Jayme McGhan

The incredible NASA mission to orbit the moon before the Russians was far more than just a win for a divided America. It was a chance to see ourselves, all of Earth's people--broken, joyful, alone, hopeful--from a celestial perspective. Along with the true stories of the brave Americans who planned and flew the improbable mission, Apollo 8 also tells the fictional stories of an aspiring mathematician in cold-war Cuba, a quickly fading German professor, a broken Rabbi and his estranged son, and a bright-eyed little girl and her deeply saddened mother; all culminating in a grand and divine glimpse of who we are and who we were made to be.

Commissioned by A.D. Players in Houston, TX. For production in April 2022. Available after the world-premiere.

The Dinkel family is headed to Mee-Maw Jane’s East Texas ranch for what might be her last Christmas. The only problem? When the first grandchild arrives, Mee-Maw is already gone. Now how to keep that fact (and her body) from the rest of the family and save Christmas? A Texas Carol is a hysterical and heart-warming story of a family on the brink and the love that binds them. Co-Written with Kevin Dean.

STILL DANCE THE STARS is a hilarious, touching, and highly theatrical story about the struggles of love in the face of unthinkable loss. Six years after their viral marriage proposal video swept the internet, James and Anne Monahan begrudgingly prepare for yet another nationally televised interview with a notoriously difficult TV anchor. Their reluctance to go back on television is trumped by a network paycheck, a sum that will help pull them out of debt and save their jointly owned dance studio. But the burden of keeping up the facade of a perfectly happy marital covenant is beginning to prove too much. The night before the interview, James and Anne drunkenly battle for and against their marriage using a box of stuffed animals won from various carnivals as symbolic characters from their real lives. One special stuffed animal in particular, Hope the Hippo, makes it her quest to rekindle the flame of love that James and Anne once shared. But standing in her way is Captain Lame-O, a media-crazed break-dancing villain, who wants nothing more than to douse that flame. Hope and all of her soft and downy friends must work together to defeat Captain Lame-O once and for all in the most epic and fluffy of all dance battles.

Co-written with Andy Pederson.

July 30, 1945. The U.S.S. Indianapolis is hit by two Japanese torpedoes, killing three-hundred sailors in the initial blast and leaving nine-hundred men to drift helplessly in the Pacific Ocean. 321 survivors are discovered almost five days later drifting aimlessly in the South Pacific. Twenty-two years later, Charles Butler McVay III, the wrongly court-martialed and disgraced Captain of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, puts a gun to his head after many years of night terrors where specters, human and otherwise, call to him from below. In the Soundless Awe is a horrific and heart-breaking imagining of McVay's final nightmare before he pulls the trigger.

For brothers Carl and Chucky Lund, retirement means building a cabin on Pequot Lake, the perfect place for fishing while listening to the Minnesota Twins lose (again). But that dream is destroyed when they are forced out of their jobs and pensions by the airline to which they’ve devoted their lives. With his back against the wall, Carl begins to question how far a man can be pushed before he pushes back.

Life in a Sandcastle is a hilarious and touching exploration of the fates that bring us together and the tax brackets that keep us apart. When two groups of childhood friends from separate worlds decide to take a weekend away to the shores of Lake Michigan, they find themselves fighting for the same beachside fire pit; culminating in a hysterical battle royale that will ultimately prove to heal old wounds and spark new friendships.

Ben throws a surprise birthday party for his wife, Viv. Well, he actually throws eighteen…all in one night. And it’s not for her exactly—more for the child they were never able to have. Because if they’re going to move forward in the adoption process, they’re going to need to heal some old wounds and find a new path forward. 18 Birthdays is a funny, poignant, and tender story about the joys and difficulties of marriage and parenthood.

After eight long years, Marney Rampart, a Nobel prize winning physicist, distinguished professor, and one of the world's foremost atheistic thinkers, will finally release her much-anticipated book, AUTONOMY; a self-described end-all-be-all argument against the existence of God. A Nationally televised debate between Dr. Rampart and the Rev. Dr. Harold Townsing, a famed theistic scientist and evangelical Christian leader, will follow the release. As the hype and anticipation builds, the public begins to take sides, the rhetoric becomes acidic, and the release becomes a Nation-wide phenomenon. The closer the release date gets, the more all parties involved fight vehemently to get an advanced copy of the book. But there's only one copy. And Marney won't let it go. AUTONOMY is a struggle between personal convictions, public proclamations, and what it means to be alone.

