Jayne Deely

Jayne Deely (they/them) is a Queens-born boricua playwright and performer whose work blurs the line between sport and theatre, comedy and tragedy, and Queens and Brooklyn. Selected works: Legacy, When Pluto was a planet, I never asked for a gofundme, Walter Mercado Presents: A Queer Puerto Rican (Not Just) Christmxs Spectacular, unqle play, and 30 Seconds. Their plays have been developed with Seattle Public Theatre, the New Harmony Project, Breaking the Binary, Fresh Ground Pepper, theatre b, American Stage, Renaissance Theaterworks, and others. They were recently named to the Kilroy's Web 25-26 (for I never asked for a gofundme) and are currently under commission with a Sloan grant from EST. Jayne is a proud member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, and the Dramatists Guild, and is based in Queens, NY...

Jayne Deely (they/them) is a Queens-born boricua playwright and performer whose work blurs the line between sport and theatre, comedy and tragedy, and Queens and Brooklyn. Selected works: Legacy, When Pluto was a planet, I never asked for a gofundme, Walter Mercado Presents: A Queer Puerto Rican (Not Just) Christmxs Spectacular, unqle play, and 30 Seconds. Their plays have been developed with Seattle Public Theatre, the New Harmony Project, Breaking the Binary, Fresh Ground Pepper, theatre b, American Stage, Renaissance Theaterworks, and others. They were recently named to the Kilroy's Web 25-26 (for I never asked for a gofundme) and are currently under commission with a Sloan grant from EST. Jayne is a proud member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, and the Dramatists Guild, and is based in Queens, NY. The world premiere of I never asked for a gofundme will be produced by Actor’s Express in Atlanta in October 2026. MFA, IU Bloomington.

Scripts

Legacy

by Jayne Deely

Synopsis

Shaun Kinsey is the biggest thing to happen to the WNBA in the league’s history; the 22 year old rookie catapulting the league to a different stratosphere. Des McElroy is a champion vet, 44 years old, GOAT by all accounts, retirement coming for her any day. When Shaun trash talks Des on a hot mic amidst union negotiations, these two find themselves on a collision course that promises to change the WNBA and the...

Shaun Kinsey is the biggest thing to happen to the WNBA in the league’s history; the 22 year old rookie catapulting the league to a different stratosphere. Des McElroy is a champion vet, 44 years old, GOAT by all accounts, retirement coming for her any day. When Shaun trash talks Des on a hot mic amidst union negotiations, these two find themselves on a collision course that promises to change the WNBA and the trajectory of both of their lives forever.

Legacy is a play about sports, solidarity, relevance, and what it really means to have the heart of a champion.

I never asked for a gofundme

by Jayne Deely

Synopsis

WHAT THE LORD GIVETH, A GOFUNDME MULTIPLIETH. Millie and her partner Avery have landed back in Millie’s hometown of Mobile, Alabama, while Avery recovers from gender-affirming top surgery. Things spiral out of control when a nosy, evangelical family friend mistakes Avery’s top surgery to be a battle with breast cancer and makes a GoFundMe for the couple (all in the name of the good Lord, of course). Suddenly...

WHAT THE LORD GIVETH, A GOFUNDME MULTIPLIETH. Millie and her partner Avery have landed back in Millie’s hometown of Mobile, Alabama, while Avery recovers from gender-affirming top surgery. Things spiral out of control when a nosy, evangelical family friend mistakes Avery’s top surgery to be a battle with breast cancer and makes a GoFundMe for the couple (all in the name of the good Lord, of course). Suddenly, Avery and Millie find themselves at the center of small-town gossip, flooded with donations they never asked for. As they wrestle with the decision to accept this money, they must decide if being unapologetically themselves comes with a price tag.

When Pluto was a planet

by Jayne Deely

Synopsis

Prodigal friend Kap has finally (and somewhat reluctantly) returned home to Queens for best friend Sam’s wedding weekend. Unbeknownst to Kap, getting married isn’t Sam’s only goal for the weekend. Ish and Mel are firmly placed in Kap and Sam’s respective corners; their cautious optimism about the reunion doesn’t last long. As four disappointed millennials staring down forty return to the scene of the crime that...

Prodigal friend Kap has finally (and somewhat reluctantly) returned home to Queens for best friend Sam’s wedding weekend. Unbeknownst to Kap, getting married isn’t Sam’s only goal for the weekend. Ish and Mel are firmly placed in Kap and Sam’s respective corners; their cautious optimism about the reunion doesn’t last long. As four disappointed millennials staring down forty return to the scene of the crime that was a 90’s childhood, they wade through their formative influences, from talking Jack Russell Terriers to TLC, all in the shadow of the event that altered the course of their lives forever. But before long, the layer of nostalgia they are all skating on begins to give under the weight of broken promises, festering resentments, and one very unexpected guest, ultimately revealing growing cracks in the world as they knew it.

unqle play

by Jayne Deely

Synopsis

unqle play is the story of uncle and fave, both gay, one sober, one not, one dying, one not, navigating their relationship, their history, and their shared legacy within the context of one epic last conversation. It is a 90-minute negotiation of terms of what it means to tell someone’s story, how much we can ask of those who leave us, and what it means to say goodbye.

