Playwriting
With Love and a Major Organ
85 minutes | Comedy-Drama
Cast: 3 - 2W/1M or 3W -- gender is flexible
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Anabel gives her heart to a stranger she meets on the subway and he disappears with it. George is on the run but keeps getting distracted by romantic comedies and feelings he's never had before.
Mona is seeking online therapy and internet speed-dating to feel more connected to the real world.
Then a stranger appears on her doorstep in search of her missing heart.
A funny, poetic, and uniquely resonant story about human connection, and having the courage to truly use your heart.
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WITH LOVE AND A MAJOR ORGAN has been produced across North America to critical acclaim, in theatres including: Boston Court (Los Angeles); Boise Contemporary Theatre; Strawdog Theatre (Chicago); Théâtre Lepic (Paris); America Academy of Drama Arts, etc. .
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Nominated for "Best Production" by the Los Angeles Drama Critics' Circle
Ovation Approved, part of the Theatre @ Boston Court's Polly Warfield Award-winning season; "Best of Fringe"; "Patron's Pick".
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Julia also adapted it as an audio drama, with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. She also adapted it into a feature film, about to premiere at South By Southwest.
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A 60-minute version is published by Scirocco Drama.
Full, professional script available at the Canadian Play Outlet.
Theatre @ Boston Court, 2017.
Photo by Jenny Graham
Daisuke Tsugi & Paige White
60-minute version
Published by Scirocco Drama, 2016
Abby Pierce
“Theater that lets go of realism and embraces the joys of language…. wonderfully weird, piercingly poetic and unexpectedly moving…
Isn't that what theater should do?” - Crain's Chicago
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Lederer’s dialogue is laced with sophisticated poetry and wry insight into the isolation faced by a generation." - The Los Angeles Times
Gather
60 minutes | Theatre for All Audiences & Families | Interactive
Written with Julie Ritchey at Filament Theatre in Chicago
Cast: 2 actors
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A play about finding our way back together again...
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When their town goes into a deep freeze and everyone is stuck inside, people start to lose their connection to the world.
Words vanish for a librarian, food loses taste for a chef, and a mail carrier has no mail to deliver.
Two friends work to find one-another again to rediscover their town, with the hope that everyone they love will be able to gather again.
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Premiere: Filament Theatre, February 2022
Nomination: Tom Hendry Award, Theatre for Young Audience, 2022.
"Pronoia [is] the belief that the universe is conspiring in your favor.... Filament Theatre is back with an original production that brings this hopeful and expansive feeling to its audience in delightful and authentic ways."
-- The Chicago Reader
GATHER was developed with over 150 Youth Collaborators, ages 5-14, through workshops, sharing their experiences, and giving feedback.
This section is not finished.
More info to come soon.
More of my plays: Canadian Play Outlet &
New Play Exchange
U-R-U
(a new play inspired by Karel ÄŒapek's R.U.R.)
105 minutes | Dark Comedy
Cast: 9 without doubling/(6 with). Most characters can be played by any gender identity.
What happens when the powers of machines exceed those of nature? At what point will A.I. resemble humans enough to deserve human rights?
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Absurdly comedic and existentially chilling, U-R-U examines the societal obsession with progress at all costs and the decreasing worth of humanity in this increasingly artificial world. A modern, feminist take on Capek's groundbreaking but outdated play that coined the term "robot" in 1921.
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First daughter, Helen Spectacular, arrives at the world's biggest robot factory ready to free all the robots from servitude. When they don't respond as she'd hoped, she just becomes more committed to her own mission of granting them equal rights. Before long, Helen is involved in both a love triangle and a secret science experiment that might lead to a major robot revolt.
School Productions: Occidental College (Los Angeles); Humber College (Toronto).
Readings: Sacred Fools; The Road Theatre Company, the Theatre @ Boston Court (all in LA), and at the Next Stage Theatre Festival in Toronto.
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Smallbots
55 minutes | a play for middle & high schools / young actors and students
The world is a dangerous place to raise kids, and it's only getting worse.
