Emma Goldman-Sherman

FULL LENGTH 2024 Waterworks Finalist, 2019 Henley Rose Finalist You can hear it here: https://www.theparsnipship.com/#listen-now Although Abraham is a Jew from Flushing, and he only has one daughter, Maxine, and her only daughter Racie is a lesbian, Abraham still believes he'll be the Father of Nations. He moves to Tel Aviv in search of his first love, Haajar. When he discovers Haajar's daughter has five Palestinian Muslim sons, he goes to Nablus in the midst of the first Intifada to claim them as his own. Abraham's Daughters is a mythic play about colonialism and identity. 1 man, 4 women, 90 min, unit set

FULL LENGTH Winner of the Richard Maibaum Award for plays addressing social justice. Ismene, Antigone's sister, relives the events that led to Antigone's imprisonment/death, from her own imprisonment in the same cave where she now faces the same choices Antigone did at her end, and in looking back Ismene shows us the steps that led not only to Antigone's tragedy, but also to Antigone's greatness as she opens Ismene's eyes to the idea that women are also human.

FULL-LENGTH, BAPF Finalist, Unicorn Finalist, FUKT is an oddly uplifting personal tale of traumatic memory, murder & private parts! With zombies, a striptease and song, this immersive, fearless journey to bare all is a healing balm for anyone with a secret.

Emma (played by an actor) tries to perform a one-woman show, only Barbara and Bobbie interrupt and demand to be included. Bobbie carries the memories of the traumas Emma survived. Barbara forgot and doesn't want to remember. FUKT is about how three fragmented aspects of a traumatized person come together to heal.

Content Warning: this play deals with traumatic memory about childhood incest and sexual abuse. The play could trigger anyone who is already dealing with (or ignoring) these issues.

FULL-LENGTH (in development) JUST IGNORE ME is what happens when Lores's daughter grows up and gets ready to leave her while Lores still hasn't fully mourned her mother's death. Lores puts on a Show of Shows! Just Ignore Me is written for an ensemble of 6 actors with circus skills. As with anything stuffed with so much silliness, please expect an equal amount of sadness, grief and loss.

FULL LENGTH In MAN & WIFE, Ron & Missy Merriweather start out as mannequins on their own wedding cake. They struggle through 25 years of BiPartisan Marriage navigating climate changes, health care crises including abortion, and especially their children's gender dysphoria while they constantly craft their images on social media. And yet they are desperately seeking their own authentic selves. MAN & WIFE is an Epic Comedy that tries to reunite the country and help us all feel much more human.

Louise Stephens at The Royal Court wrote, "we very much enjoyed reading the play - the bang with which it arrives, its wit, its energy, are all exciting. We felt its power most in the unapologetically theatrical moments..."

FULL LENGTH Jane Chambers Award 1997 In Perfect Women, Rosie starts a youtube channel for her birthday to document the stuff that happens, and a lot happens! This is a romp through early adolescence with lesbian longings, Barbie comes to life and runs off with a stone butch biker chick who used to be Pygmalion's Galatea, you know, just like your own teen years... From body image issues to acceptance -- is it possible?

FULL LENGTH Young Tamar is about to be married, but first she needs to know what happened to her aunt. With a ghost seeking a witness, and a witness committed to silence, only Young Tamar can question how we can find agency and new ways of knowing in an unjust world.

2 rapist culture stories from the Bible, adapted for 3 women. With 3 simple a capella songs, this highly theatrical (easily producible) drama inspires us to see ourselves in a new light.

FULL LENGTH In Tanya’s LIT CLIT, a particular part of Tanya's anatomy is on fire, only she can't really say which part! After years of chronic pain without a diagnosis, prima ballerina Tanya finds Dr. Violet, a urogynecologist with problems of her own. In an epic comic journey, Dr. Violet and Tanya embark on a wild investigation of the AFAB body and the herstory of its treatment.

FULL LENGTH Daryl Roth calls it, "a smart and searing look at gender in our culture." Cum and See - LIVE GIRLS in Pop-Soil! WHORTICULTURE is an unflinching look at 3 girls coming of age in a toxic culture. With narrative and spoken word, this all-female feminist play exposes and stands up against our racialized misogynist world.

FULL LENGTH As Sleeping Beauty's castle awakens, the Mayor of the town of Demensia makes plans to host a circus on the Village Green, but the Queen of the Castle wants her Beauty (who has run off) to be married same day, same place! War and farce ensues... Rapunzel goes rogue. Cinderella robs a department store. And the Prince teams up with Beauty's dog to search for true love. If the boot fits, if the foot lifts, it might be magic!

