Valerie Work

Valerie Work

Valerie Work is a long-time downtown/experimental playwright who has been primarily writing musical books and lyrics since 2019. Her musical theater projects include full-length The Scars of Your Body with composer Evan Johnson, twenty-minute "ABCD" with composer Micah Dombrower, one-act “Is This Who We Are, as Beavers?” with composer John Coyne and bookwriter Holly Hepp-Galvan, and in-progress full-...
Valerie Work is a long-time downtown/experimental playwright who has been primarily writing musical books and lyrics since 2019. Her musical theater projects include full-length The Scars of Your Body with composer Evan Johnson, twenty-minute "ABCD" with composer Micah Dombrower, one-act “Is This Who We Are, as Beavers?” with composer John Coyne and bookwriter Holly Hepp-Galvan, and in-progress full-length The Tiniest Head Horn. She also has an interest in opera and has written the text of several arias and a song cycle that premiered at Georgetown University.

Valerie's darkly comic writing combines genre elements, especially drawn from science and dystopian fiction, with language that alternates fluidly between poetry and hyperrealism. She loves to create distinctive, offbeat, richly detailed fictional worlds, to exploit the rhythmic properties of language, and to spotlight dorky, quirky, unconventional characters from varied backgrounds. Common themes in her work include gender politics, urban anxieties, education, nerd culture, parent-child relationships and coming of age in a complex modern world.

Valerie's musicals, plays and short film have been developed/produced at/by The New Ohio, The Brick, The Tank, The Bushwick Starr, The Exponential Festival, 14th Street Y, NYPL for the Performing Arts, and more. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist and a veteran of labs, selective writers’ groups, development programs and writers’ colonies. Currently, she is developing the book and lyrics of new musical The Tiniest Head Horn with Fresh Ground Pepper’s PlayGround PlayGroup.

Valerie currently teaches composition at CUNY City Tech and runs her own private tutoring practice. She holds a B.A. from Yale and an MFA from Brooklyn College.

Plays

  • The Scars of Your Body by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    10–16
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 6 more
    ·
    Keyword: Dystopia, future + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, musical, political, science fiction, tragedy
    Keyword: Dystopia, future, android, aliens, outer space, musical, environment, power, upward mobility, space colonization
    The Scars of Your Body is a full-length musical with book and lyrics by Valerie Work and music by Evan Johnson. In a dystopian future in which humans have fled Earth’s damaged environment to colonize Alpha Centauri, an optimistic, if impoverished young Boy lands a coveted Sideshow Boy job at a touring show managed by the native Alanark race. In the course of his duties, he dares to fall in love with the...
    The Scars of Your Body is a full-length musical with book and lyrics by Valerie Work and music by Evan Johnson. In a dystopian future in which humans have fled Earth’s damaged environment to colonize Alpha Centauri, an optimistic, if impoverished young Boy lands a coveted Sideshow Boy job at a touring show managed by the native Alanark race. In the course of his duties, he dares to fall in love with the Abundantly Scarred Woman, but the demanding Alanark Barker barely allows the Boy time to catch his breath, much less spend time with his love. The Boy and Woman hatch a risky plan to escape his watchful eye - and their binding contracts.

    This project is currently an advanced draft that we are seeking to develop through concert readings, workshops and similar opportunities. Inquiries related to readings, workshop productions and other developmental showings are highly welcome. Demos of several representative songs are available through the links provided. A complete set of demos and the score are available on request.
  • Is This Who We Are, as Beavers? by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: Pennsylvania, book banning + 8 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, dark comedy, musical, political
    Keyword: Pennsylvania, book banning, high school, Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet, small town, parents, education, political gridlock, school boards
    "Is This Who We Are, as Beavers?" is a 20-minute musical with book by Holly Hepp-Galvan, lyrics by Valerie Work and music by John Coyne. It was developed as part of the 2022 New York Library for Performing Arts Across a Crowded Room program and is now available for productions, concert readings, and other opportunities.

