Amy Tofte

Amy Tofte

Amy Tofte won the 2015 Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her play Righteous Among Us won the 2020 Todd McNerney Playwriting Award. Recent productions include the short opera The Course We Set (Boston Opera Collaborative) and her plays Cardboard Castles Hung on Walls (Wild Imaginings in Waco, TX) and Parts & Pieces (Larking House in Santa Ana, CA). Her...
Amy Tofte won the 2015 Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her play Righteous Among Us won the 2020 Todd McNerney Playwriting Award. Recent productions include the short opera The Course We Set (Boston Opera Collaborative) and her plays Cardboard Castles Hung on Walls (Wild Imaginings in Waco, TX) and Parts & Pieces (Larking House in Santa Ana, CA). Her short The Vagina Read was at the 2022 Samuel French Off Off Broadway Play Festival at Playwrights Horizons in NYC. She has been in residence at the Autry Museum of the American West, Brush Creek, Monson Arts, The Kennedy Center and Yaddo with work produced and developed throughout the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and twice at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild. MFA, CalArts. She was raised on a farm and lived her best summers on a tractor or selling sweet corn from the back of a pick-up.

Plays

  • The Vagina Read
    A special writer's room in Hollywood attempts to fix the work of a male writer.
  • Da Vinci's Cockroach
    A scientist seeks understanding in an art gallery but doesn't find it.
  • Cardboard Castles Hung on Walls
    A socially-conscious Artist uses their latest exhibit to publicly skewer a popular liberal Politician regarding the city's housing crisis. The Politician shows up hoping to thwart the opening of the exhibit that might lead to wider political fallout. While the Artist and Politician come to a tentative resolution, they fail to notice the human witnessing their entire debate (and at times helping them re-...
    A socially-conscious Artist uses their latest exhibit to publicly skewer a popular liberal Politician regarding the city's housing crisis. The Politician shows up hoping to thwart the opening of the exhibit that might lead to wider political fallout. While the Artist and Politician come to a tentative resolution, they fail to notice the human witnessing their entire debate (and at times helping them re-live pieces of their history) who isn't helped by any of it. And when they finally see their fellow human, they fearfully kick them out because...how dare they?
  • Relentless Pursuit of a Lady
    A female American journalist is held captive in a foreign country after interviewing local women who are victims of rape. During her interrogation by a male captor, she re-tells the American news story that triggered her ambition to understand sexual assault around the world. The news story unfolds in between interrogation sessions as a play within the play: Jo, a vigilante cop, murders an alleged child...
    A female American journalist is held captive in a foreign country after interviewing local women who are victims of rape. During her interrogation by a male captor, she re-tells the American news story that triggered her ambition to understand sexual assault around the world. The news story unfolds in between interrogation sessions as a play within the play: Jo, a vigilante cop, murders an alleged child molester only to find the molester’s step-daughter (and alleged victim) wants to now live with her since she has no where else to go that’s safe. As the interrogation intensifies, the journalist dives deeper into the fantasy world of the news story and learns how she might finally escape her abuser. In the end, she reaches to the audience for help.

    This play explores how rape culture permeates the female psyche and the tools women of all ages use every day to cope with the specter of sexual assault. It’s also funny. Because what better tool than humor to understand the absurdity of how women are still assaulted in all corners of the globe by all types of cultures and by all kinds of men.
  • Helen & Troy
    A re-telling of the Helen of Troy legend from the point-of-view of a “plain Jane” Helen and her beautiful best friend, Sena. Sena is mistaken as the royal Helen and seduced away by Paris, starting the Trojan War. Sena gets a taste of being worshipped and doesn’t want to let it go. Helen uses the opportunity to flee the war (and her overbearing title) to find happiness on her own. But Sena hunts Helen down to...
    A re-telling of the Helen of Troy legend from the point-of-view of a “plain Jane” Helen and her beautiful best friend, Sena. Sena is mistaken as the royal Helen and seduced away by Paris, starting the Trojan War. Sena gets a taste of being worshipped and doesn’t want to let it go. Helen uses the opportunity to flee the war (and her overbearing title) to find happiness on her own. But Sena hunts Helen down to make sure her legacy as Helen of Troy will live forever and the women engage in a battle of swords to the death. Helen kills Sena but lets her keep the title of Helen of Troy and be remembered as the most beautiful woman in the world.
  • Righteous Among Us
    A researcher at a civil rights museum collects oral histories from the ancestors of those who saved Jews during the Holocaust. She also collects the stories of those who were saved. But when she uncovers that one hero family’s legend is a lie, she must not only break the news to all involved and shatter the myth but also come to terms with her own need to find heroes and good intentions among regular people.
  • Parts & Pieces
    An adopted sibling transitioning to gender neutral confronts an angry little sister holding their inheritance hostage. Their meeting is negotiated by a professional chameleon who not only knew their mother...but helps fill in some missing pieces of their rocky relationship in real time. And a little bit about boobs.
  • Women of 4G
    Seventy-five years in the future, an all-female crew and their male captain depart on what appears to be a routine mission to Mars ... until the captain is murdered and the real mission comes to light. 4G examines relationships between women under extreme duress. Part murder mystery, part space thriller, 4G's science fiction world asks questions about power, leadership, responsibility, and ultimately, sacrifice.
  • The Count Goes Down
    Melayne has a secret. At first that secret seems to be hiding her son, Billy, from his obsessive ex-girlfriend, Bethany. In fact, Melayne has helped Billy fake his own death to escape Bethany’s persistent searching for him. But when Bethany shows up at Melayne’s house, mourning Billy’s death and refusing to leave…Melayne is forced to take things a step further and Bethany is soon tied up and held against her...
    Melayne has a secret. At first that secret seems to be hiding her son, Billy, from his obsessive ex-girlfriend, Bethany. In fact, Melayne has helped Billy fake his own death to escape Bethany’s persistent searching for him. But when Bethany shows up at Melayne’s house, mourning Billy’s death and refusing to leave…Melayne is forced to take things a step further and Bethany is soon tied up and held against her will. As Melayne plans an escape that will take Billy away with her forever, her lover Charles shows up and complicates matters—especially when Bethany and Charles discover the ongoing sexual relationship between Melayne and Billy. Charles intervenes hoping to help Melayne psychologically while giving Bethany and Billy the means to escape to a healthier life. But Melayne is unable to let Billy go and kills him before anyone else can help him. A modern take on Medea and the complicated forces of obsession.
  • FLOOZY
    Vee works hard to be a nice girl. She currently lives with her best friend and free-spirit, Bista, after walking out on her cheating boyfriend. Kevion, Bista’s over-sexed and food-obsessed lover, is a constant fixture in Bista’s apartment and eventually makes his move on the uptight Vee. As Vee careens toward developing real feelings for Kevion—based on one night of really outstanding, badly needed sex—she...
    Vee works hard to be a nice girl. She currently lives with her best friend and free-spirit, Bista, after walking out on her cheating boyfriend. Kevion, Bista’s over-sexed and food-obsessed lover, is a constant fixture in Bista’s apartment and eventually makes his move on the uptight Vee. As Vee careens toward developing real feelings for Kevion—based on one night of really outstanding, badly needed sex—she learns of Bista’s involvement with yet another man, an older and rather dangerous man named Bard.

