Alexa Derman

Alexa Derman is a Brooklyn-based playwright and screenwriter. Her plays have been developed by the Playwrights Realm, Ars Nova, NYTW, Clubbed Thumb, the O’Neill, Orchard Project, and the Playwrights Center. Alexa’s plays have been the winner of the Kernodle Prize, the Chesley/Bumbalo Prize, and the Jewish Plays Project’s National Competition; runner-up for Princess Grace/New Dramatists; two-time honorable mention for the Relentless Award; four-time finalist for the O’Neill; finalist for the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship; and twice nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn.

Alexa is a member of Page 73’s 2026 Writers Group. She’s an alum of the Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group, the Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship, and the Lehman-Engels Librettist Workshop; she is a New Georges...

Alexa Derman is a Brooklyn-based playwright and screenwriter. Her plays have been developed by the Playwrights Realm, Ars Nova, NYTW, Clubbed Thumb, the O’Neill, Orchard Project, and the Playwrights Center. Alexa’s plays have been the winner of the Kernodle Prize, the Chesley/Bumbalo Prize, and the Jewish Plays Project’s National Competition; runner-up for Princess Grace/New Dramatists; two-time honorable mention for the Relentless Award; four-time finalist for the O’Neill; finalist for the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship; and twice nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn.

Alexa is a member of Page 73’s 2026 Writers Group. She’s an alum of the Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group, the Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship, and the Lehman-Engels Librettist Workshop; she is a New Georges Affiliated Artist. She’s attended residencies at Hedgebrook and Ragdale and is under commission from MTC/Sloan and EST/Sloan.

As a screenwriter, she has written for Netflix and Hulu and is developing multiple film/TV projects.

BA from Yale in Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies; MFA from Brown, where she studied under Julia Jarcho. Now that you've met her, you can call her Lex.

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Scripts

So sublime

by Alexa Derman

Cast Size
5
Genre
drama,
experimental

John and Leah are on a TV show together and last night’s episode was the best one yet, I felt it all so deeply. This play is an autopsy of how we make feeling in fiction.

John and Leah are on a TV show together and last night’s episode was the best one yet, I felt it all so deeply. This play is an autopsy of how we make feeling in fiction.

The Creature

by Alexa Derman

9
Cast Size
6
Genre
drama,
experimental,
science fiction

Soon, a biomedically-engineered creature is grown in the body of a research assistant. Soon becomes later, later becomes lifetimes. A speculative epic about care, reproduction, and every wild thing.

Soon, a biomedically-engineered creature is grown in the body of a research assistant. Soon becomes later, later becomes lifetimes. A speculative epic about care, reproduction, and every wild thing.

Zionista Rising

by Alexa Derman

4
Cast Size
6
Genre
comedy,
dark comedy,
faith-based

At a Jewish American media organization, two Gen Z interns compete to rebrand Israel as a #girlboss #progressive #diversity-win via an AI-generated Instagram influencer. Meanwhile, at the margins, a Jewish American playwright wrestles with the question she can't escape: who are we if not a nation?

At a Jewish American media organization, two Gen Z interns compete to rebrand Israel as a #girlboss #progressive #diversity-win via an AI-generated Instagram influencer. Meanwhile, at the margins, a Jewish American playwright wrestles with the question she can't escape: who are we if not a nation?

Beauty

by Alexa Derman

4
Cast Size
6
Genre
drama,
faith-based

Net is having a baby and Riley is getting older and CJ's genetically-determined bone structure makes it biologically impossible for women to find him attractive. This play is about siblings.

Net is having a baby and Riley is getting older and CJ's genetically-determined bone structure makes it biologically impossible for women to find him attractive. This play is about siblings.

PSYCHOPSYCHOTIC, or, everyone at yale is a goddamn sociopath !!!

by Alexa Derman

10
Cast Size
3
Genre
dark comedy,
experimental,
horror

Something is amiss at Yale University. Female students are disappearing at alarming rates, only to be later found stuffed in discount mini-fridges and hacked to pieces. Meanwhile, a new freshman is pretty sure there’s something up with the guy she met at the campus bar last night...

Something is amiss at Yale University. Female students are disappearing at alarming rates, only to be later found stuffed in discount mini-fridges and hacked to pieces. Meanwhile, a new freshman is pretty sure there’s something up with the guy she met at the campus bar last night...

Girlish

by Alexa Derman

6
Cast Size
3
Genre
comedy,
drama

Windy loves painting her nails, being fifteen, goofing off with her BFF, and every one of her American Girl dolls. But loving AG is totally embarrassing until it leads you to Internet fame and sexting A Boy and then it’s -- what, exactly?

Windy loves painting her nails, being fifteen, goofing off with her BFF, and every one of her American Girl dolls. But loving AG is totally embarrassing until it leads you to Internet fame and sexting A Boy and then it’s -- what, exactly?

I'll be in my Hanukkah palace

by Alexa Derman

3
Cast Size
5
Genre
comedy,
experimental,
faith-based,
fantasy

Five Jewish nine-year-olds LARP Christianity! Watch as they: role-play heterosexual marriage, don flame-throwing mech suits, stab each other to facilitate animal reincarnation and try to cross themselves. I’ll be in my Hanukkah Palace is a feverish excursion back into the weirdo dreamscape of queer Jewish childhood.

Five Jewish nine-year-olds LARP Christianity! Watch as they: role-play heterosexual marriage, don flame-throwing mech suits, stab each other to facilitate animal reincarnation and try to cross themselves. I’ll be in my Hanukkah Palace is a feverish excursion back into the weirdo dreamscape of queer Jewish childhood.