The Playwrights Database
SUSANNA SPEIER
Nationality: USA
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Literary Agent: n/a
Susanna Speier's writing has been performed at the Tenri Cultural Center, the World Financial Center, HERE Arts Center, the Cocteau Theater, Cornelia Street Cafe, Bowery Poetry Club, Collective Unconscious, 45 Bleecker Theater in New York City and at AIA in Burbank, CA. Internationally, her work has been performed at the Green Room in Manchester, England; Dartington College of Arts in Devon, England and Boom Chicago in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her work has been covered by the New York Times, which stated, "Ms. Speier's ear here is excEllent," the Villager, Newsday, offoffoff.com, the Drama Review, Le Petit Zine, Digital Culture Magazine and as a primetime story on the Dutch Public Television Station, VPRO. She has lectured at the Rietveld Academie in the Netherlands, Parsons in New York City and done residencies with Artward Bound at Wild Meadows, Dorset Writer's Colony in Vermont and the Writer's Room in NYC. She has received grants from the PEN American Center Writers Fund and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Arts Recovery Fund. She earned her BA at Hampshire College. She spent a semester studying visual Theater in the Netherlands and for her final project, wrote her first play under the mentorship of Constance Congdon. She earned her MFA degree from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College, C.U.N.Y. during which time she was a guest student at the Boston University's MFA Screenwriting program. After completing her degree, she relocated to Los Angeles and worked as a Writing Department Intern on CSI and CSI: NY. She is currently scripting a feature screenplay in collaboration with Barney Cohen of Pterodactyl Productions and developing a pilot under the guidance of Emmy nominated writer, Ellen Sandler. Memberships include Arts and Science Collaborations, Inc. and Los Angeles Women in Film. She is also a Writer's Guild East Associate.
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below is a list of Susanna Speier's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
Agamemnon-Re Calabi-Yau GreenlandY2K Nine ElevenAgamemnon-Re
Synopsis:
An adaptation of the first play in the Orestia trilogy by Aeschylus. Agamemnon ---the play on which Agamemnon-Re is based---- begins with the homecoming of the Greek king of that name. After years of bloody conflict, he returns victorious to his home in Greece. the chorus (citizens of his city) awaits his return with joy, but his wife, Clytemnestra, does not. She seeks revenge against her husband for his murder of their child Iphegeneia as a sacrificial offering to the gods. She lures him and his unwilling mistress Cassandra into the house where she stabs them to death. Agamemnon-re though faithful to the original story, adds some fascinating divergences. It's setting is a war-torn country where a chorus of embedded journalists (led by the veteran correspondent Rosy Fingered Dawn) are covering the return of the king. the gods, called upon but never seen in the original, move through the landscape unseen by the mortals around them, killing indiscriminately-true gods of chance. Apollo works hard to destroy Cassandra, once his greatest prophet, Artemis cuts down inconvenient mortals, and Impartial Hermes avoids any responsibility in the action. Rather than a chorus of Greek citizens, for whom the events directly effect their fortunes, the journalists begin by reporting on events that seem separate from their lives but in which, as the play continues, they become increasingly invested, as journalists do. their lives hang in the balance as surely as the combatants' do. the play shows the interconnectedness of all people in war: the losses suffered both at home and abroad, and the fragility of civilization. Aeschelus' Oresteia was a movement from chaotic vengeance into order and law. By singling out only the first step of this process, Agamemnon-re offers a look at the downfall of arms without offering an immediate resolution. there is hope that these people may one day reach justice, but that day is not here yet.
Notes:
Score for song, "Ode to Fiberoptics And Light" composed by Stefan Weisman
1st Produced:
unproduced -
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
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 5 Female: 4 Other: 3 m/f
Further Reference:
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Top of PageCalabi-Yau
Synopsis:
A documentarian lost in an inner loop of an abandoned track of a sub-sub-sub atomic level of the New York Subway system encounters. Two MTA track workers who lead him to a gatekeeper named Lucy and her grandfather, who are engineering a particle acellerator. A string explains string theory as a Calabi-Yau tells the story of Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian knot
Notes:
Original Score composed by: Stefan Weisman
1st Produced:
HERE Arts Center 2001
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: 6 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageGreenlandY2K
Synopsis:
An "explornographer" (a contemporary explorer who seeks adventure in a world that has already been mapped) races to the North Pole for New Year's Eve 200, pursued by the mischievous Y2K Bug. Historical figures Lief Ericsson and Lady Jane Franklin are portrayed by the adventurer on her polar trek, tracing a line of exploration from ancient Vikings through Victorians to our postmodern age of explornography. As the clock strikes midnight on the new millennium, the explornographer makes her final fatal stab for the North Pole, while the bug threatens to destroy the technological world
Notes:
Original Score composed by: Stefan Weisman
1st Produced:
HERE Arts Center 1999
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: 2 Female: 2 Other: flexible
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageNine Eleven
Synopsis:
No human roles in this play. Actors will all be playing architectural or historical icons. A bull and a bear wander through dust-covered lower Manhattan at night, and statue and a bridge reflect on the recent past. Story of the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks against the United States told from the perspective of New York's architectural icons.
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
HERE Arts Center 2002
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:
-
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