Plays:
CLEMENTINE AND THE CYBER DUCKS
CORN COBBERS
CRIMSON LIT: SCARLET LETTER SETLIST
DON’T STOP ME
DOOMSURFING
FORDLANDIA
FOR FEET’S SAKE: THE WILD TALE OF THE LITTLE MERMAID
HISSIFIT
JULIUS’ SUPER SUNDAY BLOODSPORTING GAMES
KIRK AT THE SAN FRANCISCO AIRPORT HYATT
LIPSTICK LOBOTOMY
NANOMAN
PHANTOM BAND
PRIMAL PLAY
SALAMANDER LEVIATHAN
SELKIE
SHOOTER!
SLOPPY BONNIE
UN-HINGED: A SILENT OPERA
Synopses:
CLEMENTINE AND THE CYBER DUCKS – A riff on the classic Californian folk song set simultaneously during the 1850s gold rush and the 1990s dot.com bubble. These two eras collide to create a world of irrational exuberance and an ecstatic American Dream-scape. Instead of tripping, Clementine jumps into the river followed by the peculiar chorus of deviant ducks.
CORN COBBERS – Cuts in public funding bring Adam Smith Middle School to the brink of closing – until it’s taken over by corporate stooges from the mega corn conglomerate CORNCO. The company wants the middle schoolers to do a play of its idealized origin story to shill their products and indoctrinate the institution. But a couple of smart students hatch a plan and subvert CORNCO’s agenda by telling the story of Animal Farm, and the growing corporatization of US agriculture, instead. An original Orwellian Hee Haw capitalist allegory with music.
CRIMSON LIT: SCARLET LETTER SETLIST (Music & Lyrics by Jill Sobule, Book & Lyrics by Krista Knight) – A riot grrrl musical that’s part scarlet letter adaptation, part queer romance. Poetic justice has finally come for rebellious teen Winnie. She’s going to have to repeat the 11th grade unless she’s able to complete a book report. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that the book is Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter—which Winnie does NOT want to read. Well, that’s too bad because she’s in a whole play about it.
DON’T STOP ME (Music & Lyrics by Dave Malloy, Book & Lyrics by Krista Knight) – A shot at college, internet fame, attention from the one they like. The stakes are high at Plain Springs High’s first ever Dance-a-thon. As the demonic DJ transports them to dance crazes throughout history, each contestant must face their deepest desires and greatest weaknesses. Only one couple will walk out with “The Prize.” The rest won’t make it out alive.
DOOMSURFING – The bombs have dropped—leaving teens to fall in love, defy an authoritarian death cult, and doomsurf on the cashed ocean where wiping out means permanently. The story follows the unarticulated but desperate love between Bunny (as in beach) and Idiot Kid (marked by an acid-related, Phantom of the Opera-like deformity). A mysterious stranger surfs into the village with the message that a tidal wave is approaching—necessitating escape or final destruction. An apocalyptic surf-rock musical in stereoscopic cyclorama.
FORDLANDIA – A satirical exploration of Henry Ford’s failed utopia and rubber tree plantation in the middle of the Brazilian rainforest. When the eccentric auto baron sets his sights on foreign rubber, the people of Fordlandia get a taste of a bizarre American lifestyle half-remembered and partly imagined. Industry, hard labor, mandatory square dances, and good intentions mix to disastrous effect as communications with Ford fail to overcome the technological limitations and cultural barriers. Set to music inspired by a 90’s-era industrial sound, Fordlandia welcomes you to take your place on the assembly line. Ford will either succeed in converting the Amazonian people into his vision of the American dream or Ford’s folly will be the lasting American colonial legacy.
FOR FEET’S SAKE: The Wild Tale of the Little Mermaid – In this adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, Thessaly is desperate to escape her life under the sea where she’s ignored for one on land. After getting a taste of the surface and a chance meeting with the Machiavellian prince, Thessaly makes a deal with the Sea Witch: her tongue in exchange for a chance to walk upon the land. When the Prince doesn’t fall in love with Thessaly, she has to make the choice between killing the Prince or turning into sea foam. Thessaly spares his life and forever transverses the cusp of sea and land as the foam riding upon the waves. Available here at Playscripts, Inc.
