ONE-ACT PLAYS
GROWL
Simin Behbahani is heading to Paris to read her poetry when she is detained in the Tehran airport. Despite being 82 and almost blind, she is interrogated throughout the night. Will her principles prove to be stronger than her fears?
Production History: The Valdez Theatre Conference, staged reading, 2021. Theatre Odyssey’s One Act Festival , workshop production , 2019, awarded runner-up for best play. Concert reading as a part of Nevertheless, She Persisted at The Shattered Glass Project, Seattle 2019. The Downtown Urban Arts Festival 2019 at The Wild Project in NYC, workshop production. Semi-finalist in the Warner International Playwrights Festival 2020. Semi-finalist in The Phoenix Theatre Festival of Short Plays 2018.
CLARE
It’s Hong Kong in the early 2000’s. Famed war correspondent Clare Hollingworth is visited by a local journalism student, Annie Wong. Despite her advanced age and progressing senility, Clare fights to prove she is still the powerful reporter she always was. But is Annie really the naive protege we think she is? And who really is in control?
Production History: Long listed for performance project, Phoebus Fire, Kent, UK, 2019. Had zoom Reading at The Depot, CT. 2021. Staged reading Polaris North, 2020 (by invitation only). A monologue from Clare is included in Smith & Kraus’ Best Women’s Stage Monologues, 2022 Anthology.
DUST
Dust is a meditation on grief. Friends and family must quickly clear out the Soho loft of MELANIE, a singer who has just died of cancer. They must sort through her belongings, and confront their complex and difficult relationships to her and to each other.
Production History: Staged reading at Polaris North, 2012. Staged reading of an updated version at Polaris North, 2015
VULCANIC SURRENDER
Vulcanic Surrender, a celebration of the friendship between TIM, an aging drag queen and JEANINE, a nurse, set in a West Village piano bar on Halloween night 1993. TIM loves surface glamour but learns to confide his deep dark secret to the one true friend he has in New York.
Production History: Workshop Production at Theater for the New City, 1995. Staged reading of an updated version at Polaris North, 2015.
HELLO OCEAN
Wendy, an admissions counselor at The Curtis Institute, is aggressively trying to recruit Rhonda, an African American piano student, when the ghost of Nina Simone barges in. She stirs up dark secrets, and fights for the vindication she failed to receive in life.
Production History: Staged reading as a part of Itinerant Theatre Louisiana’s Women Leading: New Play Series, June 2019. Reading at the Inge Theater Festival, May 2018 Workshop as a part of The Lock Festival at Polaris North (by invitation only) 2017.
PURDAH
It is India under the Raj. Kamala marries into the most powerful family in the country but is treated cruelly by her in-laws. She struggles to end the evil custom of Purdah. Will anyone follow her lead?
Production History:A monologue from Purdah is included in Smith & Kraus’ Best Women’s Stage Monologues, 2021 Anthology.
JUST FOR TODAY
BARNEY, an aging teacher, reluctantly agrees to take in RICK, an acquaintance from AA. He believes it is just for one night, but RICK proves to be the most obnoxious of house guests and makes no plans to leave. Their friend JENNA, a recovering drug addict, does her best to help get him out. Things don’t go quite as planned in this dark contemporary comedy.
Production History: Staged Reading at Polaris North, 2012.
DELHI DUO
Delhi Duo, a cantankerous old ex-hippie who has cancer, is forced to share a room, and even a bed, with a pot-smoking boy-crazy generation x-er in India.
Production History: Workshop Production at Theater for the New City, 1995
FULL LENGTH PLAYS
VITKA
It’s Israel in the 1980’s. Dalia goes into therapy with Vitka in order to survive her abusive partner. Will Vitka’s past as a Partisan give her the courage she so desperately needs?
Production History: Zoom reading, P.A.G.E.S. 2022.
INDIRA
A fantasy of the interview between Peter Ustinov and Indira Gandhi where he attempts to unravel her fall from grace and she desperately tries to establish her legacy amidst ever present death threats.
THE ROSY CAVE
A comedy/drama based on the backstage life of strippers in Boston’s combat zone in the 1980’s. It follows the journey of RACHEL, a naïve middle class aspiring dancer, as she struggles to earn a living amongst some very tough characters, including a sleazy theatrical agent, a transgender stripper, and some very hardened street women. Despite experiencing personal tragedy, alienation and humiliation, she learns to develop self-confidence and find her place in the world.
Production History: Workshop Production at Theater for the New City, 1988.
LADY OF THE CELLS
This play was inspired by the life of the neurobiologist Rita-Levi Montalcini. Rita is driven to discover the mysteries of the nervous system and won’t let anyone stop her. Not the sexism of her father, Mussolini’s fascists, or the Nazis who occupy Italy. Through these obstacles, she develops a single minded determination to succeed. But nothing prepares her for the searing challenges arising from one of her Ethiopian students. Will she ever get the recognition she so desperately desires?
Production History: Zoom reading, Play Readings With Friends, 2021.
ON THE ROAD TO HOLENESS
A satire about a relationship between a new age fanatic and her coke dealing boyfriend, set in the 1980’s in NY.
Production History: Workshop Production at Theater for the New City, 1990.
J.Lois Diamond 