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 Kilroys Top 46 List in 2014. Her work has been produced/developed at New Dramatists, WordBRIDGE, The Lark, New York Theatre Workshop, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Launch Pad, The Antaeus...
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 Kilroys Top 46 List in 2014. Her work has been produced/developed at New Dramatists, WordBRIDGE, The Lark, New York Theatre Workshop, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Launch Pad, The Antaeus Company, Chalk REP, The Road, among other venues. Winner of John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award, Holland New Voices Award and Aurora Theatre Company's GAP Prize. Technicolor Life premiered at REP Stage as part of the 2015 Women’s Voices Theater Festival and recently received its Australian premiere at The Depot Theatre. BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) receives a joint world premiere with Moving Arts, Moxie Theatre and Promethean Theatre starting in January, 2018. Through the Eye of a Needle receives its world premiere at The Road Theater in Los Angeles, March to May 2018. She’s been a finalist for the 2016 PEN Literary Award for Drama, Playwrights’ Center Core Writer Fellowship, Princess Grace Award, O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and the Disney ABC TV Fellowship and was also nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Her short works are published with TCG and Smith & Kraus. 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 Management.
www.jamibrandli.com

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: roles for women, divorce + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: roles for women, divorce, comedy, Drama, dramedy, 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
  • BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) by Jami Brandli
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: Kilroys List, female lead roles + 8 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, drama, period
    Keyword: Kilroys List, female lead roles, Greek classics, 1960, Emily Post, reimagining, Medea, Clytemnestra, Antigone, Cassandra
    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...
    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: 3
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    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: drama, holiday
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    Keyword: Family Drama, christmas + 7 more
    Genre: drama, holiday
    Keyword: Family Drama, christmas, Iraq war, refugees, Occupy Wallstreet, family dramedy, New Jersey, female leads, Holiday Play
    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...
    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?
  • Technicolor Life by Jami Brandli
    Recommendations: 4
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    Cast: 
    8
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: Women's Voices Theater Festival, family dramedy + 8 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: Women's Voices Theater Festival, family dramedy, coming of age, female lead roles, Iraq war, female vet, end of life choices, amputee, large cast, rape
    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.
    World Premiere at REP Stage as part of the Women...
    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.
    World Premiere at REP Stage as part of the Women's Voices Theater Festival; Fall 2015.
    Australian Premiere at The Depot Theatre; Summer 2017.

    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.
  • 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, two actors + 7 more
    Genre: adaptation, drama, movement/physical
    Keyword: Medusa, two actors, two hander, college campus, rape culture, rape, Greek Myth Cycle, original songs, Dance/Movement
    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.
  • ¡SOLDADERA! by Jami Brandli
    Cast: 
    9
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    Genre: comedy, docudrama/historic + 2 more
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    Keyword: Mexican Revolution, female soldiers + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, period
    Keyword: Mexican Revolution, female soldiers, large cast, female leads, play with music (public domain), soldaderas, Emiliano Zapata, Hispanic play
    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...
    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.
  • 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: all female cast, m-theory + 6 more
    Genre: drama, experimental
    Keyword: all female cast, m-theory, Asian American character, missing child, end of the world, northern lights, mother daughter relationship, Great Roles for Women
    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.
  • 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 + 7 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, holiday
    Keyword: Bronte sisters, Sisters, all female cast, Christmas play, Holiday Play, dark comedy, reimagining, social media, fame
    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...
    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.