HISSIFIT – The year is MCMLXXVI, and a brood of she-snakes are about to take Olympus by storm with an irreverent new sound and a stage presence both repulsive and seductive. When superfan Poseidon attacks backstage, Athena tries to protect Medusa by bestowing the power to turn anyone she looks at into a mindless zombie fan. The gorgon sisters move from shock-rock obscurity, to sellout snake-sploitation, to revered icons at a pace like punk rock pioneers of legend. Through image makeovers and fierce internal power struggles, we track the rise, fall, and squirming headless death rattle of Medusa and the band that would forever petrify the face of rock-and-roll. A punk rock myth with snake appeal.
JULIUS’ SUPER SUNDAY BLOODSPORTING GAMES – Mighty Ducks meets Gladiator set at the fall of the Roman Empire. Sensationalist, fun-loving, ring master and senator Julius Caesar captivates and distracts the people of Rome with his outrageous weekly sporting event: Julius Super Sunday Blood Sporting Games. Julius popularity, influence, and ambitions grow despite growing concern in the senate. Meanwhile a rag-tag group of gladiatorial underdogs must learn to work together or fall victim to the beasts of the pantheon. Their unlikely rise in the championship battle coincides with an act of political betrayal. The heroes emerge victorious, free of Julius’ games forever.
KIRK AT THE SF AIRPORT HYATT – Kristina’s handicapped father Kirk lives in the San Francisco Airport Hyatt with his Ethiopian nurse/girlfriend. He can’t afford to live in a hotel but he’s had a theory for the last 31 years that he is not going to live much longer. The catch is that he continues to. Now he’s running out of money.
LIPSTICK LOBOTOMY – LIPSTICK LOBOTOMY imagines a friendship between JFK’s little sister Rosemary Kennedy and the playwright’s great aunt Ginny at an exclusive high-end sanitarium for women in the fall of 1941. The women undergo the peculiar cutting-edge treatments on offer by a society desperate to find the cure for womanhood. When Rosemary is selected by the famous surgeon Dr. Walter Jackson Freeman II for an exciting new procedure, Ginny will do everything in her power to take control of her own future.
NANOMAN – A live theatrical lecture with German mad scientist Dr. X. She’s on the brink of a new discovery and ensuring her legacy. But will her creation destroy what’s inside her? An interactive nerdcore musical.
PHANTOM BAND – Santa Cruz High School is plagued by teen anxieties, fervent desires, and fiercely protected secrets. And one girl Raylene who is hell bent on creating an American Marching Band. The motley Band members strive to create themselves and their music—discordance all around—when mysterious exchange student Camille shows up with the kind of classical musical mastery they all crave. Plus she’ll save you from hearing the crushing pulsations of high school rejection. Instead you’ll hear music—until you don’t hear anything but music at all. A dark, comedic, and music-filled exploration of what it means to make art out of the chaos of your life and what it feels like to come of age in the first decade of a new century.
PRIMAL PLAY – Primatologists know: we all do strange and wonderful things when we don’t think anyone is watching. Eat some grass. Scratch an itch. Reveal the fundamental secrets of our species. British primatologist Dr. Valerie Naymark lost her mother slash assistant in Tanzania. She now returns to the Congo to try to find her mother and restore her reputation with the biggest expedition slash investigation of her career. Dr. Naymark’s mother is missing, but may be disguising herself as one of her subjects.
SALAMANDER LEVIATHAN – It’s 1890 in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. The loneliest man in the world makes a deal with the Devil: a wife and a family in exchange for his soul. When a beautiful stranger steps off the train, everything seems headed towards happily ever after. But neither the stranger nor the Devil is quite what they seem. A bitpop grand guignol about the price we pay for love.
SELKIE – American couple Keaton and Deanna, saddled with debt and buoyed by lust-driven optimism, move abroad for a fresh start. In their attempt to reinvent themselves as enterprising expats, they’re plunged into a torrid triangle with Alondra, an alluring and mischievous Selkie (half-woman half-seal). Keaton’s aggression and Deanna’s complicity result in a maelstrom of perverse romance and wet revenge in this dark, funny, and saturated exploration of domestic violence – of being trapped – and two approaches to escape.