Freely, an idealistic young lawyer and salt man for a startup truckers union, has come to Coyote Pass Truck Stop in Green River, Utah, in the guise of a long-haul trucker. His goal: to recruit Mother, the most feared and respected man on the road, along with his Disciples, a gang of notorious thugs who are suspected of hijacking trucks from Mexico and reselling the dope and weapons they contain, to join the union and strengthen the transportation industry. As the eighteen wheels spin and true identities and motivations are revealed, Freely must do battle to win the allegiance of a man who appears to have no allegiances.

A fast-living hedge fund manager in Las Vegas is presented with an incredible short-sale stock scheme by his ex-fiancé and best friend that will collectively make them millions of dollars in two days’ time. But there are a number of substantial personal debts looming over him that he can’t seem to get out from under. And there’s a shadowy man in a trench coat lurking on the edge of the desert that demands the greatest payment of all. Red Rock is a wild, hilarious, hard-hitting glimpse into the dissolute world of on-the-fringe finance.

Jerry, a construction framer, has the world's rarest blood; a truly universal type with advanced healing properties that baffle hematologists. Walter, a wealthy and successful broker, has a son with an extremely rare form of hemophilia. When Jerry, out of fear for his family's well-being, denies the further use of his body in scientific studies, Walter takes it upon himself to insure his son's survival. He kidnaps Jerry's daughter and holds her ransom for weekly payments of the life-giving blood. But Jerry has different plans. The Sweet Stuff is a gut-wrenching exploration of social power and the real commodities that rule our lives.

Dublin. 1737. Seamus Dillard, a young Anglo-Irishman, is given a large parcel of land by Lord William Howell, a wealthy English landowner, in exchange for his allegiance and sworn testimony upholding the virtues of Dublin's social elite. Against the will of his wife Mildred, Seamus is soon sucked in to a life of wealth, power, and debauchery. As Seamus learns the true nature of his newfound company and Lord Howell's ultimate plans for Ireland, he is struck with a devastating decision; keep his power and lose his wife, or rise against the Hellfire Club and lose his life. Hellfire is a brutal look at the cost of success amidst a dark world.

May 2, 1931. The Tierney family find themselves amongst thousands of immigrant laborers squatting in a shantytown in the harsh Nevada desert, waiting for work on the Boulder Dam. In order to insure his spot on the worksite, Ennis Tierney joins the International Workers of the World. Fear of devastating pay-cuts to the workers is soon a reality and the Wobblies make the polarizing decision to strike. Ennis’ eighteen-year-old son is recruited by local law-enforcement to discover the clandestine identity of the union organizer and stop the strike before it can happen. “Damn the River Deep” is a sweeping story set in a severe time and landscape, exploring the loyalty that both keeps us together and tears us apart.

1894. Marla Ives, the daughter of a railroad giant and a columnist for the very first American socialist magazine, refuses to live inside the mansion on her family's St. Paul, MN estate, preferring to lay her head in the backyard servants quarters as a political statement against her capitalist father. She finds comfort there amongst the likes of the housekeeper, Celia, a boisterous and proud woman, as well as the Ives estate gardner, Willy Beau Dilly, a thin and frail man who has pined for Marla through his poetry for years. On the eve of Marla's engagement party, Celia's health turns for the worse, and Willy goes to Norman, Marla's betrothed and heir to a massive MN grain operation, for a clandestine loan to try to help her. But there's one catch. Willy must perform a miracle first. WILLY BEAU DILLY is a quiet and beautiful play about what it means to truly love.

Jonas is a Las Vegas stand-up in his thirties who can't seem to get his act together. While helping his ex-fiance, Ruth-Anne, sell her odd retro video games at a gaming convention, he happens upon Mun-Hee "Monkey" Lim, a rockstar video game designer who is in town to promote the final game in his acclaimed Red Shore series. Monkey takes an immediate liking to Jonas and makes him an extremely strange offer: Monkey will pay Jonas fifty thousand dollars per day to be his own personal jester. But there's something distressing in Monkey's words and deeds that call his generous offer in to question. And there's something in Jonas' past that he needs to stop joking about.

Seven years from now in the basement laboratory of a family home, Harris, a metaphysical scientist obsessed with spiritual death, will invent the world's first bionic soul. Once ingested, the device will seek out the soul within the body, destroy it, and replace it, ultimately erasing all transgression and leaving humanity completely free of sin. Harris' wife, Murielle, a sort of architect, has her own fixation with building massive towers. Jeremy, their young teenage son, is infatuated with the decapitation of small rodents and a strange specter, The Man in the Attic, who resides in the upper floor of the family home. The family soon witnesses the true nature and the awful effects of Harris' creation. Will Murielle's fight to regain her family and the love they once shared bare fruit? Or will the branches of love wither and die with their attempts to save themselves from the approaching darkness?