FULL LENGTH 2020 Unicorn Finalist, 2-hander that could be produced outdoors - After a devastating storm, Grace tries to rebuild, but Mary is desperate to escape. This is my deconstruction of a kitchen sink play with the sink torn from its pipes. This highly physical piece runs in real time as a comic tragedy or a tragic comedy - audience gets to choose on this emotional ride. Why Birds Fly is a mythic play about the primal human instinct to survive.

FULL LENGTH 2024 O'Neill SemiFinalist, WINNERS is a quirky, queer comedy about a clueless, competitive family. With Mom in Limbo and Dad absent the past 8 years, Fran and Cali fail to connect until a late diagnosis of autism changes everything. WINNERS celebrates the possibilities of queer, nonbinary/trans and autistic authenticity!

FULL LENGTH in Development: On a group tour to Palestine, 3 American women grapple with their differences as micro-aggressions meet intersectionality meet lesbian soap!

Kirsten, a young white Catholic newlywed, tries to discover lesbian secrets. Jean, an older white Lutheran, tries to enjoy the miracles of the Holy Land. And Nuala, a Black (biracial) Jewish lesbian, tries to find a way to be her whole self.

FULL LENGTH Bechdel Test Finalist with the Bridge Initiative In ZEN & the Art of Mourning a Mother, Sarah wants to be seen as a loving daughter to her impossible mother, Angie who wants to make a deal: Angie will tell Sarah the story of why she never loved her, if only Sarah will leave her alone to die in peace. But Sarah has a story of her own to tell, and maybe after all the stories are told, Sarah will be able to mourn. 


3 generations of women, 3 different moments in time. . . 5 women try to come to terms with their losses while traveling to New York City on a train that breaks the time/space continuum, and this makes all the difference.

TYA FULL-LENGTH in development. CHATTY Red Squirrel lives in Green Forest with Lonnie Possum, Petra and Alice Rabbit, Mallet the Woodpecker and Toni the Blue Jay. Chatty loves excitement and adventure but when her life is threatened by Whoosh the Weasel, she has to find a new home. A loose adaptation from Thorton W Burges's children's book, The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel, takes on ideas of homelessness, privilege, theft, capitalism, sharing, kindness, screen use, the value of thinking, and how to manage anxiety and loss.

ONE ACT - Once Emily and Jake finish the paperwork for their adoption, their anxiety starts to exceed their coping skills. Adoption is not a walk in the park.

ONE ACT A 2-hander version of my monologue called Someone only different. NO ONE does the dishes - lots and lots of dishes. And her daughter DOLL. Who does your dishes? Have you thanked her recently?

ONE-ACT Now available as a podcast! (see link) After a car bomb goes off in a market in Sha'ab (a community in the northern part of Baghdad), the people have to decide how to go on. Is this the new normal? Should they count the bodies? What counts when every day life is disrupted every day? How we respond to trauma when trauma is happening all the time is a question many of us must confront. This one-act play takes a look at some of those strategies. Counting in Sha'ab's cast of different Iraqis (Sunni, Shi'a, Kurd, male, female) highlights our shared humanity.

ONE ACT When 15 year old Joe breaks his wrist snowboarding, the doctor prescribes Oxycodone for the pain. Joe's dad, George, didn't think anything of it. Joe's mom, Carol, took the pills away. Now Carol is caught in a constant battle to keep herself from going upstairs.

As an alternative, the script can be done with 15 year old Jo cast as female or non-binary/gnc, and there is also a version where Jo is adopted.

Tilda meets Godfrey on the Staten Island Ferry where their lives are forever altered by Curl, the Cellphone Fairy.

Fairies is a play about what we believe in and what we can be, providing a new beginning for both Godfrey and Tilda. Fairies shows us how beliefs can limit us, how science can be awesome, and how we can believe unscientific things and still believe in science! It's also about twins, bullies, truth, honesty, miracles, homophobia, climate change, the beauty of a brisk March day, and Ostara the neopagan Nordic fertility goddess.

ONE ACT based on a quote from John Cage, this play imagines a kind of overwhelming loneliness and what it drives humans to do.

ONE ACT from the Mark Bly Kafka's Train exercise. WYNNE and COUGHLIN are on the train, asleep in each other's arms. Suddenly the train lurches to a halt, and they wake, but they cannot see each other. As they frantically try to find each other again and manage their anxieties in this strange and impossible circumstance, they meet three travelers who each have their own points of view.

