Elaine Liner

Elaine Liner

Elaine Liner is a playwright and creative mentor in Dallas, Texas. She typed journalism for many newspapers and magazines, including Dallas Observer, The New York Times, Toledo Blade, Chicago Tribune, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Dallas Morning News, Dallas Times Herald, San Antonio Express-News, Washington Post, Toronto Star, TV Guide Canada, Women's Wear Daily, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and US magazine....
Elaine Liner is a playwright and creative mentor in Dallas, Texas. She typed journalism for many newspapers and magazines, including Dallas Observer, The New York Times, Toledo Blade, Chicago Tribune, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Dallas Morning News, Dallas Times Herald, San Antonio Express-News, Washington Post, Toronto Star, TV Guide Canada, Women's Wear Daily, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and US magazine.

At the age of 59, she made her professional debut as a playwright and solo performer with her one-woman comedy "Sweater Curse: A Yarn about Love" at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2013, receiving five-star reviews and boisterous full houses. She returned with the show to to EdFringe 2014 and has performed it dozens of theaters in the US, including the Granbury Opera House (TX), the Margo Jones Theatre in Dallas, San Antonio's Classic Theatre, and the Shadowbox Theatre in New Orleans. Elaine has twice been the Thurber House playwright-in-residence in Columbus, Ohio, and was a 2006 fellow at the O'Neill Playwrights Center in Connecticut. In 2017, Elaine was one of six winners in the American Association of Community Theatres NewPlayFest with her two-act comedy "Finishing School," which has since been published by and is licensed through Dramatic Publishing. Productions of that play have been hits in theaters in Indiana, Minnesota, and Nebraska (so far).

When she's not typing, she collects old manual typewriters at flea markets from the Rose Bowl to the outskirts of Paris. She calls them "analog Twitter." She also sