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Mark Chrisler

MARK CHRISLER

  (1982 - )
Nationality:    USA
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    n/a

Mark Chrisler graduated with a B.A. in Theater, emphasis in playwriting/directing, from Northern Illinois University. In the four years since, he has become a regular fixture of the Chicago Theater scene, with eight professional productions of individual works in the city, as well as productions in New Orleans, DeKalb and London, including the critical sensations Chinese Whispers, Histories Minor and Teatime at GolgothA. Timeout calls Chrisler Chicago's "Fringe Savant" and "the prolific fringe absurdist" and in the Chicago Reader's Best of 2009 edition, he was named "Best emerging playwright in Chicago." He is resident playwright for Chicago's Found Objects Theatre, associate artistic Director for Prop Thtr, also working with Curious Theatre Branch, National Pastime Theater and National Public Radio's This American Life.

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below is a list of Mark Chrisler's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Art Of Painting, The         Chinese Whispers         Christmas: Computerized!!!!!         Histories Minor         Increasingly Uncordial Invitation, An         Observer, The         Our Flat Earth         Teatime At Golgotha         Torvald And I

Art Of Painting, The

Synopsis:
the terrible, sort-of true story of one of history's greatest painters and one of history's greatest forgers; Nazis, child molesters, infidelity, impotence and patricide make this the strangest art history lecture ever given.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Venue #4: Jimmy's No. 43, fringe nyc, NY    11 Aug 2012

Organisations:
Found Objects Theatre Grp.

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
0h 50m Solo Show Multi-Media

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Chinese Whispers

Synopsis:
a play of miscommunications, misrepresentations and creeping illogical chaos brought to you in the avante garde comedy style of Zombie Fortress Arts Collective; the folks behind Our Flat earth, Christmas: Computerized!!!!!, Blackwood the Radioshack Surveillance Vampire and 365 Days/3,000,000,000 Plays. Chinese Whispers is the smash hit about Santa, Phil Collins, closeted gay cops, urban legends, and mostly just creating the highest joke-to-page ratio possible with the least possible continuity.

Notes:
written by Mark Chrisler, Tim Racine, Andrew Schoen And Chris Bower

1st Produced:
Prop Thtr, Chicago IL    2007

Organisations:
Zombie Fortress Arts Collective

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Comedy/experimental

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Christmas: Computerized!!!!!

Synopsis:
When Tim Racine discovered one of the worst plays ever "written," he Mark Chrisler set about making it worse. the product of this misguided experiment is Christmas: Computerized!!!!!, a late-night musical-a-go-go-romp-tacular about the wonders of Christmas, technology, commercialism and euthanasia. Conservative Bea is embroiled in a conundrum: namely, to kill her mother or just let her die. She comes to egocentric "heart-throbs" Tim and Mark, for advice. Reminded -- inexplicably -- of the period they spent with Father Time as children, this duo of megalomaniacs begin a retelling of the first Christmas ever, somewhere in the late seventies. With help from Bea and their smart-alecky Butler "Jolson" they imaginact those good old days -- when Father Time ordered his first computer to run the holidays more efficiently. But little will you know when that doesn't happen, because it's surprising.

Notes:
written by Mark Chrisler And Tim Racine

1st Produced:
Prop Thtr, Chicago IL    2006

Organisations:
a Techtonic Slosh

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Comedy/experimental

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Histories Minor

Synopsis:
a cheating Civil War photographer battles the Chicago fire, a feminist reporter contemplates her sanity during a madhouse expose, and a disgraced communist quantum physicist gives a lecture on the theory of everything to an audience which only speaks Portuguese in three short plays about little moments that almost were.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
the Viaduct Theater, Chicago IL    2009

Organisations:
Found Objects Theatre

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Dark comedy/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Increasingly Uncordial Invitation, An

Synopsis:
an Increasingly Un-Cordial Invitation (To the Viewing of the Body of "the Great Handcuff King" at 221B Baker Street). the breath-taking, death-defying, hyphenated-adjective-inspiring adventures of the mysteriously animate corpse of Harry Houdini, brought forth for remembrance and clarification of certain matters emotional and philosophical. See myriad wonders for the first time in a single place, including--but never limited to: -the great, guilt-ridden pugilist J. Gordon Whitehead swim a sub-aquatic race with Yahweh, the Great I am, Father of abraham, God! -Magician arthur Ford as he cons his way into your weakened and naive hearts through the modern science of mirrors! -Detective extraordinaire Sherlock Holmes--and his assistant, Dr. Watson--struggle against their own creator, over-esteemed author Sir arthur Conan Doyle! -Ravishing psychic Margery "Mina" Crandon, whose dead brother's hand may appear from within her hallowed nether-regions with only the slightest provocation! -the final escape of Harry Houdini, accompanied by his most fervent denials of the supernatural! -the weakening psyche of Bess Houdini, as her deepest and most profound beliefs are tattered and split by the amazing power of grief! all this and more upon a single, rapidly and inexplicably collapsing stage for your pleasure and benefit.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
acme Art Works, Chicago IL    2008

Organisations:
Found Objects Theatre

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Dark comedy/Drama

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Observer, The

Synopsis:
Was Quantum Leap actor Dean Stockwell the most imporant figure in both scientific and literary history? Through studies of such diverse topics as nuclear geo-politics, quantum mechanics, game theory, obsessive-compulsive disorder, the Firebombing of Kobe and the game of cricket, author Mark Chrisler comes upon a suspicion that attempting to scientifically validate absurdism might lead to optimistic results. In this lecture-style solo show, he proves himself very, very wrong.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
the Rhinoceros Theatre Festival, Chicago IL    2006

Organisations:
Curious Theatre Branch

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Solo/Monologue

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Our Flat Earth

Synopsis:
Mark and Tim are the proud and mysterious fundamentalist parents of a lovely teenage slut, but doubting the virtues of her "liberal" education, they go about transforming her life-and the lives of their audiences--with the True message of their faith: the earth is flat.

Notes:
written by Mark Chrisler And Tim Racine

1st Produced:
Prop Thtr, Chicago IL    2006

Organisations:
the Iconoclasts

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Comedy/Satire

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Teatime At Golgotha

Synopsis:
Spring-boarding off of Poe's al aaraaf, Hobbes' Leviathan and the 22nd Psalm, Teatime at Golgotha presents "a heady, wittily self-effacing Drama" about the unenviable search for meaning in what is-in all likelihood-a cold, cold world. Following the stories of Longinus after the crucifixion, the last hours in the life of astronomer Tycho Brahe and a modern day hostage situation, Teatime leaps back and forth through the millenia drawing meanings, parallels and conclusions that the characters themselves characteristically fail to notice.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Prop Thtr, Chicago IL    2007

Organisations:
Found Objects Theatre

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Black Comedy/Drama

Parts:
Male:  8            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Torvald And I

Synopsis:
If rewrites of "a Doll's House" are a dime a dozen, Chrisler's Torvald and I must be worth at least a sixpence. In this attempt to-alternately-pretentiously rewrite the last scene of Ibsen's masterpiece and super-pretentiously rewrite his forward for his pretentious rewrite of the last scene of Ibsen's masterpiece, Chrisler comes up with the best comedic post-feminist deconstruction that 19th-century realism can offer. Caution: against all efforts to the contrary, there may be nudity. and birds.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Rhinoceros Theatre Festival, Chicago IL    2007

Organisations:
Found Objects Theatre

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Dark comedy/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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