Erin Marie Panttaja

Erin Marie Panttaja

Erin Marie Panttaja has lived and worked around Boston and San Francisco. She was a recipient of a Planet Earth New Play Festival commission based on her 2015 Best of PlayGround, Preapocalyptica. It went on to have several readings around the Bay Area and to be a semifinalist for the O'Neill in 2016 and BETC Generations 2017. Rossum’s Universal Truckers and A Different Way To Tell Him I Love You appeared...
Erin Marie Panttaja has lived and worked around Boston and San Francisco. She was a recipient of a Planet Earth New Play Festival commission based on her 2015 Best of PlayGround, Preapocalyptica. It went on to have several readings around the Bay Area and to be a semifinalist for the O'Neill in 2016 and BETC Generations 2017. Rossum’s Universal Truckers and A Different Way To Tell Him I Love You appeared in PlayGround last year. She has a degree from MIT and has worked with robotics, voice systems, and video games. Her other works have been produced in California and Ireland. She is a member of the PlayGround Writers Company and the Dramatists Guild. She is a member of the PlayGround Resident Playwrights for the 2017-2018 season.

Plays

  • If you have to go there by Erin Marie Panttaja
    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: drama, political
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    Keyword: climate change, environmentalism + 1 more
    Genre: drama, political
    Keyword: climate change, environmentalism, california
    If you have to go there is the story of intentional, chosen family and the interface of that with the kind of family that is thrown together by circumstance. It is the story of three Thanksgivings and the fires that tear apart their communities. Cora and Adele have been neighbors for years when a fire burns through their city, destroying Adele’s home. Adele chooses to stay and try to rebuild in the ashes.
  • Preapocalyptica by Erin Marie Panttaja
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama
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    Keyword: environment, water + 5 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: environment, water, drought, Hildegard, conservation, technology, women
    Preapocalyptica is about a fundamental disconnect: how can we live with horrible things, with a view that the world might end, and soon, within our or our children’s lifetimes, and still continue? How can we believe the news is dire, and that a solution may not occur, and yet continue to raise our children? How can we find ways to meaningfully contribute to change? How can we combat the meaningless (and figure...
    Preapocalyptica is about a fundamental disconnect: how can we live with horrible things, with a view that the world might end, and soon, within our or our children’s lifetimes, and still continue? How can we believe the news is dire, and that a solution may not occur, and yet continue to raise our children? How can we find ways to meaningfully contribute to change? How can we combat the meaningless (and figure out what it is). How do we go on in the face of destruction?
  • Rossum's Robot Truckers by Erin Marie Panttaja
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: drama, political
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    Keyword: technology, Robots + 4 more
    Genre: drama, political
    Keyword: technology, Robots, kapek, ethnography, interview, Truckers
    An ethnographer is interviewing a long distance trucker to build the future of autonomous trucks.
  • Waiting by Erin Marie Panttaja
    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: drama, experimental + 1 more
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    Keyword: pregnancy, women + 2 more
    Genre: drama, experimental, fantasy
    Keyword: pregnancy, women, technology, medicine
    Software engineer Maddy is 20 weeks pregnant. At a routine doctor’s appointment she is put on bed rest for the rest of her pregnancy, just before her husband Adam is scheduled to go to China on business. Maddy weathers the next few months with the help of her mother and a friend, but has to cope with the loss of her professional identity, her health, and her independence, all for a fragile hope that the baby will be born okay.
  • Katya's Opuscule by Erin Marie Panttaja
    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: retirement, puppets + 3 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: retirement, puppets, writing, dragon, family
    Katya's Opuscule tells the story of a strong, mature woman trying to find her place in the world. Katya's story is told as a combination of present action, flashbacks to her past, and stories (the opuscules of the title) told by her future self. The stories step outside of the narrative of the piece and use puppetry as spectacle to show glimpses of her past and future. Use of three actors to play the...
    Katya's Opuscule tells the story of a strong, mature woman trying to find her place in the world. Katya's story is told as a combination of present action, flashbacks to her past, and stories (the opuscules of the title) told by her future self. The stories step outside of the narrative of the piece and use puppetry as spectacle to show glimpses of her past and future. Use of three actors to play the lead and one actor to play the significant men in her life emphasize the parallels she is trying to escape from. Katya's Opuscule was written for 6-8 actors with some double casting, and has not been produced.
  • Tawawert by Erin Marie Panttaja
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: drama, fable/folktale + 1 more
    Genre: drama, fable/folktale, fantasy
    Birth is primal. It is touching and hilarious and dangerous and one of the most purely animal experiences that we still go through in this age of concrete and cell phones. It is the first thing each of us did in our lives. I have twin daughters. When I was pregnant with them, Tawawert was an image that came to me again and again. I love her place as a household goddess. I love her juxtaposition of the mundanity...
    Birth is primal. It is touching and hilarious and dangerous and one of the most purely animal experiences that we still go through in this age of concrete and cell phones. It is the first thing each of us did in our lives. I have twin daughters. When I was pregnant with them, Tawawert was an image that came to me again and again. I love her place as a household goddess. I love her juxtaposition of the mundanity of pregnancy and childbirth with the weightiness of life and death. I also love her physicality: the hippopotamus is ponderous and unwieldily, and yet hippos kill 500 people a year, and are one of the most dangerous animal threats to human beings.
  • A Different Way to Tell Him I Love You by Erin Marie Panttaja
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: drama, musical + 1 more
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    Keyword: military, technology + 1 more
    Genre: drama, musical, political
    Keyword: military, technology, skype
    10-minute musical based on the Misner and Smith song "A Different Way to Tell Him I Love You." Janelle decides to protest the war even though her husband is currently deployed.
  • Uber for Fruit by Erin Marie Panttaja
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: technology, start-ups + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, parody/spoof, satire
    Keyword: technology, start-ups, women
    It's like Uber. For fruit.