Joanna Garner

I create theatrical experiences that are wild, sexy, musical, spiritual, and dangerous—sometimes all at once. Passivity is the death of theater. I believe plays should be experiences, and those experiences should wake us up, turn us on, and jolt us to a new way of thinking and being in the world.

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Joanna Garner is a playwright and musician based in Santa Fe, NM, where she is the Senior Narrative Director for Meow Wolf. Her work has been developed nationally and internationally, including at the Banff Playwrights Colony, the Finnish National Opera, Tofte Lake Center, Seattle Repertory Theatre, On the Boards, ZACH Theatre, Kitchen Dog Theater, Great Plains Theatre Conference, groundswell playwrights conference, National Winter Playwrights Retreat, Annex Theatre, Live Girls! Theater, 14...

I create theatrical experiences that are wild, sexy, musical, spiritual, and dangerous—sometimes all at once. Passivity is the death of theater. I believe plays should be experiences, and those experiences should wake us up, turn us on, and jolt us to a new way of thinking and being in the world.

***

Joanna Garner is a playwright and musician based in Santa Fe, NM, where she is the Senior Narrative Director for Meow Wolf. Her work has been developed nationally and internationally, including at the Banff Playwrights Colony, the Finnish National Opera, Tofte Lake Center, Seattle Repertory Theatre, On the Boards, ZACH Theatre, Kitchen Dog Theater, Great Plains Theatre Conference, groundswell playwrights conference, National Winter Playwrights Retreat, Annex Theatre, Live Girls! Theater, 14/48: The World’s Quickest Theater Festival, the NEWvember New Plays Festival, Theatricum Botanicum, with Austin’s acclaimed Rude Mechs, and at the New York and Hollywood fringe festivals. Her political drama about Iran, THE ORANGE GARDEN, was a winner of the 2016 Keene Prize for Literature and included on the 2016 Kilroys List.

An accomplished songwriter and musician, Joanna’s original country musical, 100 HEARTBREAKS, was workshopped in Seattle Rep’s New Play Program, with the Northwest Playwrights Alliance, and was presented at the country’s largest arts and culture festival, Bumbershoot. It premiered at the Sahara Lounge in Austin where it was nominated for an Austin Critics’ Table Award for Outstanding Musical.

Last summer, her immersive exploration of food and sex, PLEASE OPEN YOUR MOUTH, premiered at Café Nordo in Seattle. In addition to being Chance Theater's 2018 Resident Playwright, she is currently under commission by Seattle Repertory Theatre.

She has an MFA in Playwriting from The University of Texas at Austin.

Scripts

Burn Me Down

by Joanna Garner

Synopsis

Hanna is so afraid of deep emotional connections that she makes a radical decision: she will go live off grid in her uncle’s trailer miles outside of Santa Fe, NM. She feels alive in the wild, but her solitude is short-lived when very pregnant, polyamorous Madeline and her new husband Gabe move their tiny house onto the land next to Hanna to start an intentional community.

As Hanna, Gabe, and Madeline navigate...

Hanna is so afraid of deep emotional connections that she makes a radical decision: she will go live off grid in her uncle’s trailer miles outside of Santa Fe, NM. She feels alive in the wild, but her solitude is short-lived when very pregnant, polyamorous Madeline and her new husband Gabe move their tiny house onto the land next to Hanna to start an intentional community.

As Hanna, Gabe, and Madeline navigate their new, unintentionally shared life together, they each grapple with the realities and expectations of their own families. Gabe—a seventh generation New Mexican with conservative, Spanish-speaking parents—has to explain his polyamorous lifestyle. Hanna’s penchant for risk activates a spark of adventure in her agoraphobic mother. And idealistic Madeline finds unexpected love and support when her own mother refuses to show up.

By the end, the characters have formed an unlikely new community, and the play celebrates the power of empathy and connection in a world that often feels deeply lonely and segregated. Hanna’s journey is one of learning to lean into the beautiful discomfort of desire: desire for vulnerability, caretaking, and love.

The play could be performed in a theater or site-specific on a piece of land. It also has a short immersive companion piece for an audience of 1-4 people in a trailer.

This is a play with original music played by a band of coyotes (can be played by humans).

The Orange Garden

by Joanna Garner

Synopsis

A young Peace Corps volunteer lands in Iran in 1972 and is quickly swept up into a dangerous romance and the growing fire of revolution. A story about the complicated ways we fall in love with people and places, the play spirals together Rumi's poetry, 1960s rock music, whirling dervishes and the lyricism of the Persian language. The Orange Garden was developed at the Banff Playwrights Colony and was a finalist...

