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Sibyl Kempson

SIBYL KEMPSON

  
Nationality:    USA
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    Antje Oegel International  represented by Antje Oegel

Sibyl Kempson lives and makes Theater plays in NYC and the Pocono Mountains. Plays include Crime or emergency (Theater Bonn, Germany; Great Plains Theatre Conference, Omaha; Performance Space 122; Fusebox Festival, Austin; Soho Rep; Dixon Place); Potatoes of august (Dixon Place); So Much To Go Crazy (the Show Might Go On) (Sehr Langsam) (the Off Center/Fusebox Festival, Austin); the Wytche of Problymm Plantation (Dixon Place); Bad Girls Good Writers (Brick Theater; Bennington New Works Festival); Spargel Time! (Little Theater) and many others. Her work has been developed in workshops at Dixon Place, Soho Rep, CaTCH! Performance Series, and Little Theater, as well as at New Dramatists. Current and upcoming projects include an as-yet untitled collaboration with elevator Repair Service; a Full Stage USA commission, a program of New Dramatists and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a new work in collaboration with Austin, TX groups Rude Mechs, Salvage Vanguard, Physical Plant, and Rubber Rep; a collaboration with David Neumanns advanced Beginner Group; and a commission from the Playwrights Department of NYC Players in partnership with abrons Arts Center. the 2011-12 season will see productions of her plays the Secret Death of Puppets (or) How Do Puppets Die? (or) Puppets Die In Secret (at Dixon Place) and Ich, KurbisGeist (by Big Dance Theater at the Chocolate Factory). Her plays have been published by the 53rd State Press (Crime and Kurbis), Play a Journal of Plays (Potatoes of august), Brooklyn Review (excerpts of Crime and Secret Death of Puppets), Midway Journal (excerpt of the Secret Death of Puppets). She is a 2010 MacDowell Colony Fellow, member of New Dramatists class of 17, a four-time recipient of Dixon Places Mondo Cane! Commission (2002, '07, '09, '11), and of individual grant support from the Greenwall Foundation 2009 & 10. She is a founding member of the Joyce Cho Initiative, an affinity of playwrights dedicated to the staging of problem plays, and of Machiqq Women's auxiliary playwriting group. She has an MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College, 2007, where she studied under the instigation of Mac Wellman.

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

         Admiral Snook Had What It Took         Bad Girls Good Writers         Binge: Short Plays With All the Fixins!         Crime Or Emergency         Fondly, Collette Richland         From the Pig Pile: Requiste Gestures(s) of Narrow Approach         Ich, Kurbisgeist         It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken         Kyckling and Screaming         Let Us Now Praise Susan Sontag         Potatoes Of August         Secret Death of Puppets (or) How Do Puppets Die (or) do Puppets Die in Secret, The         Securely Confered, Vouchsafed Keepsakes of Maery S, The         So Much To Go Crazy         Spargel Time!         Wytche Of Problymm Plantation         Zeit Af Der Kurbisgeistnachten (Or) It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken

Admiral Snook Had What It Took

Synopsis:
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Notes:
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1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
Saint Fortune

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

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Genre:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Bad Girls Good Writers

Synopsis:
Flexible sets but environmental is best, rock music equipment. an ode to the Brooklyn College literary scene. Written on a dare from Mac Wellman. these girls are bad, bad girls. But they know how to write. But they are totally, completely badass.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Brick theatre
575 Metropolitan aVenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211    2006

Organisations:
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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

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Genre:
comedy

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  4            Other:  2 Gender-flexible, 2 children, 1 rock band, 1 crowd

Further Reference:
-

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Binge: Short Plays With All the Fixins!

Synopsis:
In these short plays food is a character, a metaphor, a Dramatic force of its own. Binding the plays together is a series of provocative videos that address the grotesque reality of today's food politics
- nytheatre.com

Notes:
written by Michael John Garces, Kara Lee Corthron, Sibyl Kempson, Kirk Lynn, Bekah Brunstetter, Mando Alvarado

1st Produced:
Interart Theatre, NY    2008

Organisations:
the Shalimar

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 plays

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Crime Or Emergency

Synopsis:
Routine medical examination goes critical, spirals. Common expectations of cause and effect obliterated. Inner, personal violences multiply. audience members undergo mandatory post-logical transformation of self
Press Release

Notes:
written by Sibyl Kempson And MIke Iveson

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Dixon Place Mondo Cane commission

1st Published:
53rd State Press   -

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

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Genre:
comedy

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Fondly, Collette Richland

Synopsis:
As a serene domestic scene gradually unravels, mysterious off-stage forces and an unexpected guest become entwined in a Drama that is a surreal homage to Jane Bowles and a cadre of other influences. eRS signature physical performance meets Kempsons inimitable style with a live score played by longtime eRS member and Kempson collaborator Mike Iveson. the result is a lush, engaging, strange and beautiful trip into unknown mental and physical spaces.

