Janielle Kastner

Janielle Kastner is a Dallas-based writer and performer. Most recently she devised an original podcast Untitled Dad Project (Spoke Media), and premiered Playwrights in the Newsroom, a collaboration with co-writer Brigham Mosley based on 2.5 years shadowing the Dallas Morning News. She is currently working on a new play commission from the Dallas Theater Center, where she was an inaugural member of the Dallas Playwrights' Workshop. Janielle was named Best New Playwright in “Dallas Best Of 2016” (Dallas Observer), and was awarded a 2016 Mastermind Award (Dallas Observer) for her work co-founding The Tribe, a producing and incubation collective for emerging artists. Her plays include SWEETPEA (Reading: Dallas Theater Center, Stage West Theatre), HEAVEN'S GATES, HELL'S FLAMES (Reading...

Janielle Kastner is a Dallas-based writer and performer. Most recently she devised an original podcast Untitled Dad Project (Spoke Media), and premiered Playwrights in the Newsroom, a collaboration with co-writer Brigham Mosley based on 2.5 years shadowing the Dallas Morning News. She is currently working on a new play commission from the Dallas Theater Center, where she was an inaugural member of the Dallas Playwrights' Workshop. Janielle was named Best New Playwright in “Dallas Best Of 2016” (Dallas Observer), and was awarded a 2016 Mastermind Award (Dallas Observer) for her work co-founding The Tribe, a producing and incubation collective for emerging artists. Her plays include SWEETPEA (Reading: Dallas Theater Center, Stage West Theatre), HEAVEN'S GATES, HELL'S FLAMES (Reading: WaterTower Theatre), OPHELIA UNDERWATER (WP: The Tribe, 2015; L.I.P. Service Theatre Company, 2018), FEED ME (WP: Stella Adler Theatre, A Light in Dark Places Festival, 2016).

Additionally, she co-runs Dallas cult classics Shakespeare in the Bar and Movies That Should be Musicals, and has performed with Stage West Theatre, Kitchen Dog Theater, Amphibian Stage Productions, The In-Laws, Theatre Three, Cara Mia Theatre, and Shakespeare Dallas. She holds a B.F.A. in Theatre and B.A. in English from Southern Methodist University.

Scripts

Playwrights in the Newsroom

by Janielle Kastner

Synopsis

Playwrights in the Newsroom is an immersive, theatrical experience orchestrated by two playwrights who’ve spent hundreds of hours shadowing The Dallas Morning News. Playwrights Brigham Mosley and Janielle Kastner are fairly literate people (or so they thought) who, until recently, got their news from Buzzfeed and/or Twitter. When given the opportunity to immerse themselves in the newsroom at The Dallas Morning...

Playwrights in the Newsroom is an immersive, theatrical experience orchestrated by two playwrights who’ve spent hundreds of hours shadowing The Dallas Morning News. Playwrights Brigham Mosley and Janielle Kastner are fairly literate people (or so they thought) who, until recently, got their news from Buzzfeed and/or Twitter. When given the opportunity to immerse themselves in the newsroom at The Dallas Morning News to write a play about journalism, these fiction-writing story-embellishers are faced with a new mandate: seek the truth and report it. Their theatrical mission is simple: Figure out what journalism is, why it matters, who we trust to tell us What Happened, and also, along the way, maybe save democracy. No sweat!

Sweetpea

by Janielle Kastner

Synopsis

A couple moves back in together. They fall apart.
Their pet birds move into separate cages. They fall in love.
Pecking, nesting, and mating ensue.
Sweet until it's dark, funny until it's sinister, cozy until it's incestuous, SWEETPEA explores the (im)possibility of intimacy and the absurdity of sharing space.

A couple moves back in together. They fall apart.
Their pet birds move into separate cages. They fall in love.
Pecking, nesting, and mating ensue.
Sweet until it's dark, funny until it's sinister, cozy until it's incestuous, SWEETPEA explores the (im)possibility of intimacy and the absurdity of sharing space.

Ophelia Underwater

by Janielle Kastner

Synopsis

Ophelia had everything: the boyfriend, the plan, the dress. Her life was a comedy.
Until it really, really wasn’t.
Set underwater in the mind of Hamlet’s forgotten, drowned heroine seconds after falling (or jumping?), Ophelia cross-examines her story, her existence, and most importantly - her ending. With the clock (literally) running out of time, Ophelia must decide how much she’s willing to pay to be the...

Ophelia had everything: the boyfriend, the plan, the dress. Her life was a comedy.
Until it really, really wasn’t.
Set underwater in the mind of Hamlet’s forgotten, drowned heroine seconds after falling (or jumping?), Ophelia cross-examines her story, her existence, and most importantly - her ending. With the clock (literally) running out of time, Ophelia must decide how much she’s willing to pay to be the author of her own story.

Kastner’s aggressively contemporary play explores the good news, the bad news, and the ultimate cost of being a very good girl.