Archives
2024
Pot Odds
When ultra-conservative, Southern-belle Natalie arrives in NYC to collect the belongings of her recently deceased twin sister, she meets liberal-AF Kendra, and learns that her estranged sister’s “roommate” is not only black, but also more than just a roommate. Natalie comes face to face with her late sister’s life and wife, and is forced to confront her own. As she peels back the layers of her twin’s life, her own begins to unravel - being held tenuously together by near empty bottles of Xanax and Klonopin. Kendra and Natalie find their mutual love of Jasmine begins to outweigh their resentment of each other. But when Natalie’s dangerous past shows up on Kendra’s doorstep, a terrifying moment unites them, finding more solace in building each other up than tearing each other down. Panic attacks, pot brownies and pocket aces help them deal with grief, guilt and unexpected guests. ‘All-in’ with one card to come, will they stay at odds or make the right read on each other?
2023
Bandera, Texas
A dramedy about marriage, motherhood, and the women who came before us and paved our way. Liz, a native New Yorker, is forced to relocate to the Texas Hill Country for her husband’s job. She is visited by her long-dead grandmothers, who help her adapt to her new life and remind her that an uprooted woman can grow wherever she is replanted when she knows who she is and carries the people and places she loves inside her. |
Barbarians
Jasmine, her boyfriend Scott, and her best friend Marquise are 30-somethings doing their best to navigate ambition, romance, and the brutal aftermath of an environmental disaster. Relationships get murky, society collapses, and oh yeah, Scott joins a local white militia group, which is somewhat controversial back at home since Jasmine and Marquise are Black. Fast-forward a year, and the trio finds themselves in separate interrogations, trying to explain how one of them came to commit a terrible act of violence. As the two timelines unfold, bounce off each other, and slowly start to converge, Jasmine, Scott, and Marquise are forced to truly look at themselves in the harsh light of the apocalypse. |
Madame Quixota's Last Words
Hollywood movie star ALONSA, whose artistic name is “ELLA,” is trying to clean her image after a Twitter scandal implicating Johnny Depp by mistake. She is rehearsing a big-time musical Broadway production of “Romeo and Juliet” in “Woke version.” Greedy sponsors and producers are forcing actors to follow ridiculous, even unsafe stage directions. This play starts right after ELLA fell off Juliet’s balcony into a secret corridor which magically connects to a small, off-off-off Broadway theater where every past memory becomes true. ELLA meets SANCHA PANZA, aka SALLY, a struggling actor working as a janitor. Getting out of that place becomes ELLA’s adventure as MADAME QUIXOTA, accompanied by SANCHA PANZA. She needs to travel into her memories and stories with the love of her life, her saving knight DARYL (the equivalent of the female “Dulcinea”). DARYL disappointed her when they were lovers, before she became a movie star. She now needs his imaginary presence to remember who she was and why it is important for her to always tell the truth. |
Paralysis
Joy just got broken up with. They commiserate with their best friend, Lilly, and usually that would be enough, but not this time. This time, the breakup triggers a full-blown depressive episode, which goes deeper in pain than any breakup could. Joy, fearing rejection and disappointment, resolves themselves to staying in bed. Unfortunately, bed holds nightmares for Joy. Lilly tries to get Joy out of the bed, as Joy falls deeper into depression, has vivid nightmares, and is haunted by a sleep paralysis demon with the head of an angler fish. As reality fractures around Joy, and they succumb to hallucinations, they confront the Angler, free themselves from their paralysis, and leave their room, with the help of Lilly. Paralysis is about the difficulties of mental illness, the strength of friendship, and the importance of taking action when you feel that all is lost. |
Proxima Centauri
Like the continually expanding universe itself, there is something exquisitely random about the approach to storytelling here. With Proxima Centauri, playwright David Whiteman takes us “revolving, orbiting and rotating” through the discombobulated mind of respected astrophysics professor Frederick E. Delahunt. With his long-deceased father, Elwood, by his side, Dr. Delahunt journeys across time and space on simultaneous yet painfully divergent quests: rescuing his ailing mother, Amelia, from financial exploitation at the hands of an unscrupulous sibling, and motivating his students to save Planet Earth from the relentlessly destructive nature of mankind. This is at once an intimate and skillfully drawn family drama, paralleled by a take-no-prisoners commentary on critical issues of the day, such as climate change, globalization, capitalism and the rise of populism. Ultimately, in attempting to bridge the gap between science and faith, Proxima Centauri asks us to consider our true place in the universe, and our probable fate.
