BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!)

by Jami Brandli

Nominated for best Playwriting for an Original Play; Los Angeles Ovation Awards.
In 2018, BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) received a joint-world premiere with Moxie Theatre (San Diego) and Promethean Theatre (Chicago), ending with Moving Arts’ production at Atwater Village Theatre in Los Angeles (LA Times Critic’s Choice and Ovation Recommended).
Winner of The Great Plains Theatre Conference's Holland New...

Nominated for best Playwriting for an Original Play; Los Angeles Ovation Awards.
In 2018, BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) received a joint-world premiere with Moxie Theatre (San Diego) and Promethean Theatre (Chicago), ending with Moving Arts’ production at Atwater Village Theatre in Los Angeles (LA Times Critic’s Choice and Ovation Recommended).
Winner of The Great Plains Theatre Conference's Holland New Voices Award. Named on The Kilroys' THE LIST of the 46 most recommended plays written by female playwrights. Finalist for O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and The Source Festival. Selected readings at The Antaeus Company in Los Angeles, HERE Arts Center in NYC, The Hearth Collective hosted by Portland Center Stage, and a Workshop Presentation with Moving Arts in Los Angeles.

It's 1960 in North Orange, NJ. Clytemnestra and Medea are now housewives with a pill addiction, and Antigone is the teenage girl next door who is in love with a black boy. On the surface, they're seemingly blissful to follow the "rules” of Emily Post, the American author famous for writing on etiquette. But that's just the surface. Then Cassandra, a black working girl, moves into their neighborhood and all routines are interrupted. Cassandra is determined to finally break the curse of Apollo, the gorgeous and egotistical god who gave her this “gift” of prophecy but made it so no one would ever believe her. He makes it clear his curse is practically indestructible: all she has to do is convince someone to believe her. Can Cassandra convince these women they now have choices in this modern era? That they don't have to live a doomed existence? Can all four women escape their ongoing fate?

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BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!)

Recommended by

  • Shaun Leisher: BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!)

    Such a unique take on classic tales. Fantastic roles for women.

    Such a unique take on classic tales. Fantastic roles for women.

  • Cheryl Bear: BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!)

    A brilliant re-imagining of this classic cast of characters and the lives they will live in the modern era. Fascinating and well done!

    A brilliant re-imagining of this classic cast of characters and the lives they will live in the modern era. Fascinating and well done!

  • Nick Malakhow: BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!)

    What an awesomely vivid, original, and compelling theatrical universe Brandli has created here! BLISS' roots in and subversion of mythic archetypes of women are brilliantly executed. I appreciated how the original stories take on new resonance in this adaptation, and the ideas explored don't feel shoehorned to fit their mythological counterparts. Each of these women is complex and propelled by anger, sadness, and frustrations that you can't help but sympathize with. The stage pictures described are super theatrical in the ways they combine bold design ideas, movement, and song. I'd love to see...

    What an awesomely vivid, original, and compelling theatrical universe Brandli has created here! BLISS' roots in and subversion of mythic archetypes of women are brilliantly executed. I appreciated how the original stories take on new resonance in this adaptation, and the ideas explored don't feel shoehorned to fit their mythological counterparts. Each of these women is complex and propelled by anger, sadness, and frustrations that you can't help but sympathize with. The stage pictures described are super theatrical in the ways they combine bold design ideas, movement, and song. I'd love to see this in production!

View all 13 recommendations

Production History

  • Type Professional, Organization Defunkt Theatre, Year 2020
  • Type Professional, Organization Moving Arts, Year 2018
  • Type Professional, Organization MOXIE Theatre, Year 2018
  • Type Professional, Organization Promethean Theater, Year 2018