Doug DeVita

FULL LENGTH, 75 Pages / Contact me for a perusal copy.

SEMI-FINALIST, Middlebury Acting Company’s American Dreaming: 2022 New Play Festival
SEMI-FINALIST, The Depot for New Play Readings

When foreign exchange student Anna decides to donate her eggs in order to make some much needed money, she thinks meeting egg broker Eileen to be the luckiest break she could have as a struggling actress in Hollywood. And when Anna proves to be quite fertile, the unscrupulous Eileen begins shopping her around for donation after donation. But – as Anna recounts to Hella, a court-ordered therapist working through her own personal crisis – when Anna's fertility begins to decline, both she and Eileen react in ways that have devastating consequences for both of them.

FULL LENGTH, 63 pages. For sample pages or information about licensing / purchase visit Next Stage Press:https://www.nextstagepress.com/fable/

SEMI-FINALIST, Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference 2021
One of the Top Ten plays on Ken Davenport's "Producer's Pick List," 2019.

“I think it is absolutely brilliant. It was fascinating to me because of course I was a part of it, but it was the appeal that 'Gypsy" has that [Doug] capitalized on and brought forth in a very delicious way.”
– Lane Bradbury, Dainty June in Gypsy, 1959

Who has the right to tell your story? Especially when it's the same story told from the differing memories of two legendary show business siblings? And one sister's version is about to become a big, Broadway musical that is also destined to become legendary? June Havoc was famously ambivalent about the show Gypsy, which her sister, the burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee, referred to as her legacy. And in Fable, which is itself a fable about the creation of that musical fable, the sisters' loyalty to each other is tested in a mounting battle that takes place in rehearsal rooms, dressing rooms, onstage, backstage, and all in the memory of the aging Ms. Havoc as she faces her imminent death, still battling with fiction and truth in order to keep her own legacy alive.

Developed at ESPA/Primary Stages (with Rogelio Martinez), Davenport Playwrights Workshop (with Eric Webb), and in workshops with playwright Karen Hartman.

FULL LENGTH, 87 Pages / For sample pages and/or information about licensing / purchase visit Next Stage Press: https://www.nextstagepress.com/the-fierce-urgency-of-now/

WINNER Fresh Fruit Awards of Distinction for Outstanding Play and Outstanding Production
SEMI-FINALIST: We Screenplay Spring 2021 Diverse Voices Competition

"The writing is fresh, funny, and smart without striving for hilarity. It hits where it's meant to hit."
– Nancy Worssam, ArtsStage-SeattleRage

This fast-moving comedy follows art director Kyle as he tries to discover his real self amid the power struggles and skewed priorities of a high-powered New York ad agency. After an office restructuring puts him in a new creative group run by the megalomaniac homophobe Kate, he finds an unlikely ally in copywriter Dodo, a living-legend from the era of “Mad Men” who not-so-gently prods Kyle to the uncomfortable but inevitable realization that “It’s time to take off. And soar.”

An abridged audio version is currently inaugurating the Fresh Fruit Festival's Radio Play Series; a link to the stream is in the "Music Samples" below.

REVISED FOR RADIO/PODCAST You can listen to this adaptation by clicking on the link to the stream in "Music Samples" below.

This fast-moving comedy follows art director Kyle as he tries to discover his real self amid the power struggles and skewed priorities of a high-powered New York ad agency. After an office restructuring puts him in a new creative group run by the megalomaniac homophobe Kate, he finds an unlikely ally in copywriter Dodo, a living-legend from the era of “Mad Men” who not-so-gently prods Kyle to the uncomfortable but inevitable realization that “It’s time to take off. And soar.”

FULL LENGTH, 80 pages / Contact me for a perusal copy.