You Have to Promise
Seventeen-year-olds Maeve and Nessa have been best friends their entire lives. Three months ago, they discovered what they had was more than a friendship. When they decide to come out to their families together, Nessa's father kicks her out and the girls scramble to come up with a solution, all the while lying to Maeve's stepmother Rachael and trying to dream their way to being grown-up. |
Mimosa Wars
Two Manhattan couples find their brunch plans derailed when martial law is declared and the national guard occupies the city. As the months pass, a resistance movement splinters into a civil war among rival factions. The four characters have their own fractures as some commit themselves to fighting but others want to collaborate or just keep their heads down and survive. An absurdist dark comedy that explores the lengths people will go to just to hold onto a piece of Manhattan real estate. |
2022
Transition: The Christine JorGensen Collection
The Christine Jorgensen Collection examines the lives of three extraordinary transgender women and a gay man. Following her sex-change operation in Denmark in 1952, Christine Jorgensen became a worldwide celebrity and the first openly transsexual entertainer and public figure. Her story gave hope to thousands of other transsexual, transgender and gay people in a repressive era when sex and gender roles were strictly defined and medically enforced. |
Tender
Tender depicts an emotionally turbulent evening that might have occurred between Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda Fitzgerald. During the course of the evening, F. Scott placed in the position of making life changing choices that will effect his success as an artist as he is influenced by the obligation of his marriage versus the promise of personal and artistic freedom. |
The Higher Love
Two impressionable actors, Salim and Lucy, land the roles of a lifetime: poet Khalil Gibran and his patron, Mary Haskell. As rehearsals progress, the actors grapple with their unpredictable characters, the meaning of love, and the stage kiss to end all. Offstage, a tragedy strikes the play’s director, casting into doubt Gibran’s and Haskell’s lofty, if unrealized, ideals. From infatuation to heartache to conviction, each character is tested in his/her quest to seize the higher love. 
Breakfast With gandhi
At the dawn of our collective awareness of the Global Pandemic, VAL and BROOKE have enough on their plates only to discover that the Birth Mother of their adopted sons is being held at the southern border. With the help of an unlikely friend, they go about devising a plan to help rescue the woman. 
They, Them, Theirs
Set in a queer youth center, They, Them Theirs follows Faeris, a rebellious nonbinary teen. Artistic, sensitive and volatile, they butt heads with the center's coordinator Jess, pursue a romance with fellow teen Jordan, and struggle with the admiration and expectations placed on them by the younger Raven. |
Finding Fauci
It’s been over ten years since Covid came to America and Harlan Hodgson left his tiny apartment. But when Harlan's hateful chinchilla, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, vanishes – and twenty-something newlyweds Stephen and Sarah move in next door, the outside world like never before beckons – and Harlan hears. 
Belonging without strings
Sulking under a bundle of balloons, a woman sits on a bench. Out of the blue, another woman joins her. One of them claims to know the other, yet the feelings are not reciprocated. Through the tension of small talk, questioning and silence, many shocking truths unfold as they both try to figure out the purpose of this mysterious encounter. 
American Dreams
A mixed racial, working class family struggles to accept their transitioning son and brother. When he goes missing, the Armstrongs are torn by conflict. A mysterious envelope arrives during a snowy Christmas, unlocking secrets that send the family hurtling toward a bitter clash in which identity -- as well as life itself -- is at stake: can we be who we want to be? Can we love who we want to love? |
2021
Four Women in REd
A group of four Native American women, of different generations search for and mourn Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (#MMIW). They try to bring home the spirits of the women who have been killed. Red is the color that the spirits can see. This is currently being extended from a 10 minute play to 90 minutes by playwright Laura Shamas. 
Runtime Error
Tal is trying to get a competitive internship when he approaches his college advisor and mentor for an introduction to the company. The famous Professor Carson is all too willing to make the introduction but for a terrible price. While hiding his experiences from everyone in his life, Tal tries to figure out what he could have done differently. A play inspired by the #MeToo movement and the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, Runtime Error explores similar themes for men and how they cope or don’t.
Elana Gartner talks with Mark Redfield about playwriting, and her new 2021 play “Runtime Error”, and its first public reading with Transformation Theatre in May of 2021. Interview With Elana G 
You Were Mine
How much do we really know about our partners? In "You Were Mine," a dark romantic comedy (by award-winning playwright Rachel Lynett), Aisling and Noah attempt to plan a funeral for their mutual partner, sharing jokes, stories, and secrets as they try to navigate what it means to actually love someone for who they wholly are. Through their collective memories they also discover how joy can transcend trauma and how love can even transcend grief.
American Divide
JAN 12, 2021 at 7:00 pm EDT
Reading of American Divide by Maximilian GillDirector: Matt Ripa Location Zoom Webinar
Ten years from now, the nation’s political divisions have only heightened. A fascist, anti-immigrant government takes over the United States. Secession is the only option for states that want to retain values of inclusion and democracy. The east and west coasts of the United States break off and form their own republics. Civil war threatens. California closes its border to Nevada to cut off a flood of refugees. Tent cities fill up. A California police officer, a Nevada border control officer, a smuggler, and a desperate refugee meet in a bar in Las Vegas near the border between the present U.S. and a new nation. They want money, justice, or escape, but mostly they just want to survive in a world falling apart around them. |
Welcome to Hell, please choose from the following options
“Welcome to Hell,” the voice says. “Please choose from the following options: to speak to the person with whom you would least like to spend eternity, press 1 ...” She doesn’t know how she ended up in “Hell,” but it’s all too familiar, especially when She realizes that He is there. Shifting between absurd comedy and chilling drama, which spins a surreal tale of a couple in “Hell” waging an endless battle with language and emotions as their weapons…until one of them finds the courage to break the cycle. 
