Renee Calarco

Dr. Sharon Naftali loves many things: her dead father, her career, and the late, great Carroll Sisters--the two greatest Borscht Belt singers who nobody's ever heard of. Resuming her national book tour one week after her father's funeral, Sharon struggles to keep it together until she literally and figuratively collides with the singers who inspired her new book: Christmas at Grossinger's.

CHRISTMAS AT GROSSINGER'S is a comedy with music about family, Yiddish swing music, and the healing powers of time-traveling scholarship.

It's 2040. The United States is still recovering from a devastating yet oddly familiar event that nobody saw coming. Out of the ashes of the tragedy rises a memorial museum—The National Museum of American Reconciliation—dedicated to preserving the memories of the day when everything changed.

MUSEUM 2040 is an immersive theater piece that memorializes and explains a series of national uprisings and protests that were figuratively—and literally—ignited by an act of political terrorism. Part performance piece, part exhibit, MUSEUM 2040 asks us to consider the politics of memory and national identity.

Vie's got a soul-sucking job, a crappy commute, and an Instagram account she uses to capture it all.

#solestories is an experiment. An iteration. A play based on an Instagram account.

Mo and Brian are a picture-perfect DC couple: they’re smart, they’re witty, and they have a beautifully remodeled kitchen. But when Mo’s best friend Patti announces she’s found Jesus and is putting her own career on hold, Mo must take a closer look at the harder truths surrounding her own marriage. A comedy about relationships, faith, and the fine line between compromise and regret. Nominated for the 2013 Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play.

Roberta and Larry always try to do the right thing – for their son, for their marriage and especially for their synagogue. When they have the opportunity to help rescue a Holocaust Torah, they know they have to bring it to Temple Beth David.

Inspired by the true story of Rabbi Menachem Youlus, the self-dubbed “Jewish Indiana Jones,” this story explores how the Jewish community deals with, responds to, and heals from scandal. Winner of the 2014 Jewish Plays Project's Jewish Playwriting Contest. World premiere: Theater J (2015).

It's Thanksgiving. An elusive, wisecracking, great-grandma has summoned her enormous brood of great-grandkids to make a big announcement. Seated around an endlessly long "kids' table," cousins clash with cousins and siblings with siblings as they vie to find their rightful places in the family--and in the world.

Written for teen actors and told in a broad mix of musical styles---everything from challenging Sondheimesque pieces to 1940s swing numbers---THE KIDS' TABLE is an irreverent, multicultural, sometimes heartbreaking exploration of what it means to be an American.

It’s late August 2001, and Larry’s Diner is packed with jangly parents and their poker-faced kids who are making their annual drives to the colleges and universities in southern New York State. Lou and Fran Petrillo, newcomers to this ritual, are smoothing the way for their daughter Jenn -- who's desperate to leave her blue-collar roots back in Buffalo and start living a life that neither of her parents can imagine. Also at Larry’s are Chuck Feldman and his youngest son Evan, the Petrillos’ wealthy neighbors. With his cell phone seemingly plastered to his ear, Chuck struggles to run his business without further alienating his the distant Evan—who sits directly across from him. Through it all, waitress Paula and short-order cook Peach serve and clean up after the people who cycle through the diner, knowing that with each passing year, their ability to leave their small New York town dwindle. As Jenn and Evan pick their way through an awkward and thorny goodbye, Fran and Chuck navigate uneasy emotional waters of their own. But it’s not until May 2002 when Lou and Fran discover how deeply Jenn’s freshman year at college has affected their lives, their marriage, and their world. SHORT ORDER STORIES is a time-shifting comic drama….a meditation on familial obligation, social class, friendship, and love. Winner of the 2007 Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play. Available for purchase from Dramatic Publishing.

Marla just wants some peace and quiet. Dez just wants Marla. A one-act drama about love, loss and resilience.

Angela’s not getting any. Neither are her pandas. A comedy about sex, motherhood, and pandas.

Christmas celebrations are just around the corner and Shirley the Partridge has got some problems to solve. The French Hens are arguing, the six geese have flown to Florida for the winter and worst of all…someone has stolen the Five Golden Rings! What will happen to Christmas?
Available from Dramatic Publishing.

Michelle's back in town for her high school reunion. So's her dead mother.
A comedy about love and loss and friendship.

Marti's got a truck full of produce, a talking radio, and a mother who's run away. Again.
A short comedy/drama about life, death, and the mysteries of family.

Sometimes, work really sucks. And sometimes you might end up having a baby in the 5th floor conference room.

"Renee Calarco’s First Stop: Niagara Falls crisply pops the cork on a bottle of Awkward that might’ve come straight from 'The Office.'" - The Washington Post

So how did Marybeth lose all that weight anyway, what with her addiction to Ho-Ho’s and all?

A short play, published in Plays of the Dramathon

Kat's back from Iraq.
Or maybe she's not. She's definitely somewhere.
And she's on the way to somewhere else.

A ten-minute play. Published in Plays of the Dramathon.