doollee banner
The Playwrights Database
contact doollee


Marcus Gardley

MARCUS GARDLEY

  
Nationality:    African American
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, LLC  

Marcus Gardley is a poet-playwright who was awarded the 2011 PeN/Laura Pels award for Mid-Career Playwright. His most recent play, every Tongue Confess, premiered at Arena Stage starring Phylicia Rashad and directed by Kenny Leon. It was nominated for the Steinberg New Play award, the Charles Macarthur award and was a recipient of the edgerton Foundation New Play award. His musical, On the Levee, premiered last summer at LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater and was nominated for 11 audelco awards including outstanding playwright. Last spring, his play, and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, was produced at the Cutting Ball Theater and received the SF Bay area Theatre Critics Circle award nomination for outstanding new play and was extended twice. He has had six plays produced including dance of the holy ghost at Yale Repertory Theatre (now under a Broadway option,) (L)imitations of Life, at the empty Space in Seattle, and like sun fallin' in the mouth at the National Black Theatre Festival. He is the recipient of a Helen Merrill award, a Kesselring Honor, the Gerbode emerging Playwright award, the National alliance for Musical Theatre award, the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Scholarship, and the aSCaP Cole Porter award. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale Drama School and is a member of New Dramatists, the Dramatists Guild, and the Lark Play Development Center. He is a professor of Playwriting at Brown University.

Buy Plays with Doollee

Each page of doollee.com has links to play/book outlets, either directly to the Publisher, through Stageplays.com and Amazon to the second hand and 1st editions of AbeBooks. These links will automatically take you to the relevant area obviating the need for further search.
AbeBooks.co.uk   AbeBooks.com   Stageplays.com   amazon.com   amazon.co.uk   amazon.ca
whether you are a Playwright who wishes to make their entry definitive, an unlisted Playwright or a User with a tale to tell - we want to hear from you.
download WORD submission template

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

         And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi         Bitter Seraph Of Sugar Hill, The         Blossoming Of Andromachae         Chicago Is Burning         Couchworks         dance of the holy ghost         Dream Chain, The         Every Tongue Confess         Gospel of Loving Kindness         House That Will Not Stand, The         Issue Of Blood, A         Let Every Tongue Confess         Like Sun Falling In Mouth         Limitations Of Life         Livin' Tired         Love Song For the Night In Gaul         No More Monsters Here         On the Levee         Rhapsody 3 Or My Brother's Keeper         Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry, The         Victorian         Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes, A         Wonder in My Soul, A
And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi

And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi
and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi is a poetic retelling of the Demeter myth set during the Civil War and narrated by the Mississippi River. Having run away from a plantation in arkansas, a Father travels South in search of his daughter Po'em. en route, he is murdered and resurrected into the goddess Demeter by way of devine intervention. Now having the power to upset the balance of nature, Demeter continues her journey to find Po'em despite the fact that the world will flood in three days if she doesn't set Mother Nature right. the goddess arrives on a plantation in the rich fertile landscape of Louisiana (a modern day elysian field), where her daughter was a slave. although Po'em is not there and eventually discovered to be in limbo, what Demeter unearths changes her course entirely. In this epic bricolage, myth, spirituality, Gods and mortals are all woven together to examine the complex and profound fabric that is the American quilt.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Exit Theatre San Francisco, Usa     2007

Organisations:
Cutting Ball Theater

1st Published:
Contained in: "Post-Black Plays" published by Methuen Drama 2012   

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:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Bitter Seraph Of Sugar Hill, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
This is A program of six new short plays by African American writers, presented As part of the Fire This Time Festival. the plays Are: the Scorpion And the Fox by Jesse Cameron Alick, the Big Crunch or. . .(the eternal return) by Christine Jean Chambers, exodus by Camille Darby, the Bitter Seraph of Sugar Hill by Marcus Gardley, Breakfast by Yusef Miller, And Third Grade by Dominique Morisseau.

