Jami Brandli

Jami Brandli

JAMI BRANDLI’s plays include Technicolor Life, S.O.E., M-Theory, ¡SOLDADERA!, Sisters Three, Through the Eye of a Needle, Medusa’s Song, O: A Rhapsody in Divorce, and BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) which was named in the 2014 Kilroys List. Her work has been produced/developed at New Dramatists, New York Theatre Workshop, Launch Pad, The Women’s Voices Theater Festival, Chalk REP, Great Plains Theatre...
JAMI BRANDLI’s plays include Technicolor Life, S.O.E., M-Theory, ¡SOLDADERA!, Sisters Three, Through the Eye of a Needle, Medusa’s Song, O: A Rhapsody in Divorce, and BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) which was named in the 2014 Kilroys List. Her work has been produced/developed at New Dramatists, New York Theatre Workshop, Launch Pad, The Women’s Voices Theater Festival, Chalk REP, Great Plains Theatre Conference, The Lark, among other venues.
Winner of John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award, Holland New Voices Award, Ashland New Plays Festival and Aurora Theatre Company's GAP Prize. Finalist for the 2016 PEN Literary Award for Drama, Playwrights’ Center Core Writer Fellowship, Princess Grace Award and the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference; nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Her short works are published with TCG and Smith & Kraus.
Technicolor Life premiered as part of the 2015 Women’s Voices Theater Festival and received its Australian premiere in 2017. In 2018, BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) received a joint-world premiere with Moxie Theatre (San Diego) and Promethean Theatre (Chicago), ending with Moving Arts’ production at Atwater Village Theatre in Los Angeles (LA Times Critic’s Choice and Ovation Recommended). Sisters Three received its world premiere with The Inkwell Theater (Los Angeles) in December through January 2019, and Through the Eye of a Needle (Ovation Recommended) also received its world premiere at The Road Theatre (Los Angeles), March-May 2018. Jami is currently a 2018-2019 Humanitas Prize PLAY LA playwright and has been commissioned to write her latest play, Visiting Hours.
A proud member of The Playwrights Union, the Antaeus Playwrights Lab, and The Dramatist Guild, Jami teaches dramatic writing at Lesley University's low-residency MFA program. She is represented by the Robert A Freedman Agency and Gramercy Park Entertainment.

Plays

  • O: A Rhapsody in Divorce by Jami Brandli
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: comedy, drama
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    Keyword: divorce, feminism + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: divorce, feminism, reclaiming greek myths, odyssey, female leads over 40, epic
    The Odyssey reimagined as a rhapsodic dramedy.
    O, a childless female neurobiologist in her 40s, is completely blindsided by her husband who wants a divorce but he refuses to leave the house…and she’s thrown into an epic couch-hopping odyssey. Hopping from one couch to the next, O finds unconventional and magical ways to reassemble the blown-up pieces of her life as she struggles to find her way back and...
    The Odyssey reimagined as a rhapsodic dramedy.
    O, a childless female neurobiologist in her 40s, is completely blindsided by her husband who wants a divorce but he refuses to leave the house…and she’s thrown into an epic couch-hopping odyssey. Hopping from one couch to the next, O finds unconventional and magical ways to reassemble the blown-up pieces of her life as she struggles to find her way back and toward a “new home.”

    Development:
    The Playwrights Union First Peak Reading Series, June 2018
  • Visiting Hours by Jami Brandli
    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: comedy, drama
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    Keyword: complex female lead, ensemble cast + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: complex female lead, ensemble cast, highly theatrical, child sexual abuse, great roles for older women, suicide, Mental Health, double cast, Persephone, Hades
    Visiting Hours; Part Four of Re-envisioned Greek Myth Cycle
    A reclaiming of the Persephone myth, now set in a psychiatric hospital, Visiting Hours follows the arduous journey of Stephie Green, a middle-aged music teacher who must break free from her complicated past in order to be reunited with her family.
  • BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) by Jami Brandli
    Recommendations: 7
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    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: Greek, 1960 + 6 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, drama, period
    Keyword: Greek, 1960, Emily Post, reimagining, Medea, Clytemnestra, Antigone, Cassandra
    In 2018, BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) received a joint-world premiere with Moxie Theatre (San Diego) and Promethean Theatre (Chicago), ending with Moving Arts’ production at Atwater Village Theatre in Los Angeles (LA Times Critic’s Choice and Ovation Recommended).
    Winner of The Great Plains Theatre Conference's Holland New Voices Award. Named on The Kilroys' THE LIST of the 46 most...
    In 2018, BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) received a joint-world premiere with Moxie Theatre (San Diego) and Promethean Theatre (Chicago), ending with Moving Arts’ production at Atwater Village Theatre in Los Angeles (LA Times Critic’s Choice and Ovation Recommended).
    Winner of The Great Plains Theatre Conference's Holland New Voices Award. Named on The Kilroys' THE LIST of the 46 most recommended plays written by female playwrights. Finalist for O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and The Source Festival. Selected readings at The Antaeus Company in Los Angeles, HERE Arts Center in NYC, The Hearth Collective hosted by Portland Center Stage, and a Workshop Presentation with Moving Arts in Los Angeles.