A round table Discussion: Male Sexual Assault
IF YOU OR A LOVED ONE HAS EXPEREINCED SEXUAL ASSAULT OR ABUSE CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW FOR RESOURCES THAT CAN HELP
YOU ARE NOT ALONE 
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2020
The Dragonflies
NOV 17, 2020 at 7:00 pm EDT Reading of DRAGONFLIES by Kayla Hambek Directed by Carl Randolph Location Zoom Webinar Registration Required Have you ever had someone in your life you simply couldn’t live without? The person who knows you better than anyone else, who would walk through fire for you, but who also takes great pleasure in telling you when you’ve messed up? For Dr. Juliet Britton, that person is Max, her best friend since college. Juliet has always prided herself on being the smart one in their relationship, but when she is hospitalized unexpectedly, she finally asks Max for help. Set in 2049 and told through a series of flashbacks, The Dragonflies explores how friendships change and evolve over the course of a lifetime, and the importance of finding that special person who makes life worth living. Meet The Playwright
Kayla Hambek is a Minnesota-based playwright and actor whose work has been published in The Coachella Review and the Santa Ana River Review, and seen onstage in Minneapolis, MN at the Wellstone Center, Sabes JCC, Eden Prairie Players, and as part of the Minnesota Fringe Festival; in Buckingham, PA with the Town and Country Players; and at the University of Portland (OR) as part of the HAHA Festival. Her work explores familial and other vital, non-romantic relationships through a feminist, asexual lens; plays include butterfly(n.),The Dragonflies, Persuasion, Emma Abridged, Splinter, Sprinkles, and the upcoming Miss Woodhouse Presents. Kayla is the co-founder and Managing Director of Aethem Theatre, and has an MFA in Playwriting from Augsburg University in Minneapolis, MN. |
Disruptions of the Body Saros
September 12, 2020 at 2pm EDT
Virtual Reading of DISRUPTIONS OF THE BODY SAROS by Pharyne Stephney Gremore Directed by Fatima Quander Virtual Reading via Zoom Webinar A high school senior, Jade, experiences a “crisis of science” when an eclipse doesn’t occur as scheduled. Her persuasive science teacher tells her not to read into it, but as signs of death and ruin begin to appear around her, Jade fears for the safety of her twin brother, Kai, who almost lost his life during an eclipse eighteen years earlier. In a story told out of sequence, Kai tries to make sense of his place within a love triangle while Jade tries to make sense of her place within a collapsing universe. MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT
Pharyne Stephney Gremore is a proud Hoosier from Indianapolis, Indiana. In 2014, she earned a BA in Drama with a Minor in Writing from Franciscan University of Steubenville. Her play-writing debut, Theatre Games, was produced by Voice Found Repertory in 2017. Other writing credits include Built of Ivory, which was the Grand Prize Winner of Fleeing Artists Theatre's Plays of Tomorrow series. She currently resides in Bloomington, IN with her family.
MEET THE DIRECTOR
Fatima Quander (AEA/SAG-AFTRA) is excited to return to Transformation Theatre after performing in readings of These Arms of Mine and Last Catastrophist. Other credits include: directing The Burn by Philip Dawkins at Howard Community College and performing with FRESHH Inc. Theatre Company, DC Hip Hop Theatre Festival, Rep Stage, Everyman Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage Education, Theater of the First Amendment, Folger Elizabethan Theatre, Imagination Stage, and Discovery Theater; she has also performed in house and on tour with The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Fatima is a Senior Adjunct Instructor at Howard Community College and works as a teaching artist with a number of programs throughout the DC area including Everyman Theatre, Poetry Out Loud, Folger Shakespeare Library’s McKee Fellows and Secondary School Shakespeare Festival, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, Sitar Arts Center, Jr. Discovery at Georgetown University, and Young Playwrights’ Theater. A native Washingtonian, she received her MFA from Actors Studio Drama School in NYC and her BA from Beloit College in Wisconsin. |
A Round Table Discussion: BLM/Bipoc and the Theatre; How do we move forward?
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Chai
June 20, 2020 @ 2:00 pm EST
Reading of CHAI by DC Cathro Directed by Brian MacDonald Location Go To Webinar “Chai” is an African American teen who hates his real name, so his girlfriend raises the money for him to legally change it. Chai's mother, however, is completely opposed to the idea. |
2019
The Last Catastrophist
Marina, one of the last two climatologists on earth, has hidden herself on the coast of Iceland to escape increasing threats from Eternal Sunshine, a shadowy cabal harassing climate scientists into silence. When Lucia, her one remaining peer, shows up unannounced, a cat-and-mouse game ensues. Are they allies? Enemies? Who works for whom? Last Catastrophist draws on climate science and real-life events to imagine life on the brink of extinction. (SEP 2019)