1st Produced:
the Red Room
85 East 4th Street, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10003     21/2011

Organisations:
-

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:
Ten Min

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Blossoming Of Andromachae

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
Originally performed under the overall title "Obstruction Plays" with five other plays.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Slant Theater Project

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:
One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Chicago Is Burning

Synopsis:
Set in Bronzeville in Chicago, the exhilarating Drama with music Chicago is Burning takes you to the underground ball competitions where anyone in the communities in this African American and Latino, gay and transgender subculture can be a star or a supermodel for one night. they've come to strike a pose, vogue, walk, dance, compete, love, bitch and be themselves. the multiple award-winning young playwright Marcus Gardley and Victory Gardens artistic Director Chay Yew team up for a celebration of a new kind of American family built across lines of race, class and gender.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Couchworks

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
written by Rachel Axler, evan Cabnet, Marcus Gardley, Adam Knight, Adam Rapp, Theresa Rebeck, Mat Smart

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Slant Theatre Project

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

dance of the holy ghost

Synopsis:
Oscar Clifton prefers to live his memories rather than his life. But when his estranged grandson comes calling after eighteen years, Oscar must face a very different version of his past. Together, what future can they make when they are so alike they can't stand each other? Something is going to have to arouse them; something beyond the smell of sweet potato pie and the muddy blues of the Delta - something supernatural. dance of the holy ghosts is a poetic family Drama that waltzes from the hilarious innocence of a childhood crush to the heartbreak of a ruined marriage. It is a memory-scape that arouses all the senses, wakes the imagination, and leaves no stone unturned.

Notes:
Written by evan Cabnet and Marcus Gardley. Orginally performed under the over all title "CouchWorks" with six other short plays

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
Short play

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Dream Chain, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
part of the Dream Project, which is described As "an exploration of Pedro Calderon de la Barca's La Vida es Sueno through A series of staged readings of Adaptations of Calderon's masterpiece. An Adaptation of La Vida es Sueno written by multiple Authors, each writing only one scene from the play. Contributing playwrights include: Sheila Callaghan, Marcus Gardley, Amlin Gray, Carmen Rivera, Adam Szymkowicz And Candido Tirado

1st Produced:
Michael Weller Theater, NY     2007

Organisations:
FLUX Theatre ensemble

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:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Every Tongue Confess

Synopsis:
folkloric exploration of hate crimes in the American South, "every tongue confess." In the backwater town of Boligee, Alabama, the summer heat is rising higher, driving the townsfolk to distraction and conjuring the spirits of the past to walk the earth. Wrapped in the combustible music of a Deep South juke joint and the sweat-soaked gospel of a revivalist church tent, intergenerational stories of loss and redemption collide. Based upon biblical stories and events in the town's history, Every Tongue Confess awakes a fiery theatrical furnace in which some will be saved, some will be purged, and the truth cannot escape.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Arena Stage, The Kogod Cradle, Mead Center For American Theater, 1101 6th Street, Sw, Washington, Dc     01 Nov 2010

Organisations:
-

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:
Play/Drama one act

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Gospel of Loving Kindness

Synopsis:
It is 1996 and the streets of Bronzeville are set ablaze by crime, evictions, gun and gang violence. No one knows this better than Reverend Isaac Seer and his wife, both who just lost their only son to a senseless homicide. Now, they must decide whether to leave their home in the embattled Ida B. Wells Projects, or stay to lead their community towards an uncertain future. Victory Gardens ensemble Playwright Marcus Gardley pens this powerful, poetical, gospel-inspired Drama about life, love and loss in Chicago's South Side community.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

House That Will Not Stand, The

House That Will Not Stand, The
New Orleans, 1836. Following an era of French colonial rule and relative racial acceptance, Louisiana's 'free people of color' are prospering. Beartrice has become one of the city's wealthiest women through her relationship with a rich white man. However, when her partner mysteriously dies, the foundations of freedom she has built for herself and their three unwed daughters begins to crumble. Society is changing, racial divides are growing, and as the household turns on each other in their fight for survival, it could cost them everything. A bewitching new drama of desire, jealousy, murder and voodoo.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison Street, Berkeley, Ca 94704     31 Jan 2014

Organisations:
-

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:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  7            Other:  -

Further Reference:

Top of Page Top of Page

Issue Of Blood, A

Synopsis:
It's 1676 in Virginia  a time when class, not color, defined an American's destiny. ?H?istoric figure and wealthy landowner Negro Mary?? believes a vile curse has been cast upon her family and land. But her plans to break the curse are thwarted by a secret wedding, an interracial love triangle, and a crime of passion. Can Mary cheat fate and change the course of history? Or will ?their lives end in ??division and destruction? In An Issue of Blood, Victory Gardens Ensemble playwright Marcus Gardley and Artistic Director Chay Yew (??The Gospel of Lovingkindness) look to a pivotal moment in our collective past to understand how we arrived in our tumultuous present.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
historical drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Let Every Tongue Confess

