Valerie Work

Tapestries is a new full-length roughly 85-minute intermission-free musical about two NYC-based songwriters, Alaina and Emmett, who strive to launch a new musical theater project, an adaptation of The Unicorn Tapestries, while navigating the ups and downs of the second year of the pandemic, September 2021-spring 2022. Their progress, and their partnership, is tested by a fiendishly involved four-round program application, even as the Omicron wave worsens, their personal problems multiply, and artistic opportunities vanish. In 1495, their lead characters and doppelgangers, tapestry makers Alice and Edward, pursue the unicorn through an unnatural forest, dodging bro-like hunters and eerie forest creatures. In the end, both pairs unexpectedly find a version of what they seek, a renewed commitment to their creative work and a joint path forward through a dark time. We are currently seeking concert reading, workshop, and other developmental opportunities for this project.

The Scars of Your Body is a full-length musical with book and lyrics by Valerie Work and music by Evan Johnson. In a dystopian future in which humans have fled Earth’s damaged environment to colonize Alpha Centauri, an optimistic, if impoverished young Boy lands a coveted Sideshow Boy job at a touring show managed by the native Alanark race. In the course of his duties, he dares to fall in love with the Abundantly Scarred Woman, but the demanding Alanark Barker barely allows the Boy time to catch his breath, much less spend time with his love. The Boy and Woman hatch a risky plan to escape his watchful eye - and their binding contracts.

This project is currently an advanced draft that we are seeking to develop through concert readings, workshops and similar opportunities. Inquiries related to readings, workshop productions and other developmental showings are highly welcome. Demos of several representative songs are available through the links provided. A complete set of demos and the score are available on request.

"Is This Who We Are, as Beavers?" is a 20-minute musical with book by Holly Hepp-Galvan, lyrics by Valerie Work and music by John Coyne. It was developed as part of the 2022 New York Library for Performing Arts Across a Crowded Room program and is now available for productions, concert readings, and other opportunities.

In politically divided, fictional Beavertown, PA, most citizens hotly anticipate the upcoming school board meeting vote on whether or not to ban Romeo & Juliet from the high school English curriculum, but recent transplant liberal Roberto is more concerned about whether and how to confess his romantic feelings for conservative fellow single parent Jennifer. The conservative Vice Principal Stetson is angling to steal the principal’s job, while liberal English teacher Rita is determined to block him at all costs. Mascot Mark just wants everyone to get along. Tempers run high and mayhem ensues in this comic adaptation of Romeo & Juliet.

Key songs are included with links below. A full set of demos and the score are available on request.

"ABCD" is a music-forward, fully underscored twenty-minute musical with book and lyrics by Valerie Work and music by Micah Dombrower. Feuding startup cofounders Mina and Ellen disagree about next steps regarding their new college admissions test prep app. When Mina sends it to their teen daughters Wendy and Layne, the girls begin to speak exclusively in the form of multiple choice questions. Horrified, the women race to save their daughters from its influence.

"ABCD" is available for concert readings, productions and other opportunities. The libretto and selected song demos are posted here. For a full set of demos and the score, please contact me directly.

The Test, an 80-minute full-length play of equal appeal to teens, their parents and other adult audiences, charts the journey of a standardized test that yearns to become a play. The Keepers of the Gate assign The Test a “final exam” of her own: with the human world at her disposal, she must create, Option A, a standardized test that is also a play, or, Option B, a play that is also a standardized test. The Test uses disaffected 12-year-old Rat to gain access to a household that also includes her 16-year-old sister Sam, who is struggling to prepare for the SAT; her mother Morgan, a single mom who feels much more successful as a CEO than a parent; housekeeper Josefa, who is trying to determine her path in the wake of her mother’s death; and tutor Angela, a 22-year-old who desperately needs to hack post-college life. After Sam and Morgan have a major fight resulting from a disappointing practice test result, Sam disappears. The Test has taken her to a remote, haunted region of the Catskill Mountains. Morgan, Josefa, Angela and Rat must each complete a personalized standardized test in order to reconnect with Sam and move forward with her personal life challenge. The Test anxiously administers and manipulates each woman’s “exam,” determined to become a real play at last.

Bad Roommate, an intermissionless 80-minute full-length play, explores the life cycle of a new roommate relationship, from the sublet viewing until the moment when the status quo of mutual toleration is established. There are two main characters, both female, Dara (early-mid-20s) and Charon (early-mid-30s), and a Mouse (male actor) who takes up residence mid-play. Bad Roommate opens with Charon showing the apartment to Dara, a candidate she has found on Craigslist to replace the current resident of the second bedroom of her two-bedroom Brooklyn apartment. Dara moves in and learns the secrets of the apartment. Various scenes of roommate bonding and minor squabbles ensue. Eventually the Mouse appears, and the focus shifts to how to get rid of it and cope with its presence in the meantime. In a climactic scene, Charon squashes the mouse by accident and the women dispose of the body. Thematically, the story serves as a framework to explore the spatial components of self-definition, memory and intimacy.