SHOOTER! – Professor Leia is befuddled by the task of ushering undergrads into the dramatic principles of playwriting and life lessons simultaneously. When a student brings in a violent play, she suspects him of being a possible school shooter. As Leia’s home life becomes more dangerous, she doubles down on her fear of the possible shooter.
SLOPPY BONNIE – A cosmic country musical about a rambunctious bride-to-be named Bonnie (aka Sloppy Bonnie when she’s drunk). Inspired by a diet of Julia Roberts vehicles, proudly basic Bonnie sets out on a road trip to be with her fiancé, who has ghosted her ever since he left for a revival retreat in the mountains. But at every stop, her day-time TV femininity spells disaster for all in her path! A country western musical comedy about an accidental serial killer.
UN-HINGED: A SILENT OPERA – Glen, a house painter, is transfixed on the house that got away. When its childhood inhabitants return to sell the house, Glen has no intention of letting it slip away. He’s done too much for this house, and for the people who lived there. All Glen wants is to get inside.
BIO:
Krista is a Juilliard School Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program Fellow (2016-2018), Page 73 Playwriting Fellow (2007), MacDowell Fellow (2008), Shank Playwriting Fellow at the Vineyard Theatre (2011-2012), Vanderbilt Writer-in-Residence (2023), Chance Theater Resident Playwright (2020), winner of the Heideman Award at Actors Theatre of Louisville (2016), and winner of the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival (2020).
Her work includes CRUSH (New York Times Recommended, Time Out New York Best Theater to Stream Online, featured in American Theatre Magazine, premiere on the Emmy app), SLOPPY BONNIE (OZ Arts Nashville, Nashville Scene Critics Pick, This Week in NY Strangest Online Play of 2021, First Night Award for Outstanding Original Production), SHOOTER! (Fault Line Theatre workshop, Xavier University), CRIMSON LIT: SCARLET LETTER SET LIST – a musical with Jill Sobule (Polyphone Festival, Chance Theatre Workshop), LIPSTICK LOBOTOMY (Kilroys List, Trap Door Theatre), DON’T STOP ME – a musical with Dave Malloy (Polyphone Festival, Manhattan School of Music, YMTC), KIRK AT THE SAN FRANCISCO AIRPORT HYATT (NYTW’s Summer Residency, Vineyard Theatre reading series, Playwrights Foundation Rough Reading, Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse/MacDowell Benefit), PRIMAL PLAY (New Georges, Playwrights Center of MN), HISSIFIT (Cradle Theatre, Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, McCoy Theatre at Rhodes College, winner of seven Memphis Ostrander Awards), SALAMANDER LEVIATHAN (Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, Ars Nova Ant Fest, Fingerlakes Musical Theatre Festival, Inkwell, KCACTF Musical Theatre Award from the Kennedy Center for best book), DOOMSURFING (Parkside Lounge, UCSD), SELKIE (Williamstown Workshop, Dutch Kills), and 17 plays and musicals for young audiences.
Librettos include EVERYTHING FOR DAWN (Experiments in Opera Writers Room Episodes 6 and 10), THE TIMBER WOLVES OF FRENCH CREEK (Juilliard Opera Comp), and BEETHOVEN DARK RIDE (an interactive VR opera experience).
Commissions include the script for a ride at Tokyo Disney, The Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, The Assembly, Live Girls!, Crystal Springs Uplands School, The Steinmetz Lab, an EST/Sloan Commission, and DreamWorks/Music Theatre International.
Krista has been in residence at La Napoule Art Foundation, Tofte Lake, The Orchard Project, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Page 73’s Summer Residency at Yale, Santa Fe Art Institute, UCROSS, Yaddo, and MacDowell.
BA: Brown University.
MA: Performance Studies from NYU.
MFA Playwriting: UC San Diego.
Alum of EST’s Youngblood, TerraNova Groundbreakers, Page 73’s Interstate 73, Civilians R&D Lab, New Georges JAM, Fresh Ground Pepper Playgroup, and The Orchard Project Professional Lab.
Website: www.kristaknight.com