Brian Thorstenson

Brian Thorstenson is a San Francisco based writer, teacher, deviser, and occasional performer. Brian was a founding member of The Z Collective and one of the first resident artists of the Z Space. He is an alumni of the Resident Playwright Program of the Playwrights Foundation and one of the founding members of 6NewPlays. His poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Burning House Press, Lambda Literary Review, and New American Writing. He is a Teaching Professor in Playwriting and Devised Theater at Santa Clara University and has an MFA from San Francisco State University.

Brian Thorstenson is a San Francisco based writer, teacher, deviser, and occasional performer. Brian was a founding member of The Z Collective and one of the first resident artists of the Z Space. He is an alumni of the Resident Playwright Program of the Playwrights Foundation and one of the founding members of 6NewPlays. His poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Burning House Press, Lambda Literary Review, and New American Writing. He is a Teaching Professor in Playwriting and Devised Theater at Santa Clara University and has an MFA from San Francisco State University.

Scripts

Fog Instructions

by Brian Thorstenson

Cast Size
6
Genre
comedy,
dark comedy,
drama

Loosing friends along the way, and helping those friends make it to the other side. Instructions in three fires, two good-byes, and a map.

Loosing friends along the way, and helping those friends make it to the other side. Instructions in three fires, two good-byes, and a map.

Field Notes

by Brian Thorstenson

Cast Size
2
Genre
dark comedy,
experimental,
political

A painting covering the stage floor. A perch made of askew chairs rises upstage. There's a person traversing the painting, figuring figuring figuring. A woman sits on top of the pile of chairs looking out, scanning scanning scanning. The horizon line has disappeared and they're both looking for it to return. Until then they're taking Field Notes.

A painting covering the stage floor. A perch made of askew chairs rises upstage. There's a person traversing the painting, figuring figuring figuring. A woman sits on top of the pile of chairs looking out, scanning scanning scanning. The horizon line has disappeared and they're both looking for it to return. Until then they're taking Field Notes.

The Long Long Ride Or And This Is Why The Ativan

by Brian Thorstenson

Cast Size
4
Genre
dark comedy

A couple unknowingly on the run, a mother and her troubled son, and a storm, collide on the Oregon Coast. A dark comedy about the surprises of looking for hope.

A couple unknowingly on the run, a mother and her troubled son, and a storm, collide on the Oregon Coast. A dark comedy about the surprises of looking for hope.

Wakefield

by Brian Thorstenson

Cast Size
2
Genre
dark comedy,
drama

A man tells his wife he's leaving for the weekend, for a business trip, then disappears for 20 years. What happens the night he decides to come home? Based on the Nathaniel Hawthorne short story of the same name.

A man tells his wife he's leaving for the weekend, for a business trip, then disappears for 20 years. What happens the night he decides to come home? Based on the Nathaniel Hawthorne short story of the same name.

Over the Mountain

by Brian Thorstenson

Cast Size
5—6
Genre
drama

A war rages. On one side of the mountain there are banned books, two men cataloguing photographs of prisoners, and a women acting as a human shield against a bombing mission. On the other side two sisters meet in the rain. Hannah has stayed in their childhood home, stayed in the middle of the war zone. Jo escaped over the mountain. Their meeting, fraught with accusations and misunderstandings, with the decisions...

A war rages. On one side of the mountain there are banned books, two men cataloguing photographs of prisoners, and a women acting as a human shield against a bombing mission. On the other side two sisters meet in the rain. Hannah has stayed in their childhood home, stayed in the middle of the war zone. Jo escaped over the mountain. Their meeting, fraught with accusations and misunderstandings, with the decisions of the past, may be their last. Have they failed each other? Or as the war forced them to fail each other? A story about the decisions of necessity in the face of the extremities of war.

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