The Party Play, a 90-minute intermissionless full-length play, concerns two twentysomething roommates who hold a party to bid farewell to each other and their apartment in Brooklyn. The year has been kind to Paul, who is moving into his own place, and less so to Carl, who is moving back in with his parents upstate. Drawing influence from Mrs. Dalloway and Ecclesiastes, the play explores the impact the recession has had on attitudes, ambitions and relationships in a series of snapshot-like scenes flowing in reverse chronological order over the course of a single evening. The form gives shape to the disorientation the characters experience upon having their lives upended by outside forces.

A Week at the NJ Shore, an 80-minute intermissionless full-length play, plots the adventures of five twentysomething friends from New York City who embark on a weeklong beach vacation. When it rains, tempers fray, and a series of strange events transpires, involving a monster sofa, invading figurines and a giant crab. The group’s reactions to the expected and unexpected ultimately accumulate into an offbeat, minimalist portrait of group behavior and postadolescent life.

The Fighting Frogs vs. Victoria Vanderbilt is an intermissionless, approximately 80-minute full-length play written for 14-16 performers, most or all of whom are middle school-aged. Stuck on a Freshman English assignment to write a story about his first love, nineteen-year-old College Sam returns to his former Slumberburg Middle School for inspiration. With an assist from the old Fighting Frog mascot, College Sam reconstructs the final months of his eighth grade year. New arrival Victoria threatens not only his soon-to-graduate class's established routines but also Sam's best friend, Wally, who is still mourning the sudden death of her father and negotiating her mother's subsequent remarriage. Distracted by her husband's illness, checked-out teacher Ms. Plimplebottom ignores problematic dynamics developing in her classroom and places Victoria in charge of the class's end-of-eighth-grade play, "Cinderella." Conflict between Wally and Victoria escalates, forcing the other students, including 14-year-old Sam, to choose sides, and culminates in a tragically cruel ending to the opening night performance that still haunts Sam nearly five years later.

“The Collected Rules of Gifted Camp” is an approximately 50-minute darkly comic play, well-suited to Fringe festivals and one-act play nights. The characters are ages 15-21, making it a strong choice for high schools and colleges, although it is edgy enough to appeal to older theater-goers and presentational enough to be readily performed by actors in their 20s. Leila and Annie, age 15, arrive at a selective summer program for academically gifted students, determined to pursue their respective camp goals (among them “to fall in love!” and “immortality!” respectively). Meanwhile their counselor, Rose, has spent seven summers at this program, and struggles to figure out what else she can do with her life after her rapidly-approaching senior year of college. Leila acquires a camp boyfriend, Kevin, enraging her roommate Annie. The frenemies dodge flying peppermints, deformed Noxema jars, aggressive squirrels, and the ever-present threat of swine flu – until Kevin initiates an ultimately fatal communication fail at the Saturday night costume dance. Not your guidance counselor’s teen suicide play, “The Collected Rules of Gifted Camp” merges a clear narrative with an anthology structure that derives influence from the official camp rulebook.

"Flat Thing" is a roughly 45-minute adaptation of Mark Twain's short story "A Fable" intended particularly for 3-8-year-old children, but enjoyable for all ages. An elderly Mark Twain is near despair with writer's block. He falls asleep. His house Cat discovers a mirror that he has left uncovered, is amazed to see her reflection, and travels along a path to a clubhouse in the woods, where she reports on the "flat thing" to her friends Donkey, Snake and Ostrich. Snake and Ostrich are intrigued, but Donkey does not believe it could be real. He goes to investigate for himself, and sees a donkey in the mirror. On his return, the Elephant King arrives, and insists that first Snake and then Ostrich go to examine the flat thing. Finally, the Elephant King declares that he and all the animals will go together to resolve the mystery. The King's encounter with the mirror ends with a festive dance party that wakes Twain, who is astonished by his visitors and inspired to finish his tale.

Ron the Eastern hellbender salamander, recently named Pennsylvania's official State Amphibian, is excited to be featured on daytime talk show "Live with Nate," but the interview unexpectedly deteriorates when Ron is confronted with a threat to his riverbed home.

In this 10-12 minute play with interchangeable scenes, a couple wakes up on a weekday morning and leaves their apartment, dodging various threats to their relationship and respective personhoods, including their partner’s failings, urban wildlife and death.

“Crossing the Cow Field, or An Ode to Inertia,” a ten minute one-act play, concerns the subject of inertia, and consists of two people deciding whether or not to cross a field full of cows.

Fever has pneumonia, Chills has mono, and when they meet each finds a willing audience and relates the saga of her illness and the catalogue of her symptoms in great detail. A rowdy pillow fight ensues. Chills lectures Fever on the Black Death and as Fever listens, she falls into a delirious nightmare. When she awakens, Chills abandons her.

This play was generated by feeding dialogue into the Cleverbot AI system. Role 1 was the dialogue penned by the playwright, and role 2 consists of Cleverbot's verbatim responses. 1 and 2 meet at a bar and have a wide-ranging conversation concluding with an argument.

Jean, who has a problem with interpersonal assertiveness, is waiting in a seemingly endless line for the women's bathroom in a department store on Black Friday. She is joined by Marlene and her daughter Jennifer. A Mysterious Woman is hogging the bathroom stall while garbling endlessly on a cell phone call, and the three women must reach a decision about what to do. In the end, all three women are astonished, and Jean learns a valuable life lesson.

A man and two women with no previous relationships get into an argument after work in a bar. The bartender disappears and the relative strangers must decide how to proceed.