Plays written by Brian Hilario:
50 YEARS
FRAG
STORM
WAR STORIES
Synopses:
50 YEARS – “50 Years” traces the cost of a live lived in delay as it follows Jeff McManus reflecting on five decades of love, work, and family from a hospital bed in his final days. As time folds on itself, memories drift between what he meant to build and what he actually lived.
FRAG – The psychological fragmentation of PTSD as seen through the eyes of Special Forces soldiers grappling with their own humanity.
STORM – A sheriff’s substation becomes a makeshift ark for four strangers riding out a Category 5 hurricane until survival, resentment, and memory flood the room faster than the water outside.
WAR STORIES – This is a one-man show about a soldier who went to Afghanistan, came back, and is trying to explain what happened without sounding like a liar or a cliché. There’s whiskey, a cigar, some medical gear, and a lot of stories that are probably embellished, untrue and exactly how it all went down.
Bio:
Brian Hilario is a U.S. Army Green Beret turned playwright, actor, director and filmmaker. His work wrestles with memory, identity, dread, and what it means to live a life fully, and sometimes incompletely, felt. His plays blend psychological realism with lyrical surrealism, often using fragmented structure and theatrical metaphor to explore trauma, purpose, and the fragile absurdity of being alive.
Since leaving the U.S. Army Special Forces, he’s built a media company, worked at various non-profits bringing the performing arts to underprivileged youths, taught high school theater, coached executives on the benefits of improv and storytelling, and led federal leadership trainings for agencies ranging from the FAA to the DoD. Basically, if there’s a room full of people trying to figure something out, he’s been in it.
He writes for the stage, screen, and classroom, always circling the same questions: What do we do with grief we can’t name? Who are we when the plan breaks? And how the hell are we supposed to hold it together when the dogs, the parents, and the world are all falling apart at once?
He holds an MFA in Playwriting from Rutgers University and a B.S. in Commercial Entrepreneurship from FSU. He’s also a recipient of the John I. Bettenbender Memorial Performance Award for “Outstanding Graduate Artistic Achievement.”