THE LETTERS
****Purchase the script here!
Henry studies dead languages. Rachel studies living languages. And Rajiv is the artist who lives with them both in a squat in Berlin, enmeshed in a post-collegiate tangle of friendship, love, and sex. 12 years later, Henry is gone, and the long engagement of Rajiv and Rachel is fraying. In the course of one day and over a series of competing memories, the characters of “The Letters” must wrestle with the past and chart the future in a language they still have to create. (2 men/2 women)
****Purchase the script here!
Henry studies dead languages. Rachel studies living languages. And Rajiv is the artist who lives with them both in a squat in Berlin, enmeshed in a post-collegiate tangle of friendship, love, and sex. 12 years later, Henry is gone, and the long engagement of Rajiv and Rachel is fraying. In the course of one day and over a series of competing memories, the characters of “The Letters” must wrestle with the past and chart the future in a language they still have to create. (2 men/2 women)
O TIME
****BRAND NEW / IN DEVELOPMENT
A creative nonfiction piece, in which the narrator David goes to Brazil to reckon with the passing of the producer of Yank! named George, at age 28. A monologue wrestling with his relationship with George, with Brazil, with gay men's love of musicals, and David’s own AIDS trauma. Structured as an investigation, the piece lives in the space between countries and cultures, language and translation. A 55-minute piece to be performed as a solo show by the author, or as a director-driven piece with more actors.
****BRAND NEW / IN DEVELOPMENT
A creative nonfiction piece, in which the narrator David goes to Brazil to reckon with the passing of the producer of Yank! named George, at age 28. A monologue wrestling with his relationship with George, with Brazil, with gay men's love of musicals, and David’s own AIDS trauma. Structured as an investigation, the piece lives in the space between countries and cultures, language and translation. A 55-minute piece to be performed as a solo show by the author, or as a director-driven piece with more actors.
The F#@%ING WRIGHT BROTHERS
58 cities. Five actors. One van. A million crazy dreams. No one said paying your dues would be easy. On what they hope will be the road to success, a troupe performing a children’s theater musical about the Wright Brothers find themselves lost somewhere in America. Will they make it to New York—or will they destroy each other with professional rivalry, romantic jealousy, rampant drug use, credit card scams, and completely inappropriate hook-ups? How do dreams survive when you know it’s time to grow up? (2 women/5 men; 2 hours)
***A screenplay adaptation in now on The Blcklist! Contact the author if you wish to read a Perusal Daft,
58 cities. Five actors. One van. A million crazy dreams. No one said paying your dues would be easy. On what they hope will be the road to success, a troupe performing a children’s theater musical about the Wright Brothers find themselves lost somewhere in America. Will they make it to New York—or will they destroy each other with professional rivalry, romantic jealousy, rampant drug use, credit card scams, and completely inappropriate hook-ups? How do dreams survive when you know it’s time to grow up? (2 women/5 men; 2 hours)
***A screenplay adaptation in now on The Blcklist! Contact the author if you wish to read a Perusal Daft,
HUNTERS AND THIEVES
Nate, a middle-class kid from Florida who has been thrown away by his fundamentalist parents, finds his way to the ramshackle Queens apartment of Mrs. Huff. She is an old, once-glamorous foreign actress, living in exile from a (real) place called Udmurtia, and her tiny apartment holds the mysterious secrets of a vanishing culture. Nate is torn between his growing devotion to Mrs. Huff and his desire for Clem, a Manhattan child of the “One Percent” who promises Nate a way out of poverty. A dark, funny, and suspenseful journey, HUNTERS AND THIEVES explores how we find home – and hope – in a collapsing world. ***A different version was performed in 2016 under the THE UDMURTS (2 women/2 men; 100 Minutes)
Nate, a middle-class kid from Florida who has been thrown away by his fundamentalist parents, finds his way to the ramshackle Queens apartment of Mrs. Huff. She is an old, once-glamorous foreign actress, living in exile from a (real) place called Udmurtia, and her tiny apartment holds the mysterious secrets of a vanishing culture. Nate is torn between his growing devotion to Mrs. Huff and his desire for Clem, a Manhattan child of the “One Percent” who promises Nate a way out of poverty. A dark, funny, and suspenseful journey, HUNTERS AND THIEVES explores how we find home – and hope – in a collapsing world. ***A different version was performed in 2016 under the THE UDMURTS (2 women/2 men; 100 Minutes)
SERENDIB
“A celebration! Mr. Zellnik’s comedy engages some big questions of evolutionary biology” –– New York Times
...It’’s mating season in Sri Lanka and not just for the monkeys! Serious scientists working in close quarters are researching troupes of toque macaque monkeys in a lush environment fit for a movie. When a documentary film crew shows up, dreams of further funding are just within reach. But when the filmmakers bring in a reality show surprise, the serious scientists are seriously tested. Will their years of research be dismissed? What of the troupes of monkeys? Will anthropomorphism ruin or help them? And then there’’s the issue of mating (monkeys and humans) which puts a big dent in the existing hierarchies. Is all fair in lust and war? And are humans really different from their little primate counterparts? Incorporating lifelike puppetry designed by Emily DeCola to create a uniquely theatrical world of primate behavior, SERENDIB ponders the line between empathy and anthropomorphism. Actors portray scientists but also manipulate puppets to represent the monkeys they are studying. Thanks to a brief but intense training process with puppet director Jessica Scott, the line between actor and puppet soon disappears. This is a theatrical endeavor never before seen on the Hippodrome stage and an experience you won’’t forget! The world premiere of SERENDIB at Ensemble Studio Theatre’’s First Light Festival was a hit. (3 Women, 5 men; 2 hours 15)
“A celebration! Mr. Zellnik’s comedy engages some big questions of evolutionary biology” –– New York Times
...It’’s mating season in Sri Lanka and not just for the monkeys! Serious scientists working in close quarters are researching troupes of toque macaque monkeys in a lush environment fit for a movie. When a documentary film crew shows up, dreams of further funding are just within reach. But when the filmmakers bring in a reality show surprise, the serious scientists are seriously tested. Will their years of research be dismissed? What of the troupes of monkeys? Will anthropomorphism ruin or help them? And then there’’s the issue of mating (monkeys and humans) which puts a big dent in the existing hierarchies. Is all fair in lust and war? And are humans really different from their little primate counterparts? Incorporating lifelike puppetry designed by Emily DeCola to create a uniquely theatrical world of primate behavior, SERENDIB ponders the line between empathy and anthropomorphism. Actors portray scientists but also manipulate puppets to represent the monkeys they are studying. Thanks to a brief but intense training process with puppet director Jessica Scott, the line between actor and puppet soon disappears. This is a theatrical endeavor never before seen on the Hippodrome stage and an experience you won’’t forget! The world premiere of SERENDIB at Ensemble Studio Theatre’’s First Light Festival was a hit. (3 Women, 5 men; 2 hours 15)
LET A HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOOM
A love story about falling for your best friend and about navigating an exhilarating, terrifying new world of possibilities. It’s 1996 and advances in AIDS medications leaves Jake (who faced near certain death) a sudden, unexpected hope for a future. Troubles with his boyfriend means that he moves in with his best friend Puppy, a writer of pornography with a Marxist slant (an accident has left him confined to a wheelchair but his sexual fantasies know no limit.) Sexually frank, hilarious, and deeply moving, the play asks: How do we create life and friendship - and love - in a world we never thought we'd see? (4 men; 2 hours)
A love story about falling for your best friend and about navigating an exhilarating, terrifying new world of possibilities. It’s 1996 and advances in AIDS medications leaves Jake (who faced near certain death) a sudden, unexpected hope for a future. Troubles with his boyfriend means that he moves in with his best friend Puppy, a writer of pornography with a Marxist slant (an accident has left him confined to a wheelchair but his sexual fantasies know no limit.) Sexually frank, hilarious, and deeply moving, the play asks: How do we create life and friendship - and love - in a world we never thought we'd see? (4 men; 2 hours)
ARIEL SHARON STANDS AT THE TEMPLE MOUNT
AND DREAMS OF THEODOR HERZL
A politically-charged theatrical fantasia that intertwines the lives of Theodor Herzl, father of modern Zionism, and recent Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. Herzl dreamed of a new country where "weak European Jews" would be remade into warriors -- was Sharon the frightening culmination of his vision? (2 women/5 men; 2 hours 30)
AND DREAMS OF THEODOR HERZL
A politically-charged theatrical fantasia that intertwines the lives of Theodor Herzl, father of modern Zionism, and recent Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. Herzl dreamed of a new country where "weak European Jews" would be remade into warriors -- was Sharon the frightening culmination of his vision? (2 women/5 men; 2 hours 30)
ONE ACTS PLAYS...