    It's 1960 in North Orange, NJ. Clytemnestra and Medea are now housewives with a pill addiction, and Antigone is the teenage girl next door who is in love with a black boy. On the surface, they're seemingly blissful to follow the "rules” of Emily Post, the American author famous for writing on etiquette. But that's just the surface. Then Cassandra, a black working girl, moves into their neighborhood and all routines are interrupted. Cassandra is determined to finally break the curse of Apollo, the gorgeous and egotistical god who gave her this “gift” of prophecy but made it so no one would ever believe her. He makes it clear his curse is practically indestructible: all she has to do is convince someone to believe her. Can Cassandra convince these women they now have choices in this modern era? That they don't have to live a doomed existence? Can all four women escape their ongoing fate?
  • Through the Eye of a Needle by Jami Brandli
    Recommendations: 4
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    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: family, christmas + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, holiday
    Keyword: family, christmas, Iraq war, refugees, Occupy Wallstreet, New Jersey, holiday, ensemble cast
    Through the Eye of a Needle received is world premiere with The Road Theatre in Los Angeles, 2018.

    Through the Eye of a Needle (formerly known as A Merry Little Christmas)
    Workshop with Launch Pad at UC Santa Barbara, July 2017;
    Finalist for ID Theater, Seven Devils Conference, 2017;
    Finalist for LOCAL Theater's LOCAL Lab, 2017;
    Semi-finalist for O'Neill...
    Through the Eye of a Needle received is world premiere with The Road Theatre in Los Angeles, 2018.

    Through the Eye of a Needle (formerly known as A Merry Little Christmas)
    Workshop with Launch Pad at UC Santa Barbara, July 2017;
    Finalist for ID Theater, Seven Devils Conference, 2017;
    Finalist for LOCAL Theater's LOCAL Lab, 2017;
    Semi-finalist for O'Neill Playwrights Conference, 2017;
    Semi-finalist for Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2017;
    Selected for The Road Theater's Seventh Annual Summer Playwrights Festival, 2016, Los Angeles

    Through the Eye of a Needle is a working middle-class family dramedy about the Keen family dealing with the death of their daughter, Dana, a navy corpsman who recently died in the Iraq War. Larry copes with a tumbler of scotch or five, Barbara stubbornly sets an extra plate setting, while their straight-edge teenage daughter, Samantha, secretly uses Twitter to create a protest on the George Washington Bridge. Much to Larry’s annoyance, the self-righteous Pastor Bill Towers and his fragile wife, Shirley, invite themselves over for Christmas Eve dinner, and then Nasser, an Iraqi refugee, arrives at their door unannounced. They quickly learn he was Dana’s trusted military interpreter and that Dana has given Nasser as a “Christmas gift.” As they fight over to keep Nasser or not, tempers fly and secrets are revealed. Will the Keens be pulled further apart or will they find grace and redemption in this unexpected gift?
  • Sisters Three by Jami Brandli
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: Bronte sisters, Sisters + 4 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, holiday
    Keyword: Bronte sisters, Sisters, christmas, reimagining, social media, fame
    World premiere with The Inkwell Theater Company in Los Angeles, December 2018.

    Workshop production with The Inkwell Theater Company in Los Angeles, December 2016. Finalist for The Source Festival. Semi-finalist for The Bay Area Playwrights Foundation. Selected readings Moving Arts MADlab Reading Series, Playwrights Union First Peak Reading Series.

    The Brontë sisters, modern day,...
    World premiere with The Inkwell Theater Company in Los Angeles, December 2018.

    Workshop production with The Inkwell Theater Company in Los Angeles, December 2016. Finalist for The Source Festival. Semi-finalist for The Bay Area Playwrights Foundation. Selected readings Moving Arts MADlab Reading Series, Playwrights Union First Peak Reading Series.