    In politically divided, fictional Beavertown, PA, most citizens...
    "Is This Who We Are, as Beavers?" is a 20-minute musical with book by Holly Hepp-Galvan, lyrics by Valerie Work and music by John Coyne. It was developed as part of the 2022 New York Library for Performing Arts Across a Crowded Room program and is now available for productions, concert readings, and other opportunities.

    In politically divided, fictional Beavertown, PA, most citizens hotly anticipate the upcoming school board meeting vote on whether or not to ban Romeo & Juliet from the high school English curriculum, but recent transplant liberal Roberto is more concerned about whether and how to confess his romantic feelings for conservative fellow single parent Jennifer. The conservative Vice Principal Stetson is angling to steal the principal’s job, while liberal English teacher Rita is determined to block him at all costs. Mascot Mark just wants everyone to get along. Tempers run high and mayhem ensues in this comic adaptation of Romeo & Juliet.

    Key songs are included with links below. A full set of demos and the score are available on request.
  • "ABCD" by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 5 more
    ·
    Keyword: software development, teens + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, horror, musical, opera, science fiction
    Keyword: software development, teens, test prep, college admissions, mothers, daughters, mother-daughter relationships, tech industry, computers, phone apps
    "ABCD" is a music-forward, fully underscored twenty-minute musical with book and lyrics by Valerie Work and music by Micah Dombrower. Feuding startup cofounders Mina and Ellen disagree about next steps regarding their new college admissions test prep app. When Mina sends it to their teen daughters Wendy and Layne, the girls begin to speak exclusively in the form of multiple choice questions. Horrified...
    "ABCD" is a music-forward, fully underscored twenty-minute musical with book and lyrics by Valerie Work and music by Micah Dombrower. Feuding startup cofounders Mina and Ellen disagree about next steps regarding their new college admissions test prep app. When Mina sends it to their teen daughters Wendy and Layne, the girls begin to speak exclusively in the form of multiple choice questions. Horrified, the women race to save their daughters from its influence.

