Dianne Nora

Dianne Nora (she/her) is a playwright, dramaturg, and comedy writer. She’s a headline and features contributor at The Onion, America’s Finest News Source, and her humor writing has also appeared on Funny Or Die and The Hard Times, where she was previously Head Writer of Breaking News. In 2019, an abbreviated version of her play Monica: This Play is Not About Monica Lewinsky premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe, where The Spectator listed it among the “Best of the Fringe.“ Her play for young audiences, Journey Around My Bedroom, was produced at New Ohio Theatre in 2020, and recommended by The New York Times, America’s second finest news source (Top 5, Weekend Section). She has been very lucky to assist her mentor, the playwright and actor Tracy Letts, on seven productions and workshops, at...

Dianne Nora (she/her) is a playwright, dramaturg, and comedy writer. She’s a headline and features contributor at The Onion, America’s Finest News Source, and her humor writing has also appeared on Funny Or Die and The Hard Times, where she was previously Head Writer of Breaking News. In 2019, an abbreviated version of her play Monica: This Play is Not About Monica Lewinsky premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe, where The Spectator listed it among the “Best of the Fringe.“ Her play for young audiences, Journey Around My Bedroom, was produced at New Ohio Theatre in 2020, and recommended by The New York Times, America’s second finest news source (Top 5, Weekend Section). She has been very lucky to assist her mentor, the playwright and actor Tracy Letts, on seven productions and workshops, at Steppenwolf Theatre and on Broadway. She’s a winner of Inkwell Theater’s Lerner Fellowship and Playhouse on the Square’s New Works at the Works Playwriting Competition, a recipient of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Creative Engagement grant, she was selected for Utah Shakespeare Festival’s Words Cubed program, and she was a member of Goodman Theatre’s Playwrights Unit, where she was commissioned to write Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Living Document. She was a runner-up for the Maxim Mazumdar New Play Award, a finalist for The Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm, the Ingram New Works Lab at Nashville Rep, and Rough Magic Theatre’s SEEDS program, and a semi-finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center (in 2014 and 2018), and the Princess Grace Award for playwriting. She is a co-host of Streamageddon, a podcast about streaming television. BA: New York University; MPhil: Trinity College Dublin; MFA: Columbia University School of the Arts.

Scripts

Six Men Dressed Like Joseph Stalin

by Dianne Nora

Synopsis

When Soso is left for dead on the Eastern Front, he’s taken in by the Kremlin due to his shocking resemblance to a certain someone. Koba is tasked with training him to perform the role of a lifetime: Stalin’s body double. While Soso is a performer—trained to dance, juggle, and tour the countryside entertaining peasants, Koba is an Actor’s Actor, a student of Stanislavski himself (maybe you’ve heard of his System...

When Soso is left for dead on the Eastern Front, he’s taken in by the Kremlin due to his shocking resemblance to a certain someone. Koba is tasked with training him to perform the role of a lifetime: Stalin’s body double. While Soso is a performer—trained to dance, juggle, and tour the countryside entertaining peasants, Koba is an Actor’s Actor, a student of Stanislavski himself (maybe you’ve heard of his System?), committed to the pursuit of perezhivanie, or experiencing a character’s reality. Based on true events, the doubles prepare for the Conference at Tehran, when three so-called Great Men (or were they merely players?) decided the fate of the 20th century.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Living Document

by Dianne Nora

Synopsis

Commissioned by the Goodman Theatre, as part of their Playwrights Unit 2018-2019.

In this play, a fictionalized Ruth convenes a chorus of eight women and nonbinary Justices to tell the story of her life through standup, stories, and scenes. The play offers a human side to Ruth's enduring legacy as an activist, jurist, and icon. The play offers of a glimpse of a Court that reflects the diverse identities of...

Commissioned by the Goodman Theatre, as part of their Playwrights Unit 2018-2019.

In this play, a fictionalized Ruth convenes a chorus of eight women and nonbinary Justices to tell the story of her life through standup, stories, and scenes. The play offers a human side to Ruth's enduring legacy as an activist, jurist, and icon. The play offers of a glimpse of a Court that reflects the diverse identities of American women today, a Court that lives up to Ruth's vision for when the Court would have enough women: "when there are nine."

Journey Around My Bedroom

by Dianne Nora

Synopsis

Xavi is a little girl with a big imagination, stranded alone in her bedroom. When a mysterious visitor drops by looking for a missing part to fix his magical flying machine, they explore the hidden depths of her room and use the power of imagination to turn her isolation into an epic indoor voyage. This online interactive experience borrows techniques of the Victorian toy theatre (like paper cutout characters)...

