Lisa Kenner Grissom

Lisa Kenner Grissom is an LA-based playwright/screenwriter whose work explores complex social truths through intimate relationships. Her award-winning short film Tattoo You is based on her award-winning one-act, Tattoo You (Winner, Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival) and has been screened at over 15 film festivals nationally and internationally. Full-length plays include Here Comes The Night, Four Chambers (Winner, Jean Kennedy Smith Award), Motherland (Finalist, Jewish Plays Project), Building The Perfect Chair (Finalist: TruVoices) and Shelter (Semi-Finalist: PlayPenn). She has been a finalist for the Ashland New Play Festival, O’Neill National Playwright Conference, The Lark, Playwrights' Center, Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship and Heideman Award. Short plays are published by...

Lisa Kenner Grissom is an LA-based playwright/screenwriter whose work explores complex social truths through intimate relationships. Her award-winning short film Tattoo You is based on her award-winning one-act, Tattoo You (Winner, Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival) and has been screened at over 15 film festivals nationally and internationally. Full-length plays include Here Comes The Night, Four Chambers (Winner, Jean Kennedy Smith Award), Motherland (Finalist, Jewish Plays Project), Building The Perfect Chair (Finalist: TruVoices) and Shelter (Semi-Finalist: PlayPenn). She has been a finalist for the Ashland New Play Festival, O’Neill National Playwright Conference, The Lark, Playwrights' Center, Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship and Heideman Award. Short plays are published by Smith & Kraus. Lisa twice attended the O'Neill Playwrights Conference as a Kennedy Center Fellow. Her work has been presented/developed at The Kennedy Center, Antaeus Company, Barrow Group, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Chalk Rep, Clurman Theater, Garage Theatre Ensemble, Inkwell Theater, Jewish Plays Project, Moving Arts, Manhattan Theatre Source and The Road Theatre Company. Originally from Boston, Lisa is a graduate of Wesleyan University and received her MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen from Lesley University, She is a member of the Dramatist Guild, Playwrights Union, Maestra, and Honor Roll. www.lisakennergrissom.com

*None of the plays posted on this page may be performed, produced, reproduced, published, displayed, or copied without written permission of the author.*

Scripts

Here Comes The Night

by Lisa Kenner Grissom

Synopsis

When Olivia, a musician’s wife and climate science advocate, invites Maggie, an old friend turned social media influencer, to spend the weekend while she has an at-home medication abortion, she doesn’t realize that Maggie, although well-intended, is about to throw Olivia off course. And actually, these women of different generations are about to change each other’s lives - all because of a woman’s right to...

When Olivia, a musician’s wife and climate science advocate, invites Maggie, an old friend turned social media influencer, to spend the weekend while she has an at-home medication abortion, she doesn’t realize that Maggie, although well-intended, is about to throw Olivia off course. And actually, these women of different generations are about to change each other’s lives - all because of a woman’s right to choose. As both struggle with their decisions, they ultimately help each other in ways they hadn’t expected, or imagined. What happens when a woman’s right to choose becomes a litmus test for all of her life choices?

INVISIBLE - A WORK IN PROGRESS

by Lisa Kenner Grissom

Synopsis

A theatrical fantasia about a woman grappling with her ever-changing identity after being diagnosed with an invisible chronic illness.

A theatrical fantasia about a woman grappling with her ever-changing identity after being diagnosed with an invisible chronic illness.

Motherland

by Lisa Kenner Grissom

Synopsis

2020 Finalist, Jewish Plays Project National Tour

MOTHERLAND is a generational family drama that follows Lizzie, who, after being away for several years following her father's death, returns home to recoup from a nervous breakdown. Lizzie believes she will be getting some R&R, but instead her aging Russian grandmother is anxious to share memories and asks Lizzie to help her “remember.” Meanwhile, her mother has...

2020 Finalist, Jewish Plays Project National Tour

MOTHERLAND is a generational family drama that follows Lizzie, who, after being away for several years following her father's death, returns home to recoup from a nervous breakdown. Lizzie believes she will be getting some R&R, but instead her aging Russian grandmother is anxious to share memories and asks Lizzie to help her “remember.” Meanwhile, her mother has struck up a friendship with Lizzie's former high school boyfriend, who moved back home as he deals with a divorce. Caught between her family's past and her uncertain future, Lizzie discovers secrets about her mother and grandmother, which force her to turn the mirror on herself.