    "ABCD" is available for concert readings, productions and other opportunities. The libretto and selected song demos are posted here. For a full set of demos and the score, please contact me directly.
  • The Test by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    7
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 4 more
    ·
    Keyword: SAT, teens + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, horror, young audiences
    Keyword: SAT, teens, feminism, mothers, daughters, mother-daughter relationships, college admissions, Ambition, standardized tests, Catskills
    The Test, an 80-minute full-length play of equal appeal to teens, their parents and other adult audiences, charts the journey of a standardized test that yearns to become a play. The Keepers of the Gate assign The Test a “final exam” of her own: with the human world at her disposal, she must create, Option A, a standardized test that is also a play, or, Option B, a play that is also a standardized test. The...
    The Test, an 80-minute full-length play of equal appeal to teens, their parents and other adult audiences, charts the journey of a standardized test that yearns to become a play. The Keepers of the Gate assign The Test a “final exam” of her own: with the human world at her disposal, she must create, Option A, a standardized test that is also a play, or, Option B, a play that is also a standardized test. The Test uses disaffected 12-year-old Rat to gain access to a household that also includes her 16-year-old sister Sam, who is struggling to prepare for the SAT; her mother Morgan, a single mom who feels much more successful as a CEO than a parent; housekeeper Josefa, who is trying to determine her path in the wake of her mother’s death; and tutor Angela, a 22-year-old who desperately needs to hack post-college life. After Sam and Morgan have a major fight resulting from a disappointing practice test result, Sam disappears. The Test has taken her to a remote, haunted region of the Catskill Mountains. Morgan, Josefa, Angela and Rat must each complete a personalized standardized test in order to reconnect with Sam and move forward with her personal life challenge. The Test anxiously administers and manipulates each woman’s “exam,” determined to become a real play at last.
  • Bad Roommate by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: women, New York + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental
    Keyword: women, New York, Brooklyn, roommates, feminism, emerging adult, mice, millennials, friendship, memory
    Bad Roommate, an intermissionless 80-minute full-length play, explores the life cycle of a new roommate relationship, from the sublet viewing until the moment when the status quo of mutual toleration is established. There are two main characters, both female, Dara (early-mid-20s) and Charon (early-mid-30s), and a Mouse (male actor) who takes up residence mid-play. Bad Roommate opens with Charon showing the...
    Bad Roommate, an intermissionless 80-minute full-length play, explores the life cycle of a new roommate relationship, from the sublet viewing until the moment when the status quo of mutual toleration is established. There are two main characters, both female, Dara (early-mid-20s) and Charon (early-mid-30s), and a Mouse (male actor) who takes up residence mid-play. Bad Roommate opens with Charon showing the apartment to Dara, a candidate she has found on Craigslist to replace the current resident of the second bedroom of her two-bedroom Brooklyn apartment. Dara moves in and learns the secrets of the apartment. Various scenes of roommate bonding and minor squabbles ensue. Eventually the Mouse appears, and the focus shifts to how to get rid of it and cope with its presence in the meantime. In a climactic scene, Charon squashes the mouse by accident and the women dispose of the body. Thematically, the story serves as a framework to explore the spatial components of self-definition, memory and intimacy.
  • The Party Play by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: party, millennials + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, immersive
    Keyword: party, millennials, Brooklyn, New York City, roommates, friends, art, Ambition, recession
    The Party Play, a 90-minute intermissionless full-length play, concerns two twentysomething roommates who hold a party to bid farewell to each other and their apartment in Brooklyn. The year has been kind to Paul, who is moving into his own place, and less so to Carl, who is moving back in with his parents upstate. Drawing influence from Mrs. Dalloway and Ecclesiastes, the play explores the impact the recession...
    The Party Play, a 90-minute intermissionless full-length play, concerns two twentysomething roommates who hold a party to bid farewell to each other and their apartment in Brooklyn. The year has been kind to Paul, who is moving into his own place, and less so to Carl, who is moving back in with his parents upstate. Drawing influence from Mrs. Dalloway and Ecclesiastes, the play explores the impact the recession has had on attitudes, ambitions and relationships in a series of snapshot-like scenes flowing in reverse chronological order over the course of a single evening. The form gives shape to the disorientation the characters experience upon having their lives upended by outside forces.
  • A Week at the NJ Shore by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 4 more
    ·
    Keyword: beach, vacation + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, immersive, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: beach, vacation, emerging adult, millennials, magical realism, friends, friendship, New Jersey, twenties
