Kirin McCrory

Kirin McCrory is a professor, playwright, literary manager, dramaturg, and sometimes-performer. Their plays and devised pieces have been produced in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Edinburgh, and central Virginia. Their textual work with performance collective The American Laboratory has been shown in galleries in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. They got their BA in Theatre Studies from Emerson College and their MFA in Playwriting from UC Riverside. They are the literary manager for VanguardRep, a theatre company devoted to nurturing new works and adaptations, and co-founder of The Windmill Arts Complex, a new space in East Point, GA.

Kirin McCrory is a professor, playwright, literary manager, dramaturg, and sometimes-performer. Their plays and devised pieces have been produced in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Edinburgh, and central Virginia. Their textual work with performance collective The American Laboratory has been shown in galleries in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. They got their BA in Theatre Studies from Emerson College and their MFA in Playwriting from UC Riverside. They are the literary manager for VanguardRep, a theatre company devoted to nurturing new works and adaptations, and co-founder of The Windmill Arts Complex, a new space in East Point, GA.

Scripts

Weak Nerves

by Kirin McCrory

Cast Size
3
Genre
dark comedy,
drama,
experimental,
fable/folktale,
movement/physical,
period

A loose sequel to Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder, Weak Nerves is a poetic new play that probes the question of what it costs to be a woman in a man’s world.

Eileen, Katya, and Hildey are trapped in the house of famed, feared, and dead master builder, Hank Saulless. They could all leave at any time they wanted, but it’s not so easy to shrug off the shadow of the man who shaped their lives. Eileen, his doped...

A loose sequel to Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder, Weak Nerves is a poetic new play that probes the question of what it costs to be a woman in a man’s world.

Eileen, Katya, and Hildey are trapped in the house of famed, feared, and dead master builder, Hank Saulless. They could all leave at any time they wanted, but it’s not so easy to shrug off the shadow of the man who shaped their lives. Eileen, his doped up widow, gets dropped by her doctor boyfriend—who was also, not so coincidentally, her main supplier—and now must lean on the two young women who took her husband away. Katya, his secretary, jilted by her fiancé, has nowhere else to go. And Hildey, the wild and wounded firecracker from Saulless’ past, never got the retribution she came for in the first place.

So, here they are.

In an attempt to lighten the mood (or darken it?), Hildey begins a game that throws the three women into individual tailspins, forcing them all to take inventory of who they were before Hank Saulless came around, and what’s left of them now that he’s gone. Eileen and Hildey find themselves drawn to one another, while Katya finds herself drawn to a different life. But can the three of them move on while the house, his ghost, still stands?

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Tied to the Mast

by Kirin McCrory

1
Cast Size
4
Genre
adaptation,
drama,
fantasy,
horror

A man wakes up in a secluded cabin owned by three young sisters who claim they saved his life. And maybe they did. Maybe. TIED TO THE MAST is a one-act, modern reimagining of the Siren myth.

A man wakes up in a secluded cabin owned by three young sisters who claim they saved his life. And maybe they did. Maybe. TIED TO THE MAST is a one-act, modern reimagining of the Siren myth.

Counter/Top

by Kirin McCrory

Cast Size
6
Genre
dark comedy

Tea Time is a greasy spoon, run by foul-mouthed matriarch Miss Betty and frequented by regulars like the kindhearted but totally incoherent Brooks. Two pressed and prim professors, Khent and Izzie, stop in for lunch—but they get more than a bad case of heartburn thanks to Liza and Gunner, a pair of teenaged troublemakers. Part raucous societal commentary, part sinister cat-and-mouse tale, Counter/Top forces us...

Tea Time is a greasy spoon, run by foul-mouthed matriarch Miss Betty and frequented by regulars like the kindhearted but totally incoherent Brooks. Two pressed and prim professors, Khent and Izzie, stop in for lunch—but they get more than a bad case of heartburn thanks to Liza and Gunner, a pair of teenaged troublemakers. Part raucous societal commentary, part sinister cat-and-mouse tale, Counter/Top forces us to consider what our own upbringings say about us, and to what lengths we’ll go to hide them.

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Chops

by Kirin McCrory

1
Cast Size
7—12
Genre
comedy,
dark comedy,
drama,
farce,
mystery/thriller,
period

When men in a bizarro Victorian town start disappearing, the women believe Marg, a mysterious new arrival, is killing them off. Worse than that, she’s marrying each and every one of them before they disappear. CHOPS is a dark farce, a romp through language, etiquette, and feminism, and explores the kind of history poorly behaved women may make.

When men in a bizarro Victorian town start disappearing, the women believe Marg, a mysterious new arrival, is killing them off. Worse than that, she’s marrying each and every one of them before they disappear. CHOPS is a dark farce, a romp through language, etiquette, and feminism, and explores the kind of history poorly behaved women may make.