Michael Niederman

Michael Niederman is the author of the plays Freshman Fifteen (NYC Actors Studio), The Riverside Symphony (Planet Connections Theater Festivity), The Kuptferberg Family Tragedy (New York Stage and Film), To Barcelona! (Ignited States), Alvin Saves The Day, Good Men, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays (Risley Theater), Running Across Amsterdam (American Theater for the Actors), Chelsea, Alaska. (Lion Theater), and his newest work, Untitled First Draft.

He is also the author of numerous short plays. His pieces Every Man and Death From Above Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love America were featured at the 2007 Samuel French Short Play Festival, and Every Man was awarded top honors. His short plays Last Call, American Hosanna, Bavarian Fish, Mutual Admiration Society and The Ending...

Michael Niederman is the author of the plays Freshman Fifteen (NYC Actors Studio), The Riverside Symphony (Planet Connections Theater Festivity), The Kuptferberg Family Tragedy (New York Stage and Film), To Barcelona! (Ignited States), Alvin Saves The Day, Good Men, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays (Risley Theater), Running Across Amsterdam (American Theater for the Actors), Chelsea, Alaska. (Lion Theater), and his newest work, Untitled First Draft.

He is also the author of numerous short plays. His pieces Every Man and Death From Above Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love America were featured at the 2007 Samuel French Short Play Festival, and Every Man was awarded top honors. His short plays Last Call, American Hosanna, Bavarian Fish, Mutual Admiration Society and The Ending of All Things, premiered at Blue Box Productions’ Sticky. Theater collective Brain Melt Consortium produced The Social Contract, Fairy Tale of America, and Por Entre El Culo. Crosstown Playwrights put up One Little Duck, A Lecture On Subjects, Important By John Karpowski, and Don’t Drink and F*ck. Finally, he’s a regular contributor to New York Madness, which featured Nobody Knows Anything and Just Keep Spinning.

Michael is also an accomplished screenwriter. Most recently he shot his script for uniform, an adaptation of Jeffrey James Keyes short play. His script for the film Billion Star Hotel filmed in Cambodia. His script for the short film Proof of Birth won the Broadcast Educational Association Best Screenplay Award, and Faculty Selects at the Columbia University Film Festival. His feature length screenplay, Saint Carlos of Gowanus also won Faculty Selects at Columbia University, was featured at the National Association of Independent Latino Producers Writer’s Lab, and is a finalist for the Sundance Film Festival Writer’s Lab.

Michael is the Director for New Works at Ignited States, a member of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP), and is a founding member and producer of the Crosstown Playwrights. When Michael isn’t writing plays or screenplays, or writing theater criticism for the New York Theater Review, he is a schoolteacher and tutor in New York City. He loves working with children, and hopes to continue that no matter where life takes him.

Scripts

Untitled First Draft

by Michael Niederman

1

Cast Size

4

Genre

dark comedy,

drama

Nelson Underhill was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He won the Pulitzer, sold millions of copies, and bedded dozens of graduate students. Underhill wielded his celebrity like a weapon, using his privilege to cheat on wives and scar his children. He died about 15 years ago but still haunts the psyche of his oldest daughter, Maggie Underhill, a writer in her own right, tasked with preserving...

Nelson Underhill was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He won the Pulitzer, sold millions of copies, and bedded dozens of graduate students. Underhill wielded his celebrity like a weapon, using his privilege to cheat on wives and scar his children. He died about 15 years ago but still haunts the psyche of his oldest daughter, Maggie Underhill, a writer in her own right, tasked with preserving the Underhill legacy. She’s also in charge of keeping her suicidal younger brother, Ian, safe and alive. At one university party, she encounters Kady, a young writing student with ambition and drive that threatens to upend the Maggie’s tiny fiefdom, and unearth old family secrets. That summer Maggie has mentor to this needy young student, determine how to carry on the legacy of her domineering father, or perhaps destroy the hobbling institutions of old, and create her own narrative.