Xavi is a little girl with a big imagination, stranded alone in her bedroom. When a mysterious visitor drops by looking for a missing part to fix his magical flying machine, they explore the hidden depths of her room and use the power of imagination to turn her isolation into an epic indoor voyage. This online interactive experience borrows techniques of the Victorian toy theatre (like paper cutout characters) and combines them with contemporary style puppetry and original songs. Designed specifically for online viewing, it invites viewers to turn their cameras on to participate in select scenes. A post-show talkback after each performance invites them to meet the puppeteers, ask questions, and explore behind-the-scenes. Audience members will also receive a printable puppet template that they can make and color at home.

This is an opportunity for families quarantined together to share some quality fun time together; and for extended families, who can't get together physically, to enjoy a shared virtual experience.

Journey Around My Bedroom is loosely inspired by a work of the same title by the 18th-century French writer Xavier de Maistre—a peculiar travelogue conceived during six-weeks of house arrest—that transformed his confinement into a fresh perspective on his life.

Monica: This Play Is Not About Monica Lewinsky

by Dianne Nora

Synopsis

Through a series of scenes between a woman--let's call her Monica--and different imagined lovers, this play asks what the cost of intimacy is, how we reckon with our past selves, and what we talk about when we talk about Other Women.

Through a series of scenes between a woman--let's call her Monica--and different imagined lovers, this play asks what the cost of intimacy is, how we reckon with our past selves, and what we talk about when we talk about Other Women.

In the dark times, will there also be singing?

by Dianne Nora

Synopsis

Dianne is seeking development opportunities for this play.

Martha Truman and Thomas Fairweather meet by chance on an airplane -- a brief liaison that ultimately ends in a life-altering tragedy. An unlikely pair, one is the rebellious daughter of a successful capitalist and the other a missionary of a fringe sect of Christianity, encountering the world outside his community for the first time. A year later, the...

Dianne is seeking development opportunities for this play.

Martha Truman and Thomas Fairweather meet by chance on an airplane -- a brief liaison that ultimately ends in a life-altering tragedy. An unlikely pair, one is the rebellious daughter of a successful capitalist and the other a missionary of a fringe sect of Christianity, encountering the world outside his community for the first time. A year later, the still shaken Thomas travels to meet Martha’s family. With the country in turmoil as class tensions between workers and the landed elite continue to rise, a general strike has left the Trumans isolated on their estate. Over a few short days, the family is visited by a series of plague-like misfortunes. As the family crumbles, and the natural world encroaches on their carefully kept estate, their well-guarded reality quickly becomes a fever dream spiraling out of control.

Come Here to Me

by Dianne Nora

Synopsis

Dianne is currently seeking development opportunities for this play.

Aoife, a young Irish woman, and Grace, her American roommate, travel together from their home in Dublin to London, pursued by a ghost. Set in October 2018, this play offers a glimpse into the time after Ireland's historic vote to repeal the eighth amendment of the Irish Constitution, making abortion legal in the Republic of Ireland, but...

Dianne is currently seeking development opportunities for this play.

Aoife, a young Irish woman, and Grace, her American roommate, travel together from their home in Dublin to London, pursued by a ghost. Set in October 2018, this play offers a glimpse into the time after Ireland's historic vote to repeal the eighth amendment of the Irish Constitution, making abortion legal in the Republic of Ireland, but before the law had come into effect. As Aoife and Grace tackle issues of friendship, grief, and autonomy, Come Here to Me looks at the intersections of Irish and American culture, and the women's lives that hang in the balance.

Julie (25F)

by Dianne Nora

Synopsis

A raucous and raw reimagining of August Strindberg's Miss Julie.

A raucous and raw reimagining of August Strindberg's Miss Julie.

In Rooms Such as These

by Dianne Nora

Synopsis

A dark comedy about f*cking and f*cking up.

A dark comedy about f*cking and f*cking up.

Wasps

by Dianne Nora

Synopsis

Wasps tells the story of George Worth and his hyper-dysfunctional family. George is branded as the ideal, all-American candidate when he's chosen as a Democratic nominee for US Senator. As George and his family come under greater media scrutiny, he becomes obsessed with the idea that his family home has been infested with wasps. Following George's failures and successes, Wasps takes an irreverent look at the...

Wasps tells the story of George Worth and his hyper-dysfunctional family. George is branded as the ideal, all-American candidate when he's chosen as a Democratic nominee for US Senator. As George and his family come under greater media scrutiny, he becomes obsessed with the idea that his family home has been infested with wasps. Following George's failures and successes, Wasps takes an irreverent look at the role of media and democracy in the Age of Terror.

Everybody's Legs

by Dianne Nora

Synopsis

Everybody's Legs is an examination of bodies and trauma, tracing one family's lineage through movement and text.

Everybody's Legs is an examination of bodies and trauma, tracing one family's lineage through movement and text.

Western Country

by Dianne Nora

Synopsis

The lives of five women are brought together in this Western set on Chicago's West Side.

The lives of five women are brought together in this Western set on Chicago's West Side.