2024 Broadway World Award Nominee: Best Off-Off Broadway Play.
SEMI-FINALIST, B Street Theatre 2020 New Comedy Festival.

Just how well do you know all your "friends" on social media? In this fast-moving "light comedy about dark people leading private lives in public places," when the grieving Charlie Windsor meets the gregarious Diana Black-White in a New York Theater District bar they become instant BFFs. Much to the consternation of his closest friend since childhood, Broadway actor Ed McGrath, Charlie is almost immediately hurled into an overwhelming whirl of dark secrets, questionable loyalties, and highly dysfunctional family dynamics; a world for which Charlie is completely unprepared. GODDESS OF THE HUNT is a gleefully silly homage to those romantic comedy thrillers of the 1960s via Roman mythology, updated to the creepy, contemporary world of social media and – perhaps too much – information sharing.

Developed at the Kennedy Center (with Mark Bly and Caleen Jennings) and at ESPA/Primary Stages (with Michael Walkup and Rogelio Martinez.)

FULL LENGTH, 70 pages / Contact me for a perusal copy.
Co-written with Gary Lyons. Based on an idea by Gary Lyons.

SEMI-FINALIST; Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference, 2006

Rosalynne Buchanan and Graham Harris are two Hollywood legends whose dynamic on-screen chemistry sparked an off-screen affair lasting 25 years. In 1968, a few weeks after completing their latest film together, Graham dies in the early hours of the morning in the house they both share. Rosalynne (Ross) has no choice but to inform Graham’s wife Leslie of his death. What happens when Ross and Leslie meet for the first time is the premise of “Just A Rumor,” a play that explores the nature of love, celebrity, gossip, truth, and how to get a dead movie star out of the kitchen.

IN DEVELOPMENT.
THE MARABAR is inspired by characters and situations from EM Forster's A PASSAGE TO INDIA, to be performed in story teller theater style. Focusing on the three main characters of Foster's book, it looks into the psyches and hidden (but not-so-hidden) desires of Dr. Aziz, Cyril Fielding, and Adela Quested, and the repressive society which governs their thoughts, feelings, motivations, and actions.

FULL LENGTH, 78 pages / For sample pages and/or information about licensing / purchase visit Next Stage Press: https://www.nextstagepress.com/nell-dash/

"We had our annual Playwrights Retreat where we read ...NELL DASH... It was the highlight of the weekend. ... there is a great deal of comedy coming from every corner of the dingy world it so effectively creates."
– Kim T. Sharp | [Former] Associate Artistic Director, Abingdon Theatre Company

In the alternate London of 1820 during the reign of King Stanley V8, Elinor and Marianne Wood, the illegitimate daughters of Sir Henry Dashwood and his cook, have become Nell Dash and Nance. They find themselves whirling up against Fagin, The Artful Dodger, Miss Havisham, Celia and Polly Peachum, and a barber named Todd, among many others. Their vile half-sister-in-law Lady Fanny Ferrars Dashwood, stops at nothing to keep them from getting a single penny of the fortunes accrued from the Dashwood Meat Packing Empire whilst at the same time trying to attain the two strands of pearls given the girls when they fled Devonshire years before, pearls which have mysteriously disappeared and have a strange history of their own.

FULL LENGTH, 97 pages / For sample pages or information about licensing / purchase visit Next Stage Press: https://www.nextstagepress.com/phillies-trilogy/

WINNER: Fresh Fruit Award of Distinction, Outstanding Production
WINNER: Scrap Mettle Arts Emerging Playwrights Competition
FINALIST: Davenport Theatrical Reading Series
SEMI-FINALIST: Barrington Stage Company Burman New Play Award.
SEMI-FINALIST: Normal Avenue's New American Play Series
SEMI-FINALIST: Campfire Theatre Festival 2020

"In the canon of works that include The Boys in the Band, Torch Song Trilogy, and Falsettos, DeVita’s play Phillie's Trilogy will stand proud… and equal”
– Bob Green

Growing up in the “fabulous” 70s was no picnic for precocious budding writer Phillie McDougal. But despite the nuns, the priests, bullying classmates, and his parents, he lived to tell the tales, with results no one bargained for. Including him.

Developed at the Kennedy Center (with Jacqueline Goldfinger) and at ESPA/Primary Stages (with Rogelio Martinez.)