    A Week at the NJ Shore, an 80-minute intermissionless full-length play, plots the adventures of five twentysomething friends from New York City who embark on a weeklong beach vacation. When it rains, tempers fray, and a series of strange events transpires, involving a monster sofa, invading figurines and a giant crab. The group’s reactions to the expected and unexpected ultimately accumulate into an offbeat,...
    A Week at the NJ Shore, an 80-minute intermissionless full-length play, plots the adventures of five twentysomething friends from New York City who embark on a weeklong beach vacation. When it rains, tempers fray, and a series of strange events transpires, involving a monster sofa, invading figurines and a giant crab. The group’s reactions to the expected and unexpected ultimately accumulate into an offbeat, minimalist portrait of group behavior and postadolescent life.
  • The Fighting Frogs vs. Victoria Vanderbilt by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    14–16
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: middle school, bullying + 7 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, fantasy, young audiences
    Keyword: middle school, bullying, friendship, teens, memory, fairy tales, stereotypes, nerd culture, small town
    The Fighting Frogs vs. Victoria Vanderbilt is an intermissionless, approximately 80-minute full-length play written for 14-16 performers, most or all of whom are middle school-aged. Stuck on a Freshman English assignment to write a story about his first love, nineteen-year-old College Sam returns to his former Slumberburg Middle School for inspiration. With an assist from the old Fighting Frog mascot, College...
    The Fighting Frogs vs. Victoria Vanderbilt is an intermissionless, approximately 80-minute full-length play written for 14-16 performers, most or all of whom are middle school-aged. Stuck on a Freshman English assignment to write a story about his first love, nineteen-year-old College Sam returns to his former Slumberburg Middle School for inspiration. With an assist from the old Fighting Frog mascot, College Sam reconstructs the final months of his eighth grade year. New arrival Victoria threatens not only his soon-to-graduate class's established routines but also Sam's best friend, Wally, who is still mourning the sudden death of her father and negotiating her mother's subsequent remarriage. Distracted by her husband's illness, checked-out teacher Ms. Plimplebottom ignores problematic dynamics developing in her classroom and places Victoria in charge of the class's end-of-eighth-grade play, "Cinderella." Conflict between Wally and Victoria escalates, forcing the other students, including 14-year-old Sam, to choose sides, and culminates in a tragically cruel ending to the opening night performance that still haunts Sam nearly five years later.
  • The Collected Rules of Gifted Camp by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 4 more
    ·
    Keyword: teens, camp + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, horror, tragedy
    Keyword: teens, camp, gifted, summer, roommates, tya, friendship, nerd culture, magical realism
    “The Collected Rules of Gifted Camp” is an approximately 50-minute darkly comic play, well-suited to Fringe festivals and one-act play nights. The characters are ages 15-21, making it a strong choice for high schools and colleges, although it is edgy enough to appeal to older theater-goers and presentational enough to be readily performed by actors in their 20s. Leila and Annie, age 15, arrive at a selective...
    “The Collected Rules of Gifted Camp” is an approximately 50-minute darkly comic play, well-suited to Fringe festivals and one-act play nights. The characters are ages 15-21, making it a strong choice for high schools and colleges, although it is edgy enough to appeal to older theater-goers and presentational enough to be readily performed by actors in their 20s. Leila and Annie, age 15, arrive at a selective summer program for academically gifted students, determined to pursue their respective camp goals (among them “to fall in love!” and “immortality!” respectively). Meanwhile their counselor, Rose, has spent seven summers at this program, and struggles to figure out what else she can do with her life after her rapidly-approaching senior year of college. Leila acquires a camp boyfriend, Kevin, enraging her roommate Annie. The frenemies dodge flying peppermints, deformed Noxema jars, aggressive squirrels, and the ever-present threat of swine flu – until Kevin initiates an ultimately fatal communication fail at the Saturday night costume dance. Not your guidance counselor’s teen suicide play, “The Collected Rules of Gifted Camp” merges a clear narrative with an anthology structure that derives influence from the official camp rulebook.
  • Flat Thing by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    6–11
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 5 more
    ·
    Keyword: Mark Twain, children + 7 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, fable/folktale, immersive, movement/physical, pageant, young audiences
    Keyword: Mark Twain, children, puppets, mirror, animals, forest, friends, self-esteem, cats
    "Flat Thing" is a roughly 45-minute adaptation of Mark Twain's short story "A Fable" intended particularly for 3-8-year-old children, but enjoyable for all ages. An elderly Mark Twain is near despair with writer's block. He falls asleep. His house Cat discovers a mirror that he has left uncovered, is amazed to see her reflection, and travels along a path to a clubhouse in the woods...
    "Flat Thing" is a roughly 45-minute adaptation of Mark Twain's short story "A Fable" intended particularly for 3-8-year-old children, but enjoyable for all ages. An elderly Mark Twain is near despair with writer's block. He falls asleep. His house Cat discovers a mirror that he has left uncovered, is amazed to see her reflection, and travels along a path to a clubhouse in the woods, where she reports on the "flat thing" to her friends Donkey, Snake and Ostrich. Snake and Ostrich are intrigued, but Donkey does not believe it could be real. He goes to investigate for himself, and sees a donkey in the mirror. On his return, the Elephant King arrives, and insists that first Snake and then Ostrich go to examine the flat thing. Finally, the Elephant King declares that he and all the animals will go together to resolve the mystery. The King's encounter with the mirror ends with a festive dance party that wakes Twain, who is astonished by his visitors and inspired to finish his tale.
  • Hellbender: Live by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: animals, environment + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, experimental, fantasy, political
    Keyword: animals, environment, conservation, Pennsylvania, science, environmentalism, magical realism, activism, ecology, government
    Ron the Eastern hellbender salamander, recently named Pennsylvania's official State Amphibian, is excited to be featured on daytime talk show "Live with Nate," but the interview unexpectedly deteriorates when Ron is confronted with a threat to his riverbed home.
  • Rrrrr Argh Blech: A Morning Play by Valerie Work
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, experimental + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: morning, couples + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, experimental, immersive
    Keyword: morning, couples, Relationships, existential, Realism, urban, Apartment, animals, procrastination, dark comedy
    In this 10-12 minute play with interchangeable scenes, a couple wakes up on a weekday morning and leaves their apartment, dodging various threats to their relationship and respective personhoods, including their partner’s failings, urban wildlife and death.
  • Crossing the Cow Field, or An Ode to Inertia by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 6 more
    ·
    Keyword: cow, fields + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, experimental, fable/folktale, farce, horror, immersive, tragedy
    Keyword: cow, fields, country, rural, farm, boredom, angst, creativity
    “Crossing the Cow Field, or An Ode to Inertia,” a ten minute one-act play, concerns the subject of inertia, and consists of two people deciding whether or not to cross a field full of cows.
  • Sick by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: college, high school + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, experimental, young audiences
    Keyword: college, high school, illness, medicine, teenagers, nerd culture, pneumonia, black death, overachiever, mononucleosis
    Fever has pneumonia, Chills has mono, and when they meet each finds a willing audience and relates the saga of her illness and the catalogue of her symptoms in great detail. A rowdy pillow fight ensues. Chills lectures Fever on the Black Death and as Fever listens, she falls into a delirious nightmare. When she awakens, Chills abandons her.
  • You Can't Control Me by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, experimental + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: Robots, artificial intelligence + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, experimental, immersive
    Keyword: Robots, artificial intelligence, science, cleverbot, bar, conference, comedy
    This play was generated by feeding dialogue into the Cleverbot AI system. Role 1 was the dialogue penned by the playwright, and role 2 consists of Cleverbot's verbatim responses. 1 and 2 meet at a bar and have a wide-ranging conversation concluding with an argument.
  • In Line by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    3–4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: lines, bathroom + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: lines, bathroom, women's bathroom, disappearance, magical realism, black friday, mall, shopping, women
    Jean, who has a problem with interpersonal assertiveness, is waiting in a seemingly endless line for the women's bathroom in a department store on Black Friday. She is joined by Marlene and her daughter Jennifer. A Mysterious Woman is hogging the bathroom stall while garbling endlessly on a cell phone call, and the three women must reach a decision about what to do. In the end, all three women are...
    Jean, who has a problem with interpersonal assertiveness, is waiting in a seemingly endless line for the women's bathroom in a department store on Black Friday. She is joined by Marlene and her daughter Jennifer. A Mysterious Woman is hogging the bathroom stall while garbling endlessly on a cell phone call, and the three women must reach a decision about what to do. In the end, all three women are astonished, and Jean learns a valuable life lesson.
  • Time and Place by Valerie Work
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, immersive + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: bar, time + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, immersive, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: bar, time, bartender, happy hour, disappearance, site-specific
    A man and two women with no previous relationships get into an argument after work in a bar. The bartender disappears and the relative strangers must decide how to proceed.