Using the shared love language of the...

unqle play is the story of uncle and fave, both gay, one sober, one not, one dying, one not, navigating their relationship, their history, and their shared legacy within the context of one epic last conversation. It is a 90-minute negotiation of terms of what it means to tell someone’s story, how much we can ask of those who leave us, and what it means to say goodbye.

Using the shared love language of the musical theatre canon, the somewhat shared language of recovery, and a conflicting, sometimes fraught understanding of what it means to be a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, guncle play is a highly theatrical exploration of love, grief, and the shifting values of the queer community. As we transition (pun intended) into a world in which gay marriage is legal (for now) and the fight for trans rights has begun to take center stage, we watch two people who love each other fiercely come together and fall apart as niece moves into their moment and uncle faces the rising tide of both mortality and an existential feeling of being erased.

Experience this two-hander vaudevillian journey of love, grief, Sondheim, and community through time, a titanic debate of queerness within multiple generations of the same family that asks ‘how do we both honor the work of those on whose shoulders we stand while also taking ownership of our moment?’

Walter Mercado presents: a queer Puerto Rican (not just) Christmas Spectacular

by Jayne Deely

Synopsis

We all need a little help sometimes. Identity is confusing. Dating is HARD. Some of us go to therapy. And some of us – wait until it gets bad enough that our dead abuela sends three Puerto Rican ancestors/pop culture icons our way on Christmas Eve to get us back on track by taking us on a tour of our past, present, and future.
Meet Zee. It was just supposed to be three dates, but Walter Mercado has other plans...

We all need a little help sometimes. Identity is confusing. Dating is HARD. Some of us go to therapy. And some of us – wait until it gets bad enough that our dead abuela sends three Puerto Rican ancestors/pop culture icons our way on Christmas Eve to get us back on track by taking us on a tour of our past, present, and future.
Meet Zee. It was just supposed to be three dates, but Walter Mercado has other plans.

A spin on the classic Christmas Carol story about queerness, Puerto Rico, friendship, and accepting a helping hand from the ancestors.

Oh, and sobre todo mucho, mucho, mucho ...

Not yet.

30 Seconds

by Jayne Deely

Synopsis

Max is a precocious kid, overachieving and a little anxious, sure, but mostly well adjusted. She’s got a lot going on, but she’s on top of it. Adult supervision not required. Besides, it’s 1999, what could go wrong?

Dr. C is a child psychologist recently dubbed the ‘child whisperer;’ her professional life is on a steady upward trajectory. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for her personal life. Enter Max....

Max is a precocious kid, overachieving and a little anxious, sure, but mostly well adjusted. She’s got a lot going on, but she’s on top of it. Adult supervision not required. Besides, it’s 1999, what could go wrong?

Dr. C is a child psychologist recently dubbed the ‘child whisperer;’ her professional life is on a steady upward trajectory. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for her personal life. Enter Max.

When Max starts receiving threatening notes at school, she embarks on a hunt for the culprit in this pre-Y2K whodunit that what asks us what it means to be a kid in a chaotic world, and leaves us wondering if we’ve been looking in the wrong place all along.

Waycross, an audio/stage hybrid play

by Jayne Deely

Synopsis

Lee is one of the CIA’s finest assets, but the grind is starting to get to her. Her only friends are her boss at the CIA and her arch-nemesis MI6 agent Olivia Winston Davies. When their newest mission sends them to a small town in Georgia to infiltrate a community theatre posing as something called a – dramaturg? – she wants nothing to do with it. But she soon realizes that there’s more to saving the world than...

Lee is one of the CIA’s finest assets, but the grind is starting to get to her. Her only friends are her boss at the CIA and her arch-nemesis MI6 agent Olivia Winston Davies. When their newest mission sends them to a small town in Georgia to infiltrate a community theatre posing as something called a – dramaturg? – she wants nothing to do with it. But she soon realizes that there’s more to saving the world than she imagined, and they will need all of their training, instincts, and maybe even a little help from her friends, to make it to opening night.

Should I stay or should I go now?

by Jayne Deely

Synopsis

A short play about a trans couple at odds with how to manage their new reality. As they grapple with what it means to choose each other when the world is burning around them, they each have to decide what it means to cope in a world hell bent on erasing you.

Commissioned by Breaking the Binary Theatre for their 2025 Cloud Nine Zine.

A short play about a trans couple at odds with how to manage their new reality. As they grapple with what it means to choose each other when the world is burning around them, they each have to decide what it means to cope in a world hell bent on erasing you.

Commissioned by Breaking the Binary Theatre for their 2025 Cloud Nine Zine.