Ain Gordon

AIN GORDON is a three-time Obie Award-winning writer, director, and actor, a two-time NYFA recipient and a Guggenheim Fellow in Playwriting. Recent projects: writing Not What Happened for BAM Next Wave Festival (NY), Vermont Performance Lab, Flynn Center (VT), Krannert Center (IL), OnStage at Connecticut College, etc; writing and directing If She Stood for Painted Bride Arts Center (PA) with commissioning support from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage; and directing where (we) live, a collaboration with Sō Percussion at the Walker Art Center (MN), BAM Next Wave Festival, River To River (NY), and Philadelphia Fringe, etc. Gordon’s work has previously been commissioned/developed/presented by New York Theater Workshop, Soho Rep., The Public Theatre, 651 ARTS, Dance Theater Workshop...

AIN GORDON is a three-time Obie Award-winning writer, director, and actor, a two-time NYFA recipient and a Guggenheim Fellow in Playwriting. Recent projects: writing Not What Happened for BAM Next Wave Festival (NY), Vermont Performance Lab, Flynn Center (VT), Krannert Center (IL), OnStage at Connecticut College, etc; writing and directing If She Stood for Painted Bride Arts Center (PA) with commissioning support from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage; and directing where (we) live, a collaboration with Sō Percussion at the Walker Art Center (MN), BAM Next Wave Festival, River To River (NY), and Philadelphia Fringe, etc. Gordon’s work has previously been commissioned/developed/presented by New York Theater Workshop, Soho Rep., The Public Theatre, 651 ARTS, Dance Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122, Baryshnikov Arts Center, the Kitchen Theatre, and HERE Arts Center (all NY); the Mark Taper Forum (CA), the George Street Playhouse (NJ), MASS MoCA, the Baltimore Museum of Art (MD), DiverseWorks (TX), Spirit Square (NC), VSA North Fourth Arts Center (NM), Jacob’s Pillow (MA), LexArts (KY), and Dance Space (DC), etc. Gordon’s 2003 work; Art Life & Show-Biz; A Non-Fiction Play, is published in Palgrave Macmillan’s “Dramaturgy Of The Real On The World Stage.” Gordon twice collaborated with choreographer Bebe Miller on works presented at the Wexner Center (OH), Myrna Loy Center/Helena Presents (MT), and Bates Dance Festival (ME), etc. Collaborations with David Gordon were commissioned/produced by American Repertory Theatre (MA), American Conservatory Theater (CA) and American Music Theatre Festival (PA). Gordon appeared in the original Off-Broadway cast of Spalding Gray: Stories Left To Tell and toured the production to venues including UCLA, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (OR), ICA Boston (Elliot Norton Award nom), the Walker (MN), and New Territories (UK), etc. Gordon also wrote for NBC’s “Will & Grace.” Gordon’s work has received supported from Jerome, Greenwall, the NEA, NYSCA, AT&T, MAP (four times), ART NY, Mellon, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, and NPN among many others. Gordon is a former Core Writer of the Playwright’s Center (MN) and was the inaugural Visiting Artist at the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (PA), he is currently a Resident Artist at The Hermitage (FL). Gordon is Co-Founder of the Urban Memory Project and has been Co-Director of the Pick Up Performance Co(s) since 1992.

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Scripts

Not What Happened

by Ain Gordon

Cast Size
2
Genre
dark comedy,
docudrama/historic,
drama,
experimental,
period

A contrapuntal duet for two people who cannot meet: the historical re-enactor and the true woman she portrays. For both; it’s baking day. The re-enactor unspools her official history plus her twenty-year devotion to this woman she pretends to be but isn’t. Her doppelganger simply toils though her actual day two centuries earlier. History lived vies with history told.

A contrapuntal duet for two people who cannot meet: the historical re-enactor and the true woman she portrays. For both; it’s baking day. The re-enactor unspools her official history plus her twenty-year devotion to this woman she pretends to be but isn’t. Her doppelganger simply toils though her actual day two centuries earlier. History lived vies with history told.

If She Stood

by Ain Gordon

Cast Size
4
Genre
biography,
dark comedy,
docudrama/historic,
drama,
experimental

If She Stood centers on the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, a multi-racial, collective established in 1833 to abolish slavery and, almost accidentally, frame the burgeoning discourse on women’s rights. These pioneers of the modern social justice movement include Sarah Grimke, Sarah Mapps Douglass, Sarah Pugh, and, fifty years later, Angelina Weld Grimke.
What makes a woman surrender her private life...

If She Stood centers on the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, a multi-racial, collective established in 1833 to abolish slavery and, almost accidentally, frame the burgeoning discourse on women’s rights. These pioneers of the modern social justice movement include Sarah Grimke, Sarah Mapps Douglass, Sarah Pugh, and, fifty years later, Angelina Weld Grimke.
What makes a woman surrender her private life to the public good?
Does she fight for other’s freedom to find her own?
Must alliances forged in political opposition eventually crumble in divisive compromise?
Many of the Anti-Slavery Society’s members were also Quaker and the performance borrows rituals of Quaker Meeting; begin with communal silence, delve into spontaneous solo testimony, end with a handshake.

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In This Place...

by Ain Gordon

Cast Size
1
Genre
dark comedy,
docudrama/historic,
drama,
experimental

Lexington, KY offers four generations of historic plaques blanketing its oldest precincts. Fenced inside the brass borders of each plaque are what meager facts a metal rectangle can offer. One house, as old as all those chosen for public remembrance, stands unmarked – awaiting the wrecking ball. In This Place… is based on the true story Sam and Daphney Oldham who bought their way out of slavery to build this...

Lexington, KY offers four generations of historic plaques blanketing its oldest precincts. Fenced inside the brass borders of each plaque are what meager facts a metal rectangle can offer. One house, as old as all those chosen for public remembrance, stands unmarked – awaiting the wrecking ball. In This Place… is based on the true story Sam and Daphney Oldham who bought their way out of slavery to build this home in 1830.

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A Disaster Begins

by Ain Gordon

Cast Size
1
Genre
dark comedy,
docudrama/historic,
drama,
experimental,
period

One woman unbreakable bond with the 1900 hurricane and flood that swept Galveston TX killing 6,000 people in 1 night + truths of political corruption, pubescent despair, patriotic fervor, pre-marital passion & paralyzing writer’s block.

One woman unbreakable bond with the 1900 hurricane and flood that swept Galveston TX killing 6,000 people in 1 night + truths of political corruption, pubescent despair, patriotic fervor, pre-marital passion & paralyzing writer’s block.