A young Peace Corps volunteer lands in Iran in 1972 and is quickly swept up into a dangerous romance and the growing fire of revolution. A story about the complicated ways we fall in love with people and places, the play spirals together Rumi's poetry, 1960s rock music, whirling dervishes and the lyricism of the Persian language. The Orange Garden was developed at the Banff Playwrights Colony and was a finalist for the 2016 Keene Prize for Literature.

Gutting

by Joanna Garner

Synopsis

The perfect murder victim, according to 16-year-old serial killer expert Maxine, is skinny, sexy-but-not-slutty, and white. Claudia fits the bill. Alberta does not. However, both women go missing on an isolated highway in British Columbia. As Maxine sets out to uncover the truth for her podcast (“Pray You Slay Me”), she stumbles into a world more dangerous and bizarre than she could ever imagine. Gutting makes a...

The perfect murder victim, according to 16-year-old serial killer expert Maxine, is skinny, sexy-but-not-slutty, and white. Claudia fits the bill. Alberta does not. However, both women go missing on an isolated highway in British Columbia. As Maxine sets out to uncover the truth for her podcast (“Pray You Slay Me”), she stumbles into a world more dangerous and bizarre than she could ever imagine. Gutting makes a wild, bold collage of true stories and fiction to investigate the media’s sexualization of violence, feminist relationships to victimhood, and the simmering anger present in so many young men today.

Knotted

by Joanna Garner

Synopsis

Abby lives in a small town in Idaho making her money as an online dominatrix. Cheryl teaches fifth-graders and has nice, simple sex with her husband, Dan. When Cheryl ends up in Idaho to take care of Dan's ailing mother, she is desperate for a way to fill her lonely summer break. Abby and Cheryl strike up a dangerous friendship - one with fuzzy boundaries, shifting power and tangles of secrets. A play about fear...

Abby lives in a small town in Idaho making her money as an online dominatrix. Cheryl teaches fifth-graders and has nice, simple sex with her husband, Dan. When Cheryl ends up in Idaho to take care of Dan's ailing mother, she is desperate for a way to fill her lonely summer break. Abby and Cheryl strike up a dangerous friendship - one with fuzzy boundaries, shifting power and tangles of secrets. A play about fear and desire, Knotted asks "what happens when you let go of control?"

100 Heartbreaks

by Joanna Garner

Synopsis

A new, original honky-tonk musical about an aspiring singer on a mission to get her heart broken 100 times to be sad enough to write country music. Part theater, part musical, part barroom country show, 100 Heartbreaks is a whiskey-fueled comedy with a live band and lots of heart.

A new, original honky-tonk musical about an aspiring singer on a mission to get her heart broken 100 times to be sad enough to write country music. Part theater, part musical, part barroom country show, 100 Heartbreaks is a whiskey-fueled comedy with a live band and lots of heart.

Please Open Your Mouth

by Joanna Garner

Synopsis

Only a lucky few guests gain entrance to this infamous supper club, a clandestine culinary orgy where members explore their wildest food taboos, fantasies and fetishes. Tonight, the charismatic Host and controlling Chef celebrate the anniversary of the club and their relationship with a series of particularly unexpected dinner courses. An immersive theatrical dining experience. Come hungry.

Only a lucky few guests gain entrance to this infamous supper club, a clandestine culinary orgy where members explore their wildest food taboos, fantasies and fetishes. Tonight, the charismatic Host and controlling Chef celebrate the anniversary of the club and their relationship with a series of particularly unexpected dinner courses. An immersive theatrical dining experience. Come hungry.

Charged

by Joanna Garner

Synopsis

A man falls in love with a woman who is lightning, literally.

A man falls in love with a woman who is lightning, literally.

Cat Cafe

by Joanna Garner

Synopsis

Two lonely travelers bond over sex and Xanax in a Tokyo cat cafe.

Two lonely travelers bond over sex and Xanax in a Tokyo cat cafe.

The Glass Pistol

by Joanna Garner

Synopsis

A dance theater piece about masculinity and the film noir detective. Sam Harper is a 28 year-old debt collector, obsessed with the film The Maltese Falcon. A suspicious tip on an outstanding debt and a visit from his ex-girlfriend spiral Sam into the seedy underbelly of a suburban world. Sam's romanticized notions of being a "real man" begin to overtake reality the farther he falls into the deepening mystery.

A dance theater piece about masculinity and the film noir detective. Sam Harper is a 28 year-old debt collector, obsessed with the film The Maltese Falcon. A suspicious tip on an outstanding debt and a visit from his ex-girlfriend spiral Sam into the seedy underbelly of a suburban world. Sam's romanticized notions of being a "real man" begin to overtake reality the farther he falls into the deepening mystery.