ONE-ACT Neighbors by the Sea is about how we get along with each other.
While Sai is swimming in the sea, Noa moves Sai's beach chair. When Sai comes back, they argue. They see each other in very narrow ways. The beauty of theatre is that the audience sees something else. People tell me they read a lot into the play, that it can be about many things. So let it be what you want it to be.

ONE-ACT (6 pages) Not Even the Girlfriend is the story of a young woman who will not be manipulated into losing her power. It's also about the power of the written word.

ONE ACT Etta is too afraid to confront her father, so she lets the truth she remembers in the forest do it for her which causes her father to make a choice of his own.

ONE ACT: A dark comedy based on a true story about the objectification of women set in 1973 when things weren't much different than they are today. An East Coast Jew, A Southern Belle and a California Gal are all married to Company men at a conference at a resort trying to figure out how to move forward and how to manage their lives after an event that upsets them all.

ONE ACT high up on the high wire, Claire propositions Martha while Claire's wife Wanda watches way down below. There are tricks and treats and twists galore in this dark comedy about a hostile work environment set in a queer circus.

ONE ACT: (Not Covid-Related) A mother attempts to educate her family, but they refuse to learn. Involves CIRCUS clowning and juggling as far as you want to take it! Breaks Fourth Wall. FUN FUN FUN!

ONE-ACT A young woman shoots herself in the womb. I offer this play free to be produced by anyone anywhere until we solidify our rights to make our own decisions over our own bodies in this count-ry where people with female parts are treated as chattel property.

ONE-ACT - ZEN is the under-30 minute version of the full-length ZEN & the Art of Mourning a Mother. This version includes 2 of the 5 characters in the longer work. ZEN takes place in 1993 and involves Sarah and Denita, two acquaintances from high school who run into each other at Philadelphia's 30th Street train station on their way to New York City. One is leaving her mother's bedside and the other is on her way to her mother's bedside. It is a play about impending loss that also highlights micro-aggressions and the entitlements white people take from people of color while blinded by our privileges.

SHORT PLAY - Cal tries to help Jane feel better after she is bullied, only Jane doesn't want any help.

TEN MINUTE PLAY -- After ten years of research in the rain forest, Bob returns to teach, but his ex-wife and daughter show up to confront him in class. Bob uses them to teach entomology, and they teach him a lesson in parenting.

10 MIN - Cinderella is a yoga enthusiast in this twisted fairy tale where the Prince, years of questing behind him, stumbles upon her and tries to win her love.

SHORT: Morty takes Joan to Paris, but he doesn't want to take her anywhere else. Joan confronts him about their sex life.

You might remember Joan and Morty from a little play called Toilet Paper.

TYA: 10 MIN Play for 4 young actors any genders/races/abilities/etc. When Winter invites Snow to play in the first snowfall of the season, their siblings come along too. Icy is anxious about meeting Frost, and Frost agrees -- it can be hard as hail to meet new friends! A comedy about warming up to each other.

SHORT - an immersive, confrontational, nasty start to any play festival that wants to highlight feminist issues. Before the curtain speech, while the house lights are still up, Jared and Lia look for seats. They are on a date. And stuff happens.

TEN MINUTE When Racie and Amel realize they have a portal into each other's lives, they trade places so an American Jewish Lesbian can see how a Palestinian Muslim Heterosexual lives and vice versa. Only Racie doesn't want to leave.

SHORT -- DEEP has been redacted for your safety. The content of this play must not be leaked. Classified for high clearance security levels only. Sometimes stories can't be told.

(10 MINUTE) - This is the talk the playwright wishes she had received from her parents, and maybe you'd like it too. A very simple play to perform that was written because we all need to be loved and we all need to be seen. (A Zoom Version is also available)

(10 MIN) This is the talk the playwright wishes she had received from her parents, and maybe you'd like it too. A very simple play to perform that was written because we all need to be loved and we all need to be seen. (A Non-Zoom Version is also available)

TEN MINUTE PLAY After they drop off their son at college, a couple begin to bicker and end up reassessing their entire marriage now that their nest is empty.

10 Minute Version - When 15 year old Joe breaks his wrist snowboarding, the doctor prescribes Oxycodone for the pain. Joe's dad, George, doesn't think anything of it. Joe's mom, Carol, takes the pills away. But Sackler is already advancing on Joe's soul. George blames himself, and Carol is caught in a constant battle to keep herself from going upstairs.