FOR ELISE: A 90-year-old woman from the old world and a gay 30-something from the new one, at a Chasidic wedding reception of her newly observant grandson, and his first-cousin; two exiles on the outside looking in. Performed at Ensemble Studio Theatre's 2008 Marathon and Readers Theatre in Portland OR (1 woman/2 men; 25 minutes)
IDEOGRAM: A young non-Asian dude discovers he can write masterpieces in Chinese, though he has no idea what his ideograms mean. Life-and-death stakes; a comedy. Performed at Ensemble Studio Theatre's 08 Marathon (1 woman/2 men; 12 minutes)
MOHAMMED AND THE SLEEPING CAT: Time collapses and relationships expand outwards as Jacob and Max look in, ook back, and look forward. Performs at Readers Theatre in Portland OR an Hudson Guild in Hudson NY (2 men, 15 minutes)
KILLING HAND: a dinner party in 1998. Four college professors and a guest who may or may not have been involved in a wartime atrocity on Bosnia. Mysterious and heated, part of Marathon '98 at Ensemble Studio Theatre.
KARMIC THUNDER: a young couple in a train in Eastern Europe, traveling the world. One is sick with food poisoning - or is his karma fucked up? A doctor who may or may not be what he seems shows up to help him; Performed at New Ensemble (3 men; 20 minutes)
SUNDAY PAPER: Two friends at a summer house. One grieving, the other reading his paper. A melancholy comedy set in 2000. (1 woman, 1 man; 10 minutes
THE JACKALS: Adapted from Kafka's short story "Die Schakale": we find Katie abroad and overwhelmed to discover she has a mission - she is the savior the Jackals have been waiting for. (2 women, 2 men; 20 minutes)
FOR ELISE: A 90-year-old woman from the old world and a gay 30-something from the new one, at a Chasidic wedding reception of her newly observant grandson, and his first-cousin; two exiles on the outside looking in. Performed at Ensemble Studio Theatre's 2008 Marathon and Readers Theatre in Portland OR (1 woman/2 men; 25 minutes)
IDEOGRAM: A young non-Asian dude discovers he can write masterpieces in Chinese, though he has no idea what his ideograms mean. Life-and-death stakes; a comedy. Performed at Ensemble Studio Theatre's 08 Marathon (1 woman/2 men; 12 minutes)
MOHAMMED AND THE SLEEPING CAT: Time collapses and relationships expand outwards as Jacob and Max look in, ook back, and look forward. Performs at Readers Theatre in Portland OR an Hudson Guild in Hudson NY (2 men, 15 minutes)
KILLING HAND: a dinner party in 1998. Four college professors and a guest who may or may not have been involved in a wartime atrocity on Bosnia. Mysterious and heated, part of Marathon '98 at Ensemble Studio Theatre.
KARMIC THUNDER: a young couple in a train in Eastern Europe, traveling the world. One is sick with food poisoning - or is his karma fucked up? A doctor who may or may not be what he seems shows up to help him; Performed at New Ensemble (3 men; 20 minutes)
SUNDAY PAPER: Two friends at a summer house. One grieving, the other reading his paper. A melancholy comedy set in 2000. (1 woman, 1 man; 10 minutes
THE JACKALS: Adapted from Kafka's short story "Die Schakale": we find Katie abroad and overwhelmed to discover she has a mission - she is the savior the Jackals have been waiting for. (2 women, 2 men; 20 minutes)