Synopsis:
In the backwater town of Boligee, alabama, the summer heat is rising higher, driving the townsfolk to distraction and conjuring the spirits of the past to walk the earth. Wrapped in the combustible music of a Deep South juke joint and the sweat-soaked gospel of a revivalist church tent, intergenerational stories of loss and redemption collide. Based upon biblical stories and events in the town's history, every Tongue Confess awakes a fiery theatrical furnace in which some will be saved, some will be purged, and the truth cannot escape.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Like Sun Falling In Mouth

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     2003

Organisations:
-

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Limitations Of Life

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Empty Space Theater, Seattle     2004

Organisations:
-

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Livin' Tired

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     2003

Organisations:
-

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Love Song For the Night In Gaul

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

No More Monsters Here

No More Monsters Here
A white woman goes to the psychiatrist and is diagnosed with "Negro-phobia". The psychiatrist arranges for her to spend three days in the body of a young black man

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Facing Our Truth" published by Samuel French   

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:
Short play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

On the Levee

Synopsis:
Set in Greenville Mississippi, On the Levee is an epic musical play that uproots the almost forgotten Mississippi flood of 1927, the worst natural disaster in U.S. history pre-Katrina. at the heart of the story are two fathers and sons: LeRoy Percy, a white cotton farmer, and his poet-son Will, and Joe Goodin, an African-American bootblack and his son James, a self-proclaimed lady's man. Stranded on the levee with 180,000 other black folk Joe tries to preserve his way of life while James hopes to inspire change for the black people who are stranded. Likewise, LeRoy attempts to preserve his labor force by keeping the blacks in town but his son Will challenges his authority and what ensues is more destructive than any flood. Based on a true story, On the Levee is a powerful, illuminating history that reaffirms the enduring spirit of hope in a time of great poverty and devastation.

Notes:
Music And lyrics by Scott Almond; book by Marcus Gardley. Commissioned: Yale Repertory theatre.

1st Produced:
Lincoln Center Theater, New York     2010

Organisations:
-

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:
Musical

Parts:
Male:  8            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Rhapsody 3 Or My Brother's Keeper

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
Originally performed under the overall title "CouchWorks" with six other plays.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Slant Theater Project

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry, The

Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry, The
Surviving centuries of slavery, revolts and the Trail of Tears, a community of self-proclaimed Freemen (Black Seminoles and people of mixed origins) incorporate the first all-black U.S. town in Wewoka, Oklahoma. But the very foundations of the town are rocked when the new religion and the old way come head to head, their former enslavers arrive to imprison them and the leader of the Freemen makes use of his brilliant, burning' immortality. Written in gorgeously cadenced language, utilizing elements of black folklore and daring humor, the road weeps, the well runs dry merges the myth, folklore and history of the Black Seminole people.

Notes:
Commissioned: South Coast Repertory theatre.

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in Methuen Drama Book of New American Plays   

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:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Victorian

Synopsis:
a newlywed interracial couple moves into an old Victorian home in the San Francisco Bay area, but an act of violence leaves young adeline a widow. Troubled with grief and struggling to raise her daughter alone, adeline reaches out to the community and learns of the long, tumultuous history of the house and the people who have lived there. as their folk-like tales play out before her, they paint a picture of the past, present, and future of a community haunted by the ghosts of heartache and racial tensions and their hope to change things for the future. (This play was specially commissioned by Playscripts for high school actors.)

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Keen Teens At Theatre Row, New York, NY     28 May 2010

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Playscripts, Inc   

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:
short Drama

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  7            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes, A

Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes, A
Taking Moliere's Tartuffe as its inspiration, this new play is updated and relocated to deepest Atlanta. Multi-millionaire Archibald Organdy is arranging his own death. Rather than prolong the end, he chooses to die surrounded by his family. But a mysterious preacher arrives bearing a miracle cure. Self-proclaimed healer Tardimus Toof rolls into town in his snakeskin shoes with the promise of absolution. But the archbishop is not entirely what he seems.

Notes:
Moliere would certainly recognise and might even approve of this inconsistent but at times very funny updating of his classic satire on religious hypocrisy. Given the alternative title of The Gospel of Tartuffe, A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes has relocated the tale from 17th-century France to Atlanta, Georgia today.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Bloomsbury methuen   

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:
satire

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Wonder in My Soul, A

Synopsis:
In the Great Migration, hundreds of thousands of families flocked to Chicago. Some chased love, some prosperity, but all were drawn by a dream of a better life in the City of Big Shoulders. This stirring musical journey follows five generations of women through a formative era in our city's history.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page