Plays written by Brittany Allen
REDWOOD
THE DINNER PARTY
BALL CHANGE
A FRAGILE COALITION
THE CREDIBILITY GAP
REBEL’S REST IS BURNING DOWN
REUNION
Synopses:
Redwood – (8A) When Steve Durbin goes down the rabbit hole of online genealogy, he makes an unwelcome discovery that throws his entire family into turmoil. Chiefly: his niece, Meg, who’s forced to reconsider her relationship with Drew, a white physicist. With acid wit, love, and dance, REDWOOD ponders the project of interracial family-making in a haunted country. World Premiere: Portland Center Stage. Regional Premiere: Jungle Theater. New York Premiere: Ensemble Studio Theatre. Kilroys List, The Mix.
The Dinner Party – (8A) At a regional theatre, seven actors and an assistant stage manager are in previews for a new devised piece inspired by an iconic feminist art installation. But the show has some blind spots—rehearsals are rocky, and this diverse crucible is slow to coalesce into a cast. A funny and serious work-in-progress about the joys and perils of performing in America today, and the itchy work of coalition-building. Development: Studio Theatre.
Rebel’s Rest is Burning Down – (6A) When the first Black graduates of a small liberal arts college in the Dirty South return to campus twenty years later for a professor’s funeral, the scabs fly off. Friends reminisce, ghosts may or may not terrorize their evening, and the one Confederate monument still on campus burns to the ground. This play examines the psychological toll of Black self-making at a PWI. It also considers how college is structurally complicit in America’s greatest sins. Development: Peacedale Global Arts, Bushwick Starr, Playwrights Horizons.
Ball Change – (4A) Set at the switchboards of an elite celebrity answering service, BALL CHANGE examines how our communication technologies (and metropolitan mythologies) become obsolete. When we first meet the “Bells” in the swinging 60s, all is glam and good fun, but fifty years of economic, social, and technological upheaval sure leave their mark on a girl. This is a time-traveling tale about how objects and ideas go out of style. Development: Manhattan Theatre Club, Cape Cod Theatre Project.
Bio:
Brittany K. Allen is a Brooklyn-based writer and actor. Her plays have been produced and developed at Manhattan Theatre Club, Clubbed Thumb, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Bushwick Starr, WPLab, Primary Stages, Portland Center Stage, Jungle Theater, Studio Theatre, and KC Rep, among other places. She holds commissions from Playwrights Horizons, Portland Center Stage, and The Civilians, and is an alumna of EST/Youngblood and the Emerging Writers Group at the Public Theater. Awards include the Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, the Dramatists Guild Foundation Comedic Playwriting Prize, recognition on the Kilroys List, and a Van Lier New Voices Playwriting Fellowship. Her writing life has been supported by fellowships and residencies at Hedgebrook, MacDowell, Ucross, the Orchard Project, Peacedale Global Arts, and the New Harmony Project, as well as scholarships to Bread Loaf and the Sewanee Writers Conference, where she periodically teaches on the playwriting faculty. She’s a company member with Colt Coeur. Recent acting credits include A Woman Among Women (Bushwick Starr/New Georges), Deep Blue Sound (Clubbed Thumb), and The Good John Proctor (Bedlam Theatre).