Notes:
In their first ever collaboration with a contemporary writer, elevator Repair Service joins forces with playwright Sibyl Kempson to create Fondly, Collette Richland

1st Produced:
Preview Performance: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis    16 May 2013

Organisations:
elevator Repair Service

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:
Piece

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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From the Pig Pile: Requiste Gestures(s) of Narrow Approach

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Salvage Vanguard Theatre, Austin, Texas    Apr 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:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  5            Other:  1 baby

Further Reference:
-

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Ich, Kurbisgeist

Synopsis:
Performance Space 122 and the Chocolate Factory present the world premiere of Ich, Kurbisgeist from Big Dance theater and playwright Sibyl Kempson. Blending performance, text, dances and visual design, Big Dance theater installs Kempsons play into the Chocolate Factorys crypt-like basement for an audience of just 30 per show. It is written by Kempson in an imaginary language, sounding both remote and strangely familiar.
nytheatre.com

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Chocolate Factory
5-49 49th AVenue, Long Island City, NY 11101    25 Oct 2012

Organisations:
Big Dance Theater

1st Published:
53rd State Press   -

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:
piece 60 min

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken

Synopsis:
a wicked and unnatural Halloween play.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
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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:  3            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Kyckling and Screaming

Synopsis:
Kyckling is Swedish for chicken

Notes:
Original playwright - Henrik Ibsen. Based on "The Wild Duck"

1st Produced:
Rehearsed reading at New York Theatre Workshop    10 Feb 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:
Adaptation

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Let Us Now Praise Susan Sontag

Synopsis:
A very poor family of sharecroppers are visited by a journalist and photographer from a journal in the big city

Notes:
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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:
Musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Potatoes Of August

Synopsis:
Potatoes of August is a theatricalist fugue wherein four retirees encounter a sack of sentient potatoes, and find their outworn belief systems forcibly confronted by the challenges of a highly integrated, enlightened metaphysics. these potatoes have brains, have read their Swedenborg, and don't always play fair. Parts kitchen sink Drama, musical comedy, intimate biographical portraiture, museum educational presentation, opera, Renaissance fair, science fiction, science fair, and phenomenological debate, it is a fugue in both the musical and psychiatric sense, and also a swarm. a flight is tracked from comprehensible identity and habitual perception into an unknowable environment of vastness, multiplicity, and high, high entropy
- press release

Notes:
songs by Mike Iveson

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Play a Journal of 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:
Science Drama/Comedy with songs

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Secret Death of Puppets (or) How Do Puppets Die (or) do Puppets Die in Secret, The

Synopsis:
A collection of three playlets about forbidden knowledge and our own fragile understanding of reality. Together the three vignettes are an homage to Victoria Nelson's book, the Secret Life of Puppets, and explore our mysterious and uncanny relationship to the inanimate. Told with objects, puppets and humans-as-objects, and set in a surreal reality with insistently unnatural flora and fauna that may or may not be talking, the Secret Death of Puppets blurs the fantastic with the commonplace and poses the question: how can something die that was never alive in the first place?
- nytheatre.com

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Dixon Place
161 Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002    03 Nov 2011

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
excerpts in Brooklyn Review   -

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:
-

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Securely Confered, Vouchsafed Keepsakes of Maery S, The

Synopsis:
Mary Shelley and her Monster

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Playwrights Center, Minneapolis    Feb 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:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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So Much To Go Crazy

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:
-

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Spargel Time!

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Little Theatre    -

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:
-

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Wytche Of Problymm Plantation

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:
-

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Zeit Af Der Kurbisgeistnachten (Or) It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken

Synopsis:
Old-Time agricultural Revenge Play, for Hallowe'en, One act, best performed in woods bordering a farm. Inspired by a field of broken seed pumpkins near the airport in Graz, austria, as viewed from a passing car. Told in a convergence of fictional archaic dialects, as collected from several imaginary points in medieval european history. Takes place in a patch of woods where the boundaries of feudal and religious systems, time periods, social order, biologies, and other classifications can manage total break-down in the face of paranatural crisis.

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:
one act

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  15            Other:  1 chorus

Further Reference:
-

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