist Mamet parody. In the collection: How We Talk in
South Boston; Cyclone of Rage; Catlery!; Cakes and Lies; and Gary Glenn,
Ross Glenn.
Selections produced at: Theatre 40
One-Act Festival, Los Angeles (1999); Soho Rep, New York City (1997);
ANY Theatre Co., New York City (1997); The Juilliard School (1997).
THE KITCHEN SINK DRAMA
One-act Serio-Comedy/ 75 Minutes
Single Set
2M, 1W
A simmering serio-comedy about desolation, hope and the unearthing of
secrets in the most barren of landscapes. When a soap star breaks down
in the Nevada desert, he makes his way to an isolated house and an
effusively chatty woman suffocating from loneliness. With a husband who
spends his days searching the dunes for a wedding ring they lost 30
years ago, the desperate wife welcomes this breath of fresh air.
Contending with encroaching sandstorms and the progressively
disconcerting couple, the stranded actor ponders whether he’ll ever
return to L.A.
Le Petite Theatre du Vieux Carre,
New Orleans (1995); Love Creek Productions, New York City (1995); winner
of the Tennessee Williams Festival National One-Act Play Contest; winner
of the Love Creek One-Act Play Festival.