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Catherine Rush

CATHERINE RUSH  

 Nationality:    USA
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    n/a

Catherine Rush is a working Theater professional based in New York City and PhiladelphiA. Her plays include: Losing the Shore commissioned and produced by BCKSEET Productions in Philadelphia; the Loudest Man on Earth commissioned by the Philadelphia Theater Workshop as part of their Playshop Festival and further developed at New York Theater Workshop under the direction of Pam Berlin; This Island Alone, co-written with Adrian Blue, developed and produced at Vineyard Playhouse, MA; A Nice Place to Live, co-written with Adrian Blue, commissioned and produced by Wheelock Family Theatre of Boston; Double Helix; Main Line; the Me Generation and many others. Catherine translated Shakespeare's Twelfth Night into American Sign Language with the ASL Shakespeare Project. the translation was produced in Philadelphia at the Prince Music Theater. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Actor's Equity Association and AFTRA.

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

         Backyard Conspiracy         Ben, The Mute         Double Helix         Hijab         Losing the Shore         Loudest Man on Earth, The         Main Line         Me Generation, The         Nice Place To Live, A         simple surrender         This Island Alone

Backyard Conspiracy

Synopsis:
How far will they go at Guantanamo Bay to keep America safe? How about holding a pregnant French national with no recourse to justice? This play may surprise you.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
SPARK Theatre Festival, Philadelphia    2007

Organisations:
Luna Theater Company

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 Drama Ten Min

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Ben, The Mute

Synopsis:
Ben is gay and dying of AIDS. Ben is also deaf. He lies on the couch at his friend, Kay's, house. When Kay's housekeeper, Mary, calls 911 in a moment of panic, the EMT workers want to take him to the hospital. Ben wants to die at Kay's but refuses to speak. Without Ben's verbal expression of his wishes the EMT workers will take him away. Who will win: the law or the mute?

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Festival of Ten, SUNY Brockport, Brockport, NY    2005

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 Ten Min

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Double Helix

Synopsis:
Is failure genetic? Geraldine Morris (Gerry) stops in Hawaii to visit her reclusive aunt, Anya, and stumbles into the life of a lost woman and the parasitic people like Happy and Dutch Smith, who prey on her. However, when Gerry tries to help, the full weight of her aunt's insanity falls upon her head.

Notes:
Won the American theatre Co-op's Full Length play contest, 2004.

1st Produced:
Reading for Philadelphia Theatre Workshop, Wilma Theatre Philadelphia    2005

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:
full length Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Hijab

Synopsis:
Safiyah comes home from her work relocating refugees in the US just days after 9/11. Her hijab is covered in egg thrown at her by some boys. But Safiyah is far from frightened or upset. She is happy. Ammar her husband demands she remove her hijab for his sake and hers. Safiyah refuses. How can she be happy about her life and why does she insist on wearing it?

Notes:
Part of Questionable Content, A program of six new short plays: Absolutes by Craig Abernethy, Urashima Taro by Francesca Sanders, Hijab by Catherine Rush, there is No Dash by R. Harrington, Been Laden with Terrorette's Syndrome by Wayne K. Greenwell, And Building A Better Mousetrap by Scott McMorrow.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Co-Op Theatre East

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:
-

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Losing the Shore

Synopsis:
Everyone has secrets - and in 1953 there are plenty. the Russians have spies, the Congress has hidden Communists, and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are willing to die to keep theirs. On the SS President Wilson ocean liner, five well-to-do passengers sailing from San Francisco to Hawaii are no different. From Adlai Stevenson, recently defeated in his bid for President and his married "friend" Alicia Patterson to the ship owner's daughter, Ruth, and her best friend, Hortense, everyone is hiding something. But none seem to have more secrets than the odd and compelling Stuyvesant Baird. Five lives brought together on a fix-day Pacific cruise are changed forever by the time they finally dock in the Hawaiian Islands.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Adrienne Upstairs, Philadelphia    -