    Bista, pregnant with Bard’s baby, learns of Kevion’s tryst with Vee and convinces Kevion the baby is his, re-staking her claim on Kevion’s affection. Unfortunately, Bard has his own concerns about Bista having his baby and returns to kill her, making it appear as a botched, self-inflicted abortion. When Bard returns to the scene of the crime to retrieve an over-looked piece of evidence, Kevion stumbles upon the murderer and is also killed. As Vee attempts to reconcile her roller coaster of love, sex and betrayal…she eventually goes insane.

    Stylistically, the play starts as a broad farce (it could even have a TV laugh track) then shifts into a bloody, slasher-B-movie complete with blood and the walking dead who terrorize Vee and push her over the edge. The play investigates the relationship between humor and fear using suspense, dramatic irony and sexuality.
  • The Scrambling Class
    Set in the summertime woods of Northern California. Seven friends in their late 20s/early 30s meet up for an annual camping trip to help their emotionally disturbed friend from high school. But when she wants them to admit accountability for her dysfunction…they kill her and bury the body so they can move on with their busy lives. A play about narcissism, empathy and what it means to become an adult in the age of social media.
  • FleshEatingTiger
    Vicious dark humor chronicles an affair under the influence. The Man struggles with sobriety; The Woman is dependent on his affection. Scenes unravel between realism and absurdism, and the line between acting in the play and reality is relentlessly blurred, just as addiction blurs a healthy relationship. From The Scotsman's review at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival: “Tofte utilizes poignant monologues...
    Vicious dark humor chronicles an affair under the influence. The Man struggles with sobriety; The Woman is dependent on his affection. Scenes unravel between realism and absurdism, and the line between acting in the play and reality is relentlessly blurred, just as addiction blurs a healthy relationship. From The Scotsman's review at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival: “Tofte utilizes poignant monologues to contrast comedic double acts, helping to create tenderly strong characters who drag the audience into the disorder.”
  • Little Egypt
    A fortune hunter (OANA) and her body guard (FLINT) uncover the final resting place of the Holy Grail hidden in a small town in Middle America. But as they attempt to extract the Grail from the four fierce women charged to protect it, the two outsiders uncover the fundamental ideals that divide them. FLINT eventually challenges OANA's claim on the Grail and ends up somewhere she never expected she'd be...
    A fortune hunter (OANA) and her body guard (FLINT) uncover the final resting place of the Holy Grail hidden in a small town in Middle America. But as they attempt to extract the Grail from the four fierce women charged to protect it, the two outsiders uncover the fundamental ideals that divide them. FLINT eventually challenges OANA's claim on the Grail and ends up somewhere she never expected she'd be...committing to life as a person of faith.
  • Farm Noir
    A young girl (ANNA) from a South Dakota farm is on the cusp of womanhood. But when she disrupts the vindictive LAND and denies herself as a human sacrifice, the LAND curses ANNA, forcing her to live with two versions of her family at the same time: one in the conservative and depressed 1930s and another in the cynical and depressed 1980s. As the two families discover each other’s existence on the property, they...
    A young girl (ANNA) from a South Dakota farm is on the cusp of womanhood. But when she disrupts the vindictive LAND and denies herself as a human sacrifice, the LAND curses ANNA, forcing her to live with two versions of her family at the same time: one in the conservative and depressed 1930s and another in the cynical and depressed 1980s. As the two families discover each other’s existence on the property, they are forced to interact and determine who lays claim to the land. ANNA make several attempts to appease the LAND, undo the curse and set things right, but it’s only when she severs all ties to the sentimental and nostalgic past that she is finally set free.