SHORT: Rob went out for milk and eggs while SUE prepared ROB's birthday dinner, but the weather and the bridge and the rain and now Rob's back but -- do you know what happened when Clinton signed NAFTA? Do you know why so many people voted for 45 after Bernie was removed from the race? Do you know what GM did before they moved to Mexico? 6 pages for the workers of America.

TEN MINUTE - LG and Daisy play Hide and Seek in their mother's closet, but no one comes to find them, and they have to grow up. A play about time and space and art-making and losing what we hide and losing more than that.

SHORT -- JANE and TOBY have accidentally gotten stuck between the card tables they set up for their holiday event and the holiday decor and the tree... and after 52 years of marriage, Jane is fed up with the holidays!

TEN MINUTE-- Donna is trying to get her mother to understand her food issues, so she can come home for the holidays and not have to argue. Rhonda, Donna's mother, likes to argue.

TEN MINUTE - When Monica and Dina run into Dina's ex-best friend, Monica gets judgey. Dina calls her on it, and this leads to a mother-daughter moment about looks, judgements, and love.

TEN-MINUTE PLAY Three five year old girls named for poisonous plants (played by grown-up actors) form a clique, but when a fourth girl tries to join them, they find a very dark reason to keep her out.

TEN MINUTE Jeff and Alyssa are out on a date or are they? Challenges our assumptions about how we see women and men. Breaks fourth wall.

10 MINUTE PLAY - Lee wakes Juli for a late night snack, and at first Juli isn't really interested, but eventually she sees the light.

TEN MINUTES Ah, friendship! The greatest love of all! Dennis and Rhoda help Pru manage her heartache until she feels better, and then we find out how they really feel.

10 MIN - Misty is a regular at Swill's bar in a town where nothing ever happens until one night Rapunzel shows up having escaped her tower. It's a twisted fairy tale, frog and all...

TEN MINUTE - On Spring Break, when Jess insists on wearing a special bikini, Hanna, Griffin and Steve set out to change her mind.

TEN MINUTE PLAY - High School students try to convince their teacher that Little Women should not be required reading but their teacher argues for it with some of her last teacherly breaths.

TEN MINUTE PLAY - One cold morning in February, Lily, a high school senior awaiting an ivy league acceptance, refuses to go to school. Her mother, June, tries to figure out why.

10 MIN PLAY Deb doesn't want to become a Bat Mitzvah, so they try to explain this to their mother.

TEN MINUTE PLAY - Have you ever wondered how Polyneices was buried? Andros and Carnos are two guards sent to watch his body rot in the hot summer of 415 BCE, but between the heat and the rot and the stink and the drink, it's a glorious comeday for an epic fail!

TEN MINUTE - A Square and A Circle try to build a wall together. This is a play about getting along, a play about difference. Published by Brooklyn Publishers. Link to rights coming soon!

TEN-MINUTE PLAY The Armenian Genocide (1915), The Bosnian Muslim Genocide (1993) and The Palestinian Genocide (1947 on) all converge on one woman, Bushra, as she realizes she has lost her shoes. An American relief worker tries to help her find her shoes until they realize that Bushra has no feet. An absurd tale of American inability to see the problem or to fix it. With actual genocidal texts.

10 MINUTE At a scenic overlook just outside Sedona, a magical place known for its vortexes, Joe has been tracking Debra. Sometimes when you're trying to leave someone, you really have to transform yourself.
With thanks to Naomi Iizuka at Kirsten Greenidge's Open Write at Company One - Naomi gave a prompt that I used to write this play.

TEN MINUTE PLAY - Cindy and Gladys are step-blisters in a new version of a very old story. You might not even recognize them. In this version, Cindy has OCD and Gladys is bulimic. This is the day they try to break each other of their mental health illnesses in true step-blisterly fashion.

TEN-MINUTE PLAY Luke and Edward are twin brothers struggling with Luke's impending death. Luke wants to give Edward a superpower to help him avoid the grieving process. Through the metaphor of what we see (Luke wears a Spiderman costume) and who we are (the audience) Edward is able to give Luke the best death possible.

SHORT PLAY - (1 page) 2 humans on a stage in front of an audience look out at the 4th wall. There are sounds and lights. Stuff happens in the audience. Stuff happens on stage. It's probably different every time for every person involved.

SHORT A fight and dance piece to protest Pussy-Grabbing. This super-short piece is a humorous physical take on how to fight back using self-defense physicality to take back our agency and show men that Pussy-Grabbing will not be permitted. Very physical -- needs a fight director and perhaps a choreographer. FOR PROTEST and CELEBRATIONS OF FEMALE STRENGTH!