Organisations:
BCKSEET Productions

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:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Loudest Man on Earth, The

Synopsis:
Jordan Weiss was born deaf. A maverick theater director and staunch non-conformist, Jordan's got his life pretty well mapped out. Until he meets Haylee Masters - a quirky and independent woman, unfazed by his screams to get off the stage during a rehearsal. they are strangely drawn to each other, but unprepared for the road ahead. Haylee sees the world as place where everyone should get along whereas Jordan is a loner; Haylee comes from a family of bluebloods while Jordan is a Jew who has rejected his parents; And of course, there's the fact that Haylee can hear and Jordan can't. Together they must maneuver around a police bust, Haylee's senile grandmother, idiotic references to Koko the signing gorilla, a slick car salesman, and more. Is it possible for each to change to be the couple they want to be? the Loudest Man on Earth is an unconventional play about navigating the terrain of opposites and oppositions on the road of love.

Notes:
One role requires A Deaf Man

1st Produced:
Philadelphia Theater Workshop    -

Organisations:
Manhattan Repertory Theater, Developed with New York Theater Workshop

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

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Main Line

Synopsis:
Mrs. Pauline Henry is an American blue blood. In her 70s, she lives in a falling down house, more from neglect than want of money. Her son, Lesley, aches to control his mother and the priceless property on which her house stands, but first he has to get beyond the people who protect her. Ultimately, it is the ghost of his dead brother who proves to be the greatest obstacle.

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:
full length Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Me Generation, The

Synopsis:
the year is 1978. the Sixties are over and Reagonmics is moments away. It's a time in between. At the Pierson School, a private girls boarding school in New York State, the students share responsibility with the faculty for their education and their school community. Maggie Guthrie and Peggy Norris are roommates and best friends. In their senior year at Pierson, they have the added responsibility of being dorm proctors, charged to taking care of the younger students. Unwittingly, they find themselves in the middle of a tug-of-war between the past and the future when a lecherous music teacher, two closeted lesbian counselors, a dominating new Dean of Students and a 12 year-old Iranian student dealing with the confusion of a revolution at home converge and explode. How much say does a young woman have in determining her future? Who is really looking out for their well-being and why are they labeled "the Me Generation?"

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:  2            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Nice Place To Live, A

Synopsis:
Chilmark, Martha's Vineyard in the 1890s was an anomaly. One quarter of the population was deaf and everyone there knew Sign Language. That's the way it had always been and no one knew any different. But when people from off-island started moving in everything changed. This is the story of a young hearing boy and a deaf girl and how they come to understand just how special the world around them was.

Notes:
written by Adrian Blue And Catherine Rush.

1st Produced:
Wheelock Family theater    2005

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:
Youth Audience 35 min One Act

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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simple surrender

Synopsis:
Elizabeth has come to leave her child with Celia. What seems to be a simple exchange is fraught with tension. Celia is not the baby sitter, but the baby's adoptive mother. Elizabeth tries to hide the pain of giving up the child she loves but cannot keep, while Celia lives in fear that Elizabeth will change her mind at any moment and take back the baby she has wanted for so long.

Notes:
Finalist Actor's theatre of Louisville 10-minute play contest 2003

1st Produced:
Staged reading: Theatre One, MA    2006

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 Ten Min

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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This Island Alone

Synopsis:
No one at the General Store in Chilmark, Martha's Vineyard ever considered their home special or different. they'd always spoken two languages: sign and English. It was just the way they did things. Most of the time they couldn't remember who could hear and who couldn't. Until the day two off-islanders, a father and his son arrived. And with a single question they brought discord and division between good neighbors and life-long friends. (Performed simultaneously in English and American Sign Language)

Notes:
written by Adrian Blue And Catherine Rush. Workshop: October 2006 Vineyard Playhouse

1st Produced:
Vineyard Playhouse, Martha's Vineyard, MA    15 Jun 2007

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:
full length Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  (3 deaf, 4 hearing)

Further Reference:
-

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