Derek Davidson

Derek Davidson is Artistic Director of In/Visible Theatre, and is a playwright, director, and AEA actor. He was an Associate Artistic Director for the Barter Theatre in Virginia and Coordinator for the Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights, where his play The Road Where it Curves Away won “Best Play” in the 2004 festival. Davidson wrote and directed the independent feature “This is Not the South,” which won awards at numerous festivals including ‘Best Feature’ in the Southern Appalachian Film Festival 2009, ‘Best Film’ in Skyfest 2009, and ‘Best Tennessee Film’ in the Secret City Film Festival. His neo-noir play Bumbershoot premiered at the 2012 New York International Fringe Festival, and was e-published by IndieTheatreNow.com as one of the best new scripts of 2012. Davidson’s...

Derek Davidson is Artistic Director of In/Visible Theatre, and is a playwright, director, and AEA actor. He was an Associate Artistic Director for the Barter Theatre in Virginia and Coordinator for the Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights, where his play The Road Where it Curves Away won “Best Play” in the 2004 festival. Davidson wrote and directed the independent feature “This is Not the South,” which won awards at numerous festivals including ‘Best Feature’ in the Southern Appalachian Film Festival 2009, ‘Best Film’ in Skyfest 2009, and ‘Best Tennessee Film’ in the Secret City Film Festival. His neo-noir play Bumbershoot premiered at the 2012 New York International Fringe Festival, and was e-published by IndieTheatreNow.com as one of the best new scripts of 2012. Davidson’s published play Jack of Dover was first produced by the Wing and Groove Theatre in Chicago, and most recently by the Filling Station Theatre in Albuquerque in 2012. His show Groundwork, co-created with actor Mike Ostroski, has been produced nationally, and most recently appeared in the Hollywood Fringe Festival. His latest two plays, Mauzy, and Without Words, were commissioned by An Appalachian Summer Festival. He has degrees from Florida State University, Miami University, and University of Washington. Davidson has taught dramaturgy at Carnegie Mellon University, and currently teaches playwriting, dramatic literature, and theatre history at Appalachian State University.

Scripts

Love Fighting

by Derek Davidson

Synopsis

This solo play features a boxer, who speaks to a reporter shortly after his biggest win yet. Throughout the interview, he recounts his family background with his father and brother, and realizes that there was a complex connection in his dysfunctional home between love and violence, which has led him down the path to being a professional fighter.

This solo play features a boxer, who speaks to a reporter shortly after his biggest win yet. Throughout the interview, he recounts his family background with his father and brother, and realizes that there was a complex connection in his dysfunctional home between love and violence, which has led him down the path to being a professional fighter.

Kill Will

by Derek Davidson

Synopsis

"Kill Will," a collaboration between playwright Derek Davidson and an unwilling William Shakespeare, is a collection of famous fight and death scenes from over a dozen Shakespeare plays. With scenes from "King Lear," "Romeo and Juliet," "Titus Andronicus," and many more, this show is an audience-pleaser that includes hand-to-hand combat, and also fights with weapons such as swords, daggers, and meat pies. With...

"Kill Will," a collaboration between playwright Derek Davidson and an unwilling William Shakespeare, is a collection of famous fight and death scenes from over a dozen Shakespeare plays. With scenes from "King Lear," "Romeo and Juliet," "Titus Andronicus," and many more, this show is an audience-pleaser that includes hand-to-hand combat, and also fights with weapons such as swords, daggers, and meat pies. With a flexible cast size of any ethnicity and gender, "Kill Will" explores the enduring nature of Shakespeare's work through the violence in his well-loved plays.

Bumbershoot

by Derek Davidson

Synopsis

A neo-noir amalgam of dark and really dark, weird humor and sudden violence that offers up a meditation on just how banal the banality of evil can be, on how good people—or ordinary, not-so-good people—can do very, very bad things.

A neo-noir amalgam of dark and really dark, weird humor and sudden violence that offers up a meditation on just how banal the banality of evil can be, on how good people—or ordinary, not-so-good people—can do very, very bad things.

Mauzy

by Derek Davidson

Synopsis

On a misty October night, an itinerant mountain preacher finds a cabin inhabited by two young sisters, who insist he stay with them until the rain passes. The three spend the evening swapping tales and singing songs, but it grows clear that certain things—music, for instance, or true love, or the evil actions of men—leave remnants after the things themselves have long faded away. Even if we don’t want them to...

On a misty October night, an itinerant mountain preacher finds a cabin inhabited by two young sisters, who insist he stay with them until the rain passes. The three spend the evening swapping tales and singing songs, but it grows clear that certain things—music, for instance, or true love, or the evil actions of men—leave remnants after the things themselves have long faded away. Even if we don’t want them to remain…

Mauzy is a tale about tale-telling, about songs, about how storytellers can mix so deep into the stories themselves that they never find their way out—out of the story, or out of the mountains, or back to the world of the living.

Like a song that won’t leave your head, like a wind sneaking through the cracks into your house, or like that part of your past you’ve tried to forget, Mauzy will haunt you…

Without Words

by Derek Davidson

Synopsis

Language connects us. We use words to ask, express love, argue, and to take our place in human society. And experts say if we don’t learn language as children, we can’t learn it at all.

Ildefonso, a 27-year old Mexican Indian, was born deaf, never learned sign language, and lived on the fringes of human interaction. Susan, a sign language interpreter, found him intelligent, observant, and isolated from...

Language connects us. We use words to ask, express love, argue, and to take our place in human society. And experts say if we don’t learn language as children, we can’t learn it at all.

Ildefonso, a 27-year old Mexican Indian, was born deaf, never learned sign language, and lived on the fringes of human interaction. Susan, a sign language interpreter, found him intelligent, observant, and isolated from the world around him, and despite the experts, she was determined to help him communicate. In/Visible Theatre uses dance, drama, sound and silence in this remarkable true story of how language is so much more than words.

This play is meant to be performed in American Sign Language and spoken English simultaneously.

On Her Chemise

by Derek Davidson

Synopsis

Robbie Walker sells seeds. A rising star at his corporation—which sells GMOs internationally— Robbie’s desire to control the Central American seed market prompts him to ready his new hire, Sam, to represent the company in Equador. But Sam (with the help of Robbie’s actor/seedsaver wife, Rose), plans to cut short Robbie’s ambitions, and--very possibly--his life.

Scenes of humor and heartbreaking revelation...

Robbie Walker sells seeds. A rising star at his corporation—which sells GMOs internationally— Robbie’s desire to control the Central American seed market prompts him to ready his new hire, Sam, to represent the company in Equador. But Sam (with the help of Robbie’s actor/seedsaver wife, Rose), plans to cut short Robbie’s ambitions, and--very possibly--his life.

Scenes of humor and heartbreaking revelation flow into one another like an Escher painting, offering a trenchant and up-to-the-minute take on identity politics, GMOs, and corporate imperialism.