    The Brontë sisters, modern day, Christmas Eve. Due to the death of their brother, Charlotte has dropped out of society and joined a commune on Gondol Island. So Emily and Anne build a canoe to rescue her. In this off-center dramedy about family, social media, fame, the holidays and the perfect cupcake, individual secrets and desires are revealed which could tear the sisters apart.
  • Technicolor Life by Jami Brandli
    Recommendations: 4
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    Cast: 
    8
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: family, coming of age + 5 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: family, coming of age, Iraq war, female vet, end of life, amputee, rape
    Technicolor Life premiered as part of the 2015 Women’s Voices Theater Festival and received its Australian premiere in 2017.
    Winner of The Aurora Theater Company's Global Age Project (GAP) Prize, John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award, and Ashland New Plays Festival. Finalist for 2016 PEN Literary Award for Drama, Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship and O’Neill National Playwrights Conference....
    Technicolor Life premiered as part of the 2015 Women’s Voices Theater Festival and received its Australian premiere in 2017.
    Winner of The Aurora Theater Company's Global Age Project (GAP) Prize, John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award, and Ashland New Plays Festival. Finalist for 2016 PEN Literary Award for Drama, Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship and O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. Readings at New York Theatre Workshop and The Lark. Fellow at WordBRIDGE.

    Maxine, a book smart teenager, is caught between her older sister, a wounded soldier who just returned from the war in Iraq, and her ailing grandmother with a flair for American Musicals. With the help of her new imaginary friends—Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes—Maxine secretly creates a dating profile for her sister and successfully sets her up with another wounded vet. Life takes a darker turn when her grandmother announces she'll be ending her life and wants her family to support her final wish by throwing her a good-bye party. With that, Maxine has to grow up fast.
  • M-Theory: a play told in 11 dimensions by Jami Brandli
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: drama, experimental
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    Keyword: m-theory, missing child + 6 more
    Genre: drama, experimental
    Keyword: m-theory, missing child, end of the world, northern lights, mother and daughter, all female cast, cosmology, black holes
    Workshop Reading presented by the Inkwell Theater LAB. Finalist for The Source Festival. Semi-Finalist O’Neill National Playwrights Conference.

    The near future. Former biographer Pauline Grey has shut herself and her daughter Ava away in a remote Pennsylvania cabin for nearly a year. Pauline will not let Ava go until she has the answers she is desperately seeking. But when a solar flare storm...
    Workshop Reading presented by the Inkwell Theater LAB. Finalist for The Source Festival. Semi-Finalist O’Neill National Playwrights Conference.

    The near future. Former biographer Pauline Grey has shut herself and her daughter Ava away in a remote Pennsylvania cabin for nearly a year. Pauline will not let Ava go until she has the answers she is desperately seeking. But when a solar flare storm hits, cutting the women off from communication with the outside world, and a downed pilot appears at the cabin asking for help, Pauline's reality is challenged in more ways than one.
  • ¡SOLDADERA! by Jami Brandli
    Cast: 
    9
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    Genre: comedy, docudrama/historic + 2 more
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    Keyword: Mexican Revolution, female soldier + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, period
    Keyword: Mexican Revolution, female soldier, play with music, soldaderas, Emiliano Zapata, large cast
    Workshop presentation with MOXIE; Feb 2018, San Diego. Finalist for the 2017 Source Festival. Visiting Playwright at Loyola Marymount University with a workshop presentation; 2016 Fall, Los Angeles. Visiting Playwright for UC Santa Barbara’s LAUNCH PAD: New Plays in Process. Semi-Finalist O’Neill National Playwrights Conference.

    Part epic and part grotesque comedy, ¡SOLDADERA! is set in the...
    Workshop presentation with MOXIE; Feb 2018, San Diego. Finalist for the 2017 Source Festival. Visiting Playwright at Loyola Marymount University with a workshop presentation; 2016 Fall, Los Angeles. Visiting Playwright for UC Santa Barbara’s LAUNCH PAD: New Plays in Process. Semi-Finalist O’Neill National Playwrights Conference.

    Part epic and part grotesque comedy, ¡SOLDADERA! is set in the Mexican Revolution during The Day of Dead Feast. A teenage girl with face blindness finds the camp where her mother fled to become a revolutionary soldadera (female solider). She is taken in by the other soldaderas and unintentionally catches the eye of the lascivious, god-fearing colonel. Upon learning her mother died bravely in battle, the girl decides to become a soldadera. This sets off the unveiling of secrets that threatens to tear the camp apart.

    NOTE: The current uploaded draft is a work in progress.
  • Medusa's Song by Jami Brandli
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: adaptation, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: Medusa, college + 3 more
    Genre: adaptation, drama, movement/physical
    Keyword: Medusa, college, rape culture, rape, Greek Myth Cycle
    Part Two of Reclaimed Greek Myth Cycle

    A modern-day reclaiming of the Medusa myth set on a college campus. The Golden Boy can run, but he can't hide.