Ruben Grijalva

"The Justice Is Just Asleep" takes us inside the U.S. Supreme Court on the night before a narrow 5-4 majority is set to strike down a horrifying new law…or they would have, had the Justice authoring the majority opinion not died unexpectedly while polishing the draft. A 4-4 deadlock would put the monstrous law into immediate effect. The young clerks who find their Justice dead on her desk are then faced with a difficult question: where are they going to hide the body?

If Ruth Bader Ginsburg had lived just four more months, our world looks very different. "The Justice Is Just Asleep" compresses this maddening contingency into one tense night of wrestling with impossible choices…and a dead justice. Like our politics, this play is a farce, with catastrophic stakes.

Draft Available upon request.

Winner of the 2022 Will Glickman Award for Best New Play in the Bay Area
O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Semi-Finalist

Jackie has dementia. She also has a pact, carefully crafted with her two daughters, for how to depart on her own terms when the time comes. Well, the night has arrived, the girls have gathered, the plan is in motion—but Jackie forgot the pact. Shoot Me When… is a heartfelt and humorous exploration of love, responsibility, and finding joy in life’s challenges.

Anna Considers Mars takes us to the not-so-distant future, where human habitability on Earth is critically threatened by climate change, obfuscated by the proliferation of vivid augmented reality. Anna competes for a slot in the first Mars colonization effort, where humankind hopes to start over with a new generation of Adams and Eves.

Reviews:
https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/theater/review-freaks-astronauts-and-m…
https://theatreeddys.blogspot.com/2019/05/anna-considers-mars.html

Edgerton New Play Award Winner, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival Semi-Finalist

At five-foot-seven, one-hundred-sixty pounds, light-hitting shortstop turned drive-time sports radio host Edward “Chip” Fuller is hardly the poster-boy for baseball’s steroid era. But when he learns his name will appear on a list of players linked to performance enhancing drugs, Chip is forced to explain his choice to colleagues, his listeners, and his family. In doing so, he must choose between a bland public apology and a much more difficult confession: that if he had it to do over again, he wouldn't change a thing.

A note on the title: Value Over Replacement Player is a complex baseball statistic that measures a player’s performance relative to an imagined “replacement player,” who is an average fielder and slightly below average hitter.

Anna's new life begins with a long anticipated, better-be-transcendent sip of a tropical adult
beverage.

A heartwarming short play with Elves, Orcs, Humans and Starbucks that contemplates the nature of reality and love. Leanne and Tony have a strong connection in the virtual world, but when they decide to meet in the real world, what's actually in front of them is different than what they expected... or is it?

Value Over Replacement tugs at our moral compass with a glance back in time that sheds a different light on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports. This short play gives reason to wonder what circumstances we might be overlooking when we label things right or wrong.

This short play tells the funny and surprisingly accurate story of how Fritz Maytag saved Anchor Steam Brewery from financial ruin, becoming the Godfather of American Craft beer.

Nor Cal and So Cal delightfully collide in this meet cute ten minute play.

Ramon, a grieving widower, has hired Annie to help him sort through his late wife's belongings. But when Ramon decides he's not ready to let any of it go, Annie's tough love pushes him to reveal the real reason why he's holding on so tightly. "Spring Cleaning" explores how difficult it is to move forward, when unfinished business haunts our past.

Carmen is on a mission to save Lonesome George, the last remaining Giant Pinta tortoise. But when George, doesn't seem interested in procreating with the Giant Isabela tortoise, hand picked to seduce him and save the species, Carmen begins to question her whole purpose in life. Is it worth saving a species that doesn't want to be saved? Can we make amends for all the damage the humane race has done? "The Seduction of Lonesome George" explores what it means to fight for a species facing extinction, even if it's too little, too late.

When Kevin, a weary delivery driver, tries to get payment for services rendered, he unknowingly walks into a battleground of political power plays. With the White House Chief of Staff and House Chief of Staff arguing over the merits of the order, will Kevin every get what he's owed from these hangry politicians? It's a ten minute play that sheds a light on the absurdity of political stalemates.