Bill Capossere

Bill Capossere

Bill Capossere's work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Colorado Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Rosebud, and other journals, as well as in the anthologies In Short, Short Takes, Man in the Moon, Nancy Drew Anthology, and most recently Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction. His non-fiction has been recognized in the “notable essays” section of several Best American Essays, and he has...
Bill Capossere's work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Colorado Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Rosebud, and other journals, as well as in the anthologies In Short, Short Takes, Man in the Moon, Nancy Drew Anthology, and most recently Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction. His non-fiction has been recognized in the “notable essays” section of several Best American Essays, and he has received Pushcart Prize nominations for fiction and non-fiction. His full-length plays Galileo’s and Drowned have both won the GEVA Theatre Regional Writer Showcase contest and been given staged readings as part of the Showcase and again as part of GEVA’s New Plays Festival. Drowned was also given a reading at Bristol Valley Theatre. His third play After the After, was commissioned by a collaboration of GEVA Theatre and Writers and Books for a developmental reading. Shorter plays have been chosen for performance by the Rochester Fringe Festival and Rochester’s Writers and Books Ten-Minute Play/Two-Character-Two Pages Contests. Other past writing includes reviews for the Los Angeles Review of Books and seven years of regular blogging for Tor.com. His children's poems have been published in Spider and Know magazines. He lives in Rochester NY where he works as an adjunct English instructor at several local colleges. His education background includes an MFA from the Mt. Rainier Writing Workshop.

Plays

  • After the After by Bill Capossere
    Cast: 
    6–7
    ·
    Genre: drama, science fiction
    ·
    Keyword: artificial intelligence, ai + 2 more
    Genre: drama, science fiction
    Keyword: artificial intelligence, ai, grief, death
    CAST
    Kathleen: 80 years old, recently widowed after being married for 56 years
    Hannah: 52 years old, Kathleen’s daughter
    Rob: 55 years old, Hannah’s husband
    Emma: Kathleen and Rob’s 17-year-old daughter
    Hannah and Rob’s AI House: Female voice over
    Kathleen’s AI House/Richard Female/Male voice overs

    Setting: the near-future
    Time span: several...
    CAST
    Kathleen: 80 years old, recently widowed after being married for 56 years
    Hannah: 52 years old, Kathleen’s daughter
    Rob: 55 years old, Hannah’s husband
    Emma: Kathleen and Rob’s 17-year-old daughter
    Hannah and Rob’s AI House: Female voice over
    Kathleen’s AI House/Richard Female/Male voice overs

    Setting: the near-future
    Time span: several years

    Synopsis:
    When Richard dies (choosing a peaceful death at a “Euth Center” rather than a slow death by disease) Kathleen decides to have her House AI be overlaid with his personality, exacerbating even more a bitter conflict with her daughter Hannah, who was already furious over how her father’s illness was kept from her. Hannah’s husband Rob and daughter Emma meanwhile find themselves caught between the two strong personalities. When Emma dies in a car accident partway through the play and Hannah and Rob find themselves opposed in how to handle their grief, it threatens to completely dissolve what is left of their family.
  • Drown by Bill Capossere
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: grief, neighbors + 4 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: grief, neighbors, Relationships, marriage, redemption, guilt
    Stage right is a kitchen, stage left an in-ground pool, partially furnished. The play opens with Lynn and Simon watching their neighbor Roger ferrying furniture from his house to his pool. It’s revealed that Roger’s 5-year-old son Ryan drowned in the pool a week ago, that Roger’s wife Rachel has left, and that Roger blames himself for falling asleep and leaving the back door open, giving Ryan access to the pool...
    Stage right is a kitchen, stage left an in-ground pool, partially furnished. The play opens with Lynn and Simon watching their neighbor Roger ferrying furniture from his house to his pool. It’s revealed that Roger’s 5-year-old son Ryan drowned in the pool a week ago, that Roger’s wife Rachel has left, and that Roger blames himself for falling asleep and leaving the back door open, giving Ryan access to the pool. Lynn and Simon fight and she leaves. Scenes alternate between Simon and Roger, both of whom converse with an older version of Ryan (the same actor with different mannerisms). Simon’s scenes involve his memories of the neighbors and his eventual admission that he might have been the one to leave the door open. These scenes also show a gradual decline in Simon and Lynn’s relationship. Roger’s scenes involve him recreating his son’s room as he talks to Ryan and comes to terms with grief. In the final scene, Simon joins Roger, who explains what he’s doing. Simon confesses, but rather than the truth—that it may have been him who left the door open but he doesn’t know for sure—he tells Roger that he (Simon) definitely was the one, taking the full blame.
  • Galileo's by Bill Capossere
    Cast: 
    8
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: Relationships, family + 4 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: Relationships, family, divorce, teenagers, grief, Depression
    A mix of drama and comedy, Galileo’s takes place in a single afternoon in an old-style café/deli when a young man rushes in and reluctantly ends up taking the people inside hostage. The group, all of whom know each other, includes a pair of life-long friends, a man who believes himself to be Galileo, the café owner, and his often-acerbic niece Erin. How the young gunman found himself in this situation, and how...
    A mix of drama and comedy, Galileo’s takes place in a single afternoon in an old-style café/deli when a young man rushes in and reluctantly ends up taking the people inside hostage. The group, all of whom know each other, includes a pair of life-long friends, a man who believes himself to be Galileo, the café owner, and his often-acerbic niece Erin. How the young gunman found himself in this situation, and how “Galileo” fell into his delusion are two mysteries that are gradually revealed through the play’s action, even as the group’s relationship to the gunman slowly changes.
    Erin, who has several direct address monologues, is the soul of the play, though in Act II, Galileo (nearly all of whose lines are the actual words, spoken or written, of the actual Galileo) becomes much more prominent, not only in terms of his own story, but in his surprising impact on the lives of the others. Beyond the surface action of the day’s events, Galileo’s is a play about connections and relationship, about parents and children, and about our place in this modern world and in the wider universe.