Below is a list of available plays, arranged by playwright.  For more information about any of the playwrights, visit our Playwright Member Bios page.  To get in touch with Writers Bloc about any of the plays, please email info@chicagowritersbloc.org, or email the playwrights directly if their email is listed below.

THIS PAGE IS CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION.  Check back frequently for updates.

Plays by CHLOE BOLAN (chloe.bolan@sbcglobal.net):
EASTLAND SECRETS. Beautiful immigrant Alma, who helped with the rescue of 1915’s Eastland Disaster where over 800 people drowned, returns from the beyond to the Chicago River to review her life and find the obstacle that keeps her from crossing into spiritual evolution.  4M, 5W
MONSIEUR KIKI. Monsieur Kiki, a truffle-hunting pig, hunts for the last truffle of the season so his adored 16 year old keeper, Monique, can buy shoes to dance with 17 year old Phillippe; while the pork loving Narrator stalks him. 2W, 2M, 1 musician
ST. BLAISE WARS.  St. Blaise Nursing Home resident and former television star Jade Marshall, her overly responsible daughter, and quirky aide Zoe all face the thrill of new loves and the obstacles of old wars. 3M, 5W.


Plays by JOHN CONROY (JConroy329@aol.com):
MY KIND OF TOWN. This play dramatizes 27 years' worth of events surrounding the Chicago police torture scandal, as originally investigated by Conroy in a series of articles for the Chicago Reader. This play has received staged readings with Chicago Writers Bloc, Steppenwold Theatre, and Northwestern University School of Law.  Recently featured in the New York Times.  5M, 4W, with doubling.


Plays by JUNE FINFER (junefinfer1@mac.com):
THE GLASS HOUSE. Sex and real estate are a powerful combination, especially when an ambitious architect and a high powered female physician try to create something totally new – a glass house.  Mies van der Rohe, Edith Farnsworth, and Philip Johnson parry and thrust in this play that speculates on the conflicts that arose in midcentury American architecture. 2W, 2M.  This play will receive its premiere production by Resonance Ensemble Theatre  at the Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row in New York City May 9 to June 5 in repertory with Ibsen's The Master Builder.  (See article in the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2007/04/30/070430ta_talk_goldberger)
THE WHITE CITY. (written with Elizabeth Doyle). When Chicago wins the right to host the 1893 Columbian Exposition, America’s first great World’s Fair, the architect chosen to design and build it in record time, Daniel Burnham, finds that ambition is not enough – he needs lots of help from even those who oppose him.  Original music that could have been written in the Gay 90’s brings color and humor to a story of “making no little plans.”  3W, 7M, with doubling
"He and She." In this one-act play, a young couple tries to accommodate to love and sharing a life together, in short scenes that focus on the conflicts that arise in even the most loving relationships. 1M, 1W

Plays by GRACE FISHMAN (gracefishman@aol.com):
ARS ARMATORIA.  This drama explores what happens when a young woman involved in a love triangle seeks an abortion.  Cast: 1 W, 3 M, unit set.
CHECKMATE. Set in the 1970s, this play examines complex race relations and romance during a tulmutuous decade.  Cast: 1 W, 2 M, unit set.
THE HOLY INFIDEL.  Set during the Renaissance, this play follows the exploits of Dona Gracia is a wealthy Jewish woman who has escaped the Spanish Inquisition and come to live in Turkey as the guest of Suleiman the Magnificent, and her flamboyant matchmaking son-in-law, Joao Miquez. Cast: 1W, 2 M, unit set.


Plays by BARBARA GEORGANS (benernierose@sbcglobal.net):
MIMIKA AND ANNA.  A contemporary Greek tragedy in which an American author returns to her ancestral home in Greece during the 1968 military takeover to find the hostile war has extended into her own family. 3W, 2M.
NOBODY LIKES RETSINA.  A musical comedy that takes place during the Great Depression when two Greek immigrant brothers try to sell bootleg Retsina while making deals to marry off their daughters. 6W, 8M.
SINCERELY YOURS. A musical comedy in which a New York publisher and his wife discover that there are no copyright laws to cover marital infidelity.  2W, 3M.



Plays by CHARLES GRIPPO (readermail@charlesgrippo.org):
SEX MARKS THE SPOT. Two act farce explores political sex scandals, cover-ups, and media manipulation, while providing a fresh new look at gender stereotypes. 5M, 3F. Recently produced at Theatre Building Chicago, with a remount scheduled for June-July 2010, also at Theatre Building Chicago.
 A WIFE'S TALE.  One act monologue. What does a woman do when her husband of twenty years leaves her to pursue an alternative lifestyle? 1F.
BEDROOM FOLLIES. One-act farce about a married conventioneer wgo gets way more than he bargained for when he has a quickie with a woman he has picked up----who just so happens to be the wife of the local sheriff.  2M, 1F.
 


Plays by JILL ELAINE HUGHES (jillhughes2@yahoo.com):
A MATTER OF CONVENIENCE. Culture clashes and unexpected romance occur between an East Indian immigrant family and an old-fashioned Southern white family in the American Deep South.  Comedy/drama. 3W, 4M, flexible unit set.  
THE MAN UPSTAIRS. Set in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood.  Janice Taylor-Leung, a thirtysomething Caucasian woman and her husband Walter Leung, a Cantonese immigrant from Hong Kong, find their world turned upside down by their African-American upstairs neighbor.  This play explores the dark side of contemporary American race relations. 4W, 2M, unit set.
INTELLIGENT DESIGN. Set during the Bush II era, this play examines what might happen if the White House imposed its "faith-based initiatives" onto the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).  Power plays, territory battles, and egos abound in a cash-strapped NAS lab that has recently made a massive evolutionary discovery.  4M, 2W, flexible set.  This play was a finalist for both the Christopher Brian Wolk Playwriting Award and the Julie Harris Playwriting Award.


Plays by JOANNE KOCH (jkoch@nl.edu):
"Stardust." One-act winner of the National Nantucket Short Play Competition.  Two young people---one trusting, introspective and blind; the other suspicious, defensive and sighted----share a moment of intimacy and conflict. 1W, 1M.
BELLE BARTH: IF I EMBARRASS YOU, TELL YOUR FRIENDS.  Book by Joanne Koch, music by Ilya Levinson, lyrics by Owen Kalt. This Jeff-nominated original musical is an evening with the raunchy 1950s comedienne, dubbed "the female Lenny Bruce," whose recordings sold in the millions.  1W, 1M, 1 piano accompanist. 
AMERICAN KLEZMER. Book by Joanne Koch and Sarah Cohen, music by Ilya Levinson, lyrics by Owen Kalt.  Set in 1910 New York, this romantic immigrant tale is a musical about a band of musicians, and a woman who wants to sing in public.  Features the lively, celebratory Eastern European idiom known as "klezmer. 3W, 5M.

             
Plays by JOAN KUFRIN (jgkufrin@aol.com):
DINNER AT 1800 HOURS.  The peace-activist parents of corporate lawyer Meredith and the second-generation military parents of marine lieutenant Bill collide at the couple's disastrous engagement dinner.  Can these six people of frozen mindsets and hardened hearts ever get along? 3W, 3M, one set. (This play was a recipients of a 2007 State of Florida Individual Fellowship ($5,000) in playwriting and an Oxford International Institute for Documentary and Drama in Conflict Resolution 2008 prize.)
HERE LIE THE DEMONS.  Lili Learned, a sexy delectable woman in her 40s, strides onstage in a bathrobe and slippers to challenge us to relive her "f*cked up" life----the "demons" that have caused the death or destruction of nearly everyone she loves. 4M, 2W, with doubling.
THE MESSENGER. Unremarkable, unmarried ANGELA, 35, caregiver to demanding, aging parents, falls for a good-looking stranger as old as her father. Her family pegs the stranger as a fraud and tries desperately to ruin the romance.  Does love triumph? Or guilt? 3 W 2 M.  This play is published by Dramatic Publishing and was produced most recently in 2009 in Lake Wales, FL.


Plays by ZIPPORAH PORTON (zipporrahp@yahoo.com):
BREAKFAST.  A one-act play comprised of seven separate scenes, each occuring on a different morning at the same Los Angeles eatery. 3W, 4M, unit set.  Has received productions at Cypress College, Princeton University, and in Australia.  Names Best One-Act Play, 2000, by the Internet Theatre Workshop.
FAITH AND FAMILY.  A young woman tries to reconcile her love for her family, her insecurities about her Orthodox Jewish faith, and her love for an African-American man.  Produced at University of Southern California's Under Construction series, as well as a small theatre in Sherman Oaks, CA.  4W, 2 M.
THREE.  Olympia, Leonora, and Eva have been best friends since they were teenagers. Though they have grown apart in the past ten years, a letter from Olympia announcing that she plans to kill herself brings the three women together again. 3W,1M.


Plays by JUDY VERAMENDI (judy@judyveramendi.com):
THE EMPTY CHALICES. Delmira Agustini, a revolutionary Latin American poet, lived in the repressive 1900s, yet managed to produce astounding original poetry until circumstances threatened to end her life at an early age. 3W, 4M.
HALL OF HUNGRY GHOSTS. The play probes deeply into the dark events surrounding the Argentine dirty war and CIA involvement, by following the experiences of returnee Margarita Salgado to a former detention center in Buenos Aires after twenty years' exile.
4W, 4M
THE RABBI'S DAUGHTER AND THE RUNAWAY IRISHMAN. Set in early 20th century New Orleans and Chicago, the play explores how deeply culture and faith collide when a rabbi's daughter meets and marries a runaway Irish Catholic priest. 4W, 4M

 

 

 
  
Plays by TERESA VERAMENDI (tveramendi@gmail.com):
VINCENT'S YELLOW.  Struggling with the ghosts of myth, history, and her own imagination, artist Teresa Veramendi fights to discover the true spirit of Vincent Van Gogh----but love finds her first in this intimate story spanning centuries and continents. 3W, 2M.



PLAYS BY BEVERLY WILENS ROSEN (RsnBvrly01@aol.com):
WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS. This full-length comedy follows the life of a woman who is faced with making a choice between her Neiman Marcus charge card or her family. 3W, 4M.
I OWE YOU A LULLABY. This play shows what happens to an ex-diva when her lonely life is interrupted when her long-lost biological daughter appears at her doorstep. 3W, 2M.
AN EVENING OF SHORT PLAYS. Two women will stop at nothing short of death to have their plays produced. 4W, 3M.


PLAYS BY ZAN SKOLNICK (zbskol.zsa@earthlink.net):
TZIGANE. (Hungarian for "Gypsy").  Edgy romantic comedy.  Thirtysomething, serially monogamous Regine fiddles with mid-60s Soren, a violinist who's never cheated on his wife before.  Runner-up for Cunningham Award (DePaul U.) 2M, 1W, minimal set.
ANOTHER MENAGERIE.  An homage to Tennesee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. A brother seeks to save his sister from their mother's domination before he marries and moves away.  A Greek-style tragedy.  Finalist in multiple national playwriting competitions. 3W, 1M, unit set.
ADORATION OF VLADIMIR.  A fact-based, Marxian Bros. view of the battle to preserve Lenin's body in Stalin's Soviet Russia.  7M, 2W, with doubling.  Minimal set.  Has received staged readings at The Public Theatre, New York City.


Plays by BILL TEITELBAUM (Teitelbaum1@aol.com):
I-TROUBLE.  Comedy.  Love, myopia, and marriage is a recipe for disaster.  Runtime: 90 minutes. 1M, 1W.
ROOMS CUT IN CLIFFS.  Comedy/drama.  A day in the life of a single-room-occupancy hotel.  Runtime: 120 minutes. 6M, 4W.
KINGS. Comedy/drama.  Bible stories for grownups----three one-acts about the first monarchs of Palestine.  Runtime: 100 minutes.  3M, 1W.

 
Plays by LES WHITE (lesw@rcn.com):
LOVE ME. A family eats their thanksgiving dinner in the dark to avoid an unwanted daughter who breaks in and manipulates the family into revealing dangerous---and murderous---truths about themselves. 4W, 3M.
HYMIEYENKEL IN THE GOLAN HEIGHTS. When Israel offers to build "dream homes" for new settlers, a Chicago suburban family moves there and finds themselves within firing range of jihadists. 2W, 3M.
ALL WASHED UP: THE TRUE STORY OF THE WOMAN WHO INVENTED THE SOAP OPERA INDUSTRY AND ONE MAN'S SEARCH FOR A JOB. The rise and fall of Irna Phillips, the woman largely credited with creating the soap opera, is told by the man who uncovered her secrets. 1 actor, unisex role, portraying a variety of characters.