Four Chambers

by Lisa Kenner Grissom

Synopsis

Finalist, The O'Neill National Playwright Conference
Finalist, The Lark Play Development Center
Finalist, WordBRIDGE
Semi-Finalist, Ashland New Play Festival
Semi-Finalist, PlayPenn

There’s no one way to grieve and Mari is determined to carve her own path. After her husband Daniel dies in a domestic terrorist incident, Mari plays cards with Daniel’s ghost, smokes pot, and shocks her fellow support groupies...

Finalist, The O'Neill National Playwright Conference
Finalist, The Lark Play Development Center
Finalist, WordBRIDGE
Semi-Finalist, Ashland New Play Festival
Semi-Finalist, PlayPenn

There’s no one way to grieve and Mari is determined to carve her own path. After her husband Daniel dies in a domestic terrorist incident, Mari plays cards with Daniel’s ghost, smokes pot, and shocks her fellow support groupies whenever possible. Mari refuses to let go of Daniel but her compartmentalized life starts to fray at the edges. What is the cost of holding on? Of letting go?

Building The Perfect Chair

by Lisa Kenner Grissom

Synopsis

Finalist, TruVoices Reading Series

Creative and romantic partners Connie and Theo are trying to start a design revolution and follow in the footsteps of their artistic muses, Charles and Ray Eames. When they move to New York after winning an award, they want to hit the ground running. But when old romantic entanglements and newly surfaced artistic differences get in the way, they will have to confront what it...

Finalist, TruVoices Reading Series

Creative and romantic partners Connie and Theo are trying to start a design revolution and follow in the footsteps of their artistic muses, Charles and Ray Eames. When they move to New York after winning an award, they want to hit the ground running. But when old romantic entanglements and newly surfaced artistic differences get in the way, they will have to confront what it means to build a perfect chair—or relationship. What sacrifices must they make to make either or both possible?

Tattoo You

by Lisa Kenner Grissom

Synopsis

2013 Winner of the National Ten Minute Play Award, KCACTF
2013 Winner of the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival.
Published by Samuel French.

When two women meet in the bathroom at their 20th high school reunion, their troubled past breaks the cool veneer of the present. Some scars don’t fade away.

2013 Winner of the National Ten Minute Play Award, KCACTF
2013 Winner of the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival.
Published by Samuel French.

When two women meet in the bathroom at their 20th high school reunion, their troubled past breaks the cool veneer of the present. Some scars don’t fade away.

Penelope's Roses

by Lisa Kenner Grissom

Synopsis

Finalist, Heideman Award, Actors Theatre of Louisville, 2015

When an ill-fated young couple hits the road to escape the dim prospects of their present life, their tenuous relationship grows frayed. Can they escape the dirt of the past?​ Is there hope for their future?

Finalist, Heideman Award, Actors Theatre of Louisville, 2015

When an ill-fated young couple hits the road to escape the dim prospects of their present life, their tenuous relationship grows frayed. Can they escape the dirt of the past?​ Is there hope for their future?

The Magic Car

by Lisa Kenner Grissom

Synopsis

A baseball game gone awry sets the stage for an elderly father and middle-aged son who must contend with shifting roles. Produced at Segerstrom Arts Center as part of The Car Plays by Moving Arts Theatre, Los Angeles.

A baseball game gone awry sets the stage for an elderly father and middle-aged son who must contend with shifting roles. Produced at Segerstrom Arts Center as part of The Car Plays by Moving Arts Theatre, Los Angeles.

Patch of Blue

by Lisa Kenner Grissom

Synopsis

Monologue published by Smith & Kraus

When a man visits a church not to pray, but to look at a beautiful stained glass window, the church sexton threatens his presence--and his access to the one place where he can find peace in a dangerous world.

Monologue published by Smith & Kraus

When a man visits a church not to pray, but to look at a beautiful stained glass window, the church sexton threatens his presence--and his access to the one place where he can find peace in a dangerous world.

Home Is A Four-Letter Word

by Lisa Kenner Grissom

Synopsis

Two women from very different worlds collide on a lonely night in a changing city...can they find a way to connect?

Two women from very different worlds collide on a lonely night in a changing city...can they find a way to connect?

Missed Connections

by Lisa Kenner Grissom

Synopsis

When former college “friends with benefits” reunite years later at an airport bar, the past melts into the present like ice cubes in a cocktail glass.

When former college “friends with benefits” reunite years later at an airport bar, the past melts into the present like ice cubes in a cocktail glass.