Steve Moulds

Steve Moulds

Steve Moulds has been a Jerome Fellow at The Playwrights’ Center, an NNPN Playwright in Residence at Curious Theatre Company, a Fred Coe Playwright in Residence at Vanderbilt University, a Michener Center Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, and an Al Smith Fellow through the Kentucky Arts Council. On an ongoing basis, he is a Playwright in Residence at Theatre [502] in Louisville, Kentucky. His plays...
Steve Moulds has been a Jerome Fellow at The Playwrights’ Center, an NNPN Playwright in Residence at Curious Theatre Company, a Fred Coe Playwright in Residence at Vanderbilt University, a Michener Center Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, and an Al Smith Fellow through the Kentucky Arts Council. On an ongoing basis, he is a Playwright in Residence at Theatre [502] in Louisville, Kentucky. His plays include The Body; Conflict House; Emergency Prom; the Humana Festival anthology Oh, Gastronomy!; The Wedding Guest, commissioned by Actors Theatre of Louisville; an adaptation of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author commissioned by The Hypocrites; and the adaptation Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

He has also co-written three plays with his spouse and colleague, Diana Grisanti: The Two Lobbyists of Verona, the first world premiere in the history of Kentucky Shakespeare; The Stranger and Ludlow Quinn, a serialized epic in 11 parts; and The Baker Goes to War, a socialist play for children.

Steve's plays have been developed by The Playwrights’ Center, The Inkwell, Performance Network Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, and the Lark. Three of his plays (Emergency Prom, Six Characters, and Oh, Gastronomy!) are published by Playscripts, and shorter work has been published in collections by Samuel French and Smith and Kraus.

Plays

  • The Body
    While mom is away, Joe is determined to be the best dad ever for his stepdaughter Abby. But a giant crate appears on their doorstep, and Abby and Joe work to decipher its mysterious contents – a doll with no face, and an instruction manual with no words. The deeper they delve into this package, the more it threatens their family’s tenuous emotional equilibrium. Was this doll sent to strengthen their...
    While mom is away, Joe is determined to be the best dad ever for his stepdaughter Abby. But a giant crate appears on their doorstep, and Abby and Joe work to decipher its mysterious contents – a doll with no face, and an instruction manual with no words. The deeper they delve into this package, the more it threatens their family’s tenuous emotional equilibrium. Was this doll sent to strengthen their relationship? Or is it a harbinger of a more disturbing truth? Part domestic drama, part surreal thriller, The Body lives in that space between reality and dreams, where the things that haunt us most come from within.
  • Sergio's Museum
    While the Mexican Revolution transforms the country, Sergio de la Plata spends his days in a quiet mountain town, poised to inherit a massive art collection when he turns eighteen. But when his parents die in a horrific accident, Sergio is suddenly alone in the world. Enter Ana, Sergio's radical governess, who's determined to cure her young charge of his class bias. Can these two orphans solve the...
    While the Mexican Revolution transforms the country, Sergio de la Plata spends his days in a quiet mountain town, poised to inherit a massive art collection when he turns eighteen. But when his parents die in a horrific accident, Sergio is suddenly alone in the world. Enter Ana, Sergio's radical governess, who's determined to cure her young charge of his class bias. Can these two orphans solve the mystery behind the museum's most valuable acquisition?
  • Conflict House
    After two years in isolation, the last five residents of a reality-show house face a crossroads after Alan, the de facto leader, dies unexpectedly. No one has come to collect the body; in fact, no one has contacted them at all, and the vending machine that provides all their food is suddenly empty. Was Alan's death truly an accident? Have our contestants wasted the last two years, fooled into believing in...
    After two years in isolation, the last five residents of a reality-show house face a crossroads after Alan, the de facto leader, dies unexpectedly. No one has come to collect the body; in fact, no one has contacted them at all, and the vending machine that provides all their food is suddenly empty. Was Alan's death truly an accident? Have our contestants wasted the last two years, fooled into believing in a competition that never existed? Or is this entire play one sinister plot to undermine what the characters (and the audience) have come to assume? Conflict House explores the human tendency to make stories out of almost any piece of information – a tendency, it turns out, that can be exploited with ease.
  • The Two Lobbyists of Verona (cowritten with Diana Grisanti)
    Welcome to fair Verona, where we lay our scene—Verona, Kentucky, that is. This small Rust Belt town has just been wrecked by a massive storm (a tempest, actually). The storm’s silver lining? Undiscovered oil and gas deposits buried deep within the shale. While lobbyists promise unprecedented prosperity in exchange for some “light fracking,” County Council President Katie Connelly fights to spare her town...
    Welcome to fair Verona, where we lay our scene—Verona, Kentucky, that is. This small Rust Belt town has just been wrecked by a massive storm (a tempest, actually). The storm’s silver lining? Undiscovered oil and gas deposits buried deep within the shale. While lobbyists promise unprecedented prosperity in exchange for some “light fracking,” County Council President Katie Connelly fights to spare her town further destruction with her own plan to jumpstart the local economy: The World of Will, a one-stop shop for all things Shakespeare. Will Verona, Kentucky become the next Stratford-upon-Avon? Or will theatrical invention fall before the mighty power of big oil? The Two Lobbyists of Verona is a comedy about loyalty and betrayal, ambition and defeat. There’s also some iambic pentameter in there, with respect to the Bard.
  • The Wedding Guest
    Honey and Babe are getting married. The people they love are here. They have an abandoned space where they can party all night. They don’t even have to take off work tomorrow. It’s not fancy, but it's nice. And if Honey happens to have invited her distant cousin to the wedding—the cousin no one’s seen in years, whose net worth is many hundreds of millions; who inspires everyone to reconsider, with...
    Honey and Babe are getting married. The people they love are here. They have an abandoned space where they can party all night. They don’t even have to take off work tomorrow. It’s not fancy, but it's nice. And if Honey happens to have invited her distant cousin to the wedding—the cousin no one’s seen in years, whose net worth is many hundreds of millions; who inspires everyone to reconsider, with existential dread, every choice they’ve ever made—well, at least he won’t come. Unless he does.