Plays

This raw, emotionally charged drama exposes the hidden battles fought by female police officers, not just on the street enforcing the law, but within their own ranks. Set within the confines of a law office pre-trial deposition, the play follows six diverse female police officers as they navigate duty and the crushing weight of a system that often fails to protect them. Through six separate monologues, comprising flashback scenes and moments of testimony, the women share deeply personal accounts of harassment, betrayal, resilience, and survival. Their stories—drawn from real-world reports and testimonies—highlight the systemic culture of silence and retaliation that discourages reporting and enables abuse. Each woman grapples with the tension between loyalty to the police culture they are a part of and loyalty to themselves, wrestling with guilt, shame, fear, and the longing to be believed. This is not just a story of victimization, it’s a story of defiance and standing up for one’s rights. As the women begin to tell their stories, they reclaim their voices and confront their supervisors, pushing back against the bureaucracy that protects perpetrators and silences survivors.

Four female family members gather in the kitchen of a shared multi-family home in the Bronx on a hot August Sunday evening in 1980. Banal discussions about the weather and earlier dinner preparations soon turn into an examination of the lifestyle and marriage prospects of a fifth female family member who is no longer present and has returned to her Manhattan apartment. There is disagreement among the women as to what is best for her as she approaches her 30s. What ensues is an examination of faith, morality, women’s roles in the family, the decisions they make, and a nagging secret one of them holds.

Lana, an attractive femme fatale, has a problem. There is a dead man in her hotel suite bedroom, and she needs the assistance of a shady private investigator, Morrissey, to sort out the situation for her. Complicating Lana’s predicament is the fact that Morrissey was employed by her wealthy husband to keep watch over her, and earlier in the evening, when Morrissey discovered Lana’s extramarital relationship with Chipper, the deceased, Morrissey attempted to blackmail her. But nothing is as it seems and only through an altered adult version of a children’s card game is the truth and the resolution of Lana’s problem revealed.

After years of bouncing between therapists, Eddie begins a session with a new therapist, Arlene, who is the first woman therapist he has sat down with to discuss his issues. During the session he is gradually prompted to confront the impact past events have had on his life. Despite his hardened veneer, Eddie returns to moments when he was a boy that have followed him into adulthood. Through the subtle inquiries and prompts of Arlene, Eddie is brought to a moment of recognition wherein the memories he has held onto are revealed to be more damaging than he realized.

What happens when the house of Nancy’s dreams comes onto the market at an incredible price, but her husband James does not want to move from their smaller, constantly in need of repair home? Nancy, a mother of two older children from her 25-year marriage to James, soon discovers it becomes a means for them to repair the cracks in the foundation of their relationship, but not before some quirky but sage intervention from Barbara, the realtor showing them the house. Secrets are revealed, past addictions confronted, and the distance between a married couple is examined as the biggest threat to the sound construction of a “home”—neglect—is analyzed.

Two busy working parents are called into their eight-year-old son’s school for a meeting with the principal without being told the reason. While the husband expresses initial concern over the meeting’s purpose, the wife has a calmer wait-and-see approach. The husband eventually comes to realize their son Alex is likely being moved up a grade or receiving an award. However, their subsequent meeting with the school principal quickly devolves into a tense exchange in which they and the principal disagree over the content and meaning of a picture their son drew in class. Their clash leads to harsh words, abrupt action, and an unexpected outcome. Who is right?

A young man, innocent of a crime for which he has been incarcerated for nearly a year, finds that his innocence and the concept of justice are seemingly irreconcilable concepts within the machinery of the criminal justice system. Caught between a judge who does not want to hear his story, a prosecutor concerned only with ensuring the state has someone to hold responsible, and a defense attorney who is deferential to the system, the accused must fight for his freedom. But that freedom is contingent upon the prosecution finding someone else to blame for the crime.

The play centers on a young married couple and begins one morning with the wife viewing a cardinal outside her kitchen window. She believes the cardinal is a sign of her recently deceased aunt returning to pay her a visit. This begins a verbal tug-of-war between the wife and her husband centering on faith versus reason. The dialogue between the two characters initially seems to place the husband, an attorney, at an unfair advantage over his wife. However, the wife, not to be underestimated, quickly turns the match into her own cross-examination of the husband regarding their relationship and how he would define their love for each other. At the end of the play, it is the wife who, in her own playful way, has placed her husband’s structured, rational views into question.

A young man, Alston, is attending a wedding solo and sitting out the cocktail hour at his assigned reception table when he meets fellow wedding attendees Pamela and Dean Kendall. The normal social awkwardness one may experience when meeting strangers is exacerbated by the couple’s garrulous nature, especially that of the wife Pam. What ensues is a frustrating encounter wherein Alston is practically verbally restrained among the barrage of words emanating from Pam. It is not until Alston eventually seizes control of the conversation and attempts to provide the Kendalls with an object lesson on boorish behavior that they recognize where the problem lies in their encounter with him. This results in confirmation of what the Kendalls have always known about each other.

What should be a pleasant afternoon luncheon for three female friends begins in a not so pleasant manner when one of them, upon arriving, details an earlier incident she had with a rude man in a local bakery store. What’s worse than the fact the male customer cut the line and ordered ahead of her, which she brought to his attention, is that before leaving the bakery he directed toward her the dismissive pejorative of “Karen.” She relates to her two friends her frustration in not having an equally cutting comeback for the man as he exited. The women begin to discuss the possibility of an adequate “name” by which to label the male version of a “Karen” only to find it’s not as easy as they thought it would be and may already be taken in a way that further frustrates their efforts.