Pamela Turner

Pamela Turner is a writer, director, and dramaturg currently based in Atlanta, with original playwriting credits in the U.S, Germany, Guam, and Ireland. Selected U.S productions include Ravenwood, (podcast play) commissioned by Found Stages Theatre; Free-Dum (devised), commissioned for Alliance Theatre’s Civil War (Collision) Project; Burning Man, Circle Ensemble Theatre Company; Hidden Man, 7 Stages Theatre and UGA University Theatre; Voices Deux, Atelier Stage New Play Series; Cosmeticos, Center for Puppetry Arts XPT Adult Series; Funny Valentine, LiveWire Theatre, Chicago and Piccolo Spoleto Festival, also winner American Theatre Co-op Playwriting Award; The Lady and The Poet (commission) Theatre Gael (two seasons) and Piccolo Spoleto Festival; Valentines Day, Pulse Theatre Ensemble...

Pamela Turner is a writer, director, and dramaturg currently based in Atlanta, with original playwriting credits in the U.S, Germany, Guam, and Ireland. Selected U.S productions include Ravenwood, (podcast play) commissioned by Found Stages Theatre; Free-Dum (devised), commissioned for Alliance Theatre’s Civil War (Collision) Project; Burning Man, Circle Ensemble Theatre Company; Hidden Man, 7 Stages Theatre and UGA University Theatre; Voices Deux, Atelier Stage New Play Series; Cosmeticos, Center for Puppetry Arts XPT Adult Series; Funny Valentine, LiveWire Theatre, Chicago and Piccolo Spoleto Festival, also winner American Theatre Co-op Playwriting Award; The Lady and The Poet (commission) Theatre Gael (two seasons) and Piccolo Spoleto Festival; Valentines Day, Pulse Theatre Ensemble; The Further Adventures of Louise Heavingbodice, Independent Actors Theatre; The Judas Gospel, Chester Horn Festival (2009); Male Man, 2008 Chester Horn Festival and winner “Outstanding Playwright”, also finalist for Heideman Award.

Other selected projects include Keester, recipient of a Dramatist Guild Fund grant/staged reading with Out of Box Theatre, an Ethel Wilson Award winner, and O’Neill Playwrights Conference semi-finalist; Mother/Monster, multi-media collaboration with Cine-Majik Design, Los Angeles;FACES, commissioned by 7 Stages Theatre, also a competition semi-finalist for Multi Stages-NYC and for Red Theater Chicago; Majik!, selected for Theatre Emory’s Brave New Works II series and the opening of Emory University’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. Other commissions include Frijoles on the Side (Fly-By Theatre) and Voices (1996 Cultural Olympiad).

Pamela is a member of The Dramatists Guild, Pen America, and LMDA.

Scripts

Burning Man

by Pamela Turner

Cast Size

6

Genre

drama

On the eve of a murderer’s execution, the prosecuting attorney asks her former boyfriend as a minister to help wait it out over a gourmet dinner at a nearby restaurant. Expecting his spiritual guidance, she discovers that he has left the church after a strange loss of faith during a sojourn in the Nevada desert. Further, in the near-empty dining room, their increasingly sinister waiter seems intent on...

On the eve of a murderer’s execution, the prosecuting attorney asks her former boyfriend as a minister to help wait it out over a gourmet dinner at a nearby restaurant. Expecting his spiritual guidance, she discovers that he has left the church after a strange loss of faith during a sojourn in the Nevada desert. Further, in the near-empty dining room, their increasingly sinister waiter seems intent on orchestrating what becomes very much like a ritualistic “last supper”. In the meantime, outside events begin to build as the wife of the murder victim shows up to engage in a surprising anti-execution demonstration and her teen-age daughter comes soon after to stage a noisy counter-demonstration along with an odd free-spirit researcher from the CDC who sets about re-creating the infamous Burning Man celebration right in the middle of everything. In response, the attorney gets taken up with the extravagant meal and the ex-minister is pulled into the center of the action outside. The crowd begins to construct a giant wooden effigy of a man as news starts to circulate suggesting the possibility of a last-minute reprieve for the condemned man. Burning Man is a play about the treacherous ground between living out a moral philosophy and answering the provocative call of retribution. Running time 90 minutes without intermission.