Having children is painful and often biologically inaccessible.
But, thanks to SmallBots, you can skip the hassles and risks and adopt robot children instead, starting at any age. And they are perfect... or however you'd like them to be.
Soon SmallBots are what every parent wants. It's not long before they're running the student council. What's next? And what happens when real kids can’t compete? When they watch their world become run by machines?
A play inspired by youth activism, our dependence on technology, and actually asking teenagers what kind of world they want.
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Nominated for the Sharon Enkin Award for Theatre for Young Audiences.
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Reality Theatre
A collection of one-act plays to be performed all together or separately.
All In the Timing meets BlackMirror.
Reality and fantasy blur for a woman playing a spoon in Beauty and the Beast. A troubled man reconsiders a contract signed in blood in exchange for eternal youth. The World Wide Web disappears into thin air. A fast-moving collection of interwoven one-act plays about people who are stuck in absurd and very human ways.
Premiere: SummerWorks Festival, 2016.
Full Production: Trap Door Theatre (Chicago). Individual one-act plays have been produced at festivals in New York, Chicago, Toronto, etc.
Akosua Amo-Adem, Krista Morin, & Andy Trithardt in REALITY THEATRE. Photo credit: Bryanna Reilly.
"This eccentric, smart play... will have you laughing out loud, but even more importantly, will inspire a conversation for the whole ride home." - Picture This Post, Chicago.
The Best Plan For Living Happily
80 minutes | Comedic Drama/Magic Realism
Cast: 2F/1M -- gender flexible
Violet’s best friend Linda is getting married.
There are tea sommeliers and ribbon colourists and dresses in a specific shade of teal.
But Violet feels a grey hole expanding in her gut she can’t control.
She ventures into a cave in pursuit of concrete wisdom. But it’s hard being in a cave by yourself. Especially when someone follows you there. And she needs to learn the secret to being happy to make it back in time for the wedding.
Why are some people alone when others aren't?
Workshop Production: Birdtown & Swanville and ?! Theatre (Toronto).
Selection at the PlayLab at the Valdez Theatre Conference (Alaska).
Art/design by Jill Holmberg
Virtually Friends
110 minutes | Ensemble Comedy
Cast: 4F/1M
Millie is throwing a Murder Mystery Party to celebrate her 30th birthday. She’s booked an AirBnB in the woods and invited all her oldest friends. Alex, her boyfriend, is planning a surprise proposal, but keeps getting sidetracked by social media demands. People keep cancelling, and everything is stilted with the friends who do show up. It’s only when the they take on their Murder Mystery characters that real feelings and secrets emerge.
Just because you can stay in touch with everyone, doesn’t mean you should.
A comedy about growing up, growing apart, and the technology that seems to keep us close at any proximity.
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Developed with the Thousand Islands Playhouse. Workshop & Reading (Gananoque).
Presented at the Valdez Theatre Conference's PlayLab (Alaska).
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Shorter Plays
Boxed In
Frame
30 minutes | Comedy
Cast: 3F -- gender flexible
A one-act comedy, written for the age of the Quarter-Life Crisis.
Not long after finishing university, Jackie decides to move into a box on Yonge Street. Her friends are confused. She tells them they'll get used to it. But it's hard to stay friends with someone who lives in a box and won't come out.
If we create our own limitations, is it easier to exist?
When something that is considered abnormal or unhealthy provides solace, is always it wrong?
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Productions: Hysteria Festival (Buddies In Bad Times; Tumbleweed Theatre (Alberta); Quand-Même Collective (Vancouver); etc.
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18 minutes | Comedy/Drama
Cast: 2F/1M
“We know exactly how to restore a painting, but we have no idea how to restore a person.”
Mary and Laura are, both drawn to the same piece of art: a large, empty frame. Staring through it, in the back room of a gallery, whatever they each see pulls them in, exposes them, and ultimately connects them.
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Developed with Nightwood Theatre's Write From the Hip program.
Productions: Alumnae Theatre (Toronto); Seven Collective (NY).