TEN MINUTE - FRAN and CALI are sisters who might unite over their loss as they grieve, and yet their father, STU, makes sure that doesn't happen. A little family drama for Halloween.

TEN MINUTE Julie is always walking into walls. Now she's in love with Leah, hoping not to get hurt, hoping the walls she's always walking into might be soft this time, like curtains.

MONOLOGUE Nora stops by Dora's place to see if she'll go halfsies with her on Mom's Christmas gift this year.

MONOLOGUE Dosia is a woman in a box. Sometimes by speaking we can change things. Maybe not ourselves or our own situation. Maybe we can change our audience. Maybe our audience changes us.

MONOLOGUE Amel, a Palestinian Muslim who is an American citizen, is asked how she likes it here in America. Her experience recounted here is taken from documentation of human rights abuses that I made with/for the Palestine Aid Society and the Palestinian Solidarity Committee during the first Intifada.

MONOLOGUE for a young man, 20s. A young man eulogizes his mother. You arrived late. And then it's over.

MONOLOGUE - Marcia just met the one! And she should be able to share her thoughts even if it's early in the relationship. And it's the holiday season, and that just makes everything seem so possible! Hope springs eternal in this joyful wishful holiday monologue!

MONOLOGUE - Gyda - a female-identified or gnc person of any age or race or ethnicity or ability - tells her partner that she spent the money they were saving for a trip on her new venture to make a youtube channel after being inspired by a goldfish.

MONOLOGUE A Brachiosaurus asks for help and tries to inspire us humans to act in the face of a large crisis.

MONOLOGUE w/optional chorus -- IPHIGENIA does what the title says.

Monologue - Mouse can be played by anyone of any age who was once a little girl. They are trying to figure out a better way to live with themselves in a world that is transactional and unforgiving.

MONOLOGUE a woman struggles with ulcerative colitis

MONOLOGUE in which a character tries to explain who they are, or why they are,
or maybe even how they are who they are, and/or why.

MONOLOGUE - Margaret zooms with her lover Carol during Covid while Margaret's husband is feeling kinda peckish. A play about queerness, assumptions and gaslighting.

Monologue - Debra tries to figure out how to talk menstruation with her daughter without her own traumas getting in the way.

MONOLOGUE A woman not trying to be seen as representative of anything tries to change her life and fix herself and stand up to the crushing hell of her existence while she folds her family's laundry.

Short. A monologue, SOMEONE has been doing the dishes for a very long time. Who does the dishes in your house? If your answer is NO ONE, then you might want to call her.

MONOLOGUE Docent Donna unfortunately loses it while giving a tour of our early reproductive system, one of our most popular exhibits! We are very happy to announce her final retirement for which she has opted after so many years of service with The Museum of Evolution.

SHORT PLAY -- An Iraqi man reconsiders his relationship with an American while, in Iraq, a young Iraqi male warns a married Iraqi woman that the local leader is upset with her. (A companion piece to another play I wrote about Iraq.)

FULL LENGTH - Jane is anxious. As a super in a tenement on the Lower East Side, Jane has a hard time dealing with absence. Jane's tenants, Mrs. Manicotti and Mrs. Manishevitz, have a hard time dealing with Jane's agoraphobia. Her lover Wanda is a traveling salesperson, and their relationship is unraveling. But when Jane's father, Bob, returns from a decade of bug research in the rain forest, Jane decides to blow him up. Because why not? Jane tries to get her mother and her step-mother to help, but only her friend Patty, an ex-Marine and emcee of an open-mike series downtown, can help Jane build a big enough bomb.

This is the play I wrote at the behest of Sherry Kramer when I told her that my father had returned after a 10 year absence, and she said I had to write it before we had our "reunion." So I did. It's full of stereotypes that were created on purpose because I still - at that point - couldn't figure out who I was or why, or how to be, or basically anything. The disability is covered by the anxiety. Jane is autistic and traumatized, but I didn't know this then. To me, this play is a relic, but Jane's monologue (starts p 12) is in an anthology, and people ask for it, so I thought I'd post the play here. Most students aren't allowed to perform the monologue without reading the full-length script, so here it is, flaws and all...

FULL-LENGTH Right before Finals, in a shared group home in a college town, a group of young women and non-binary people deal with the aftermath of a violent incident that killed their roommate, Emily.

A large cast ensemble of 11 (9 mostly college aged women and 2 nonbinary afab people) in the common room of their shared home over the course of 3 days find various ways to avoid or confront the misogyny and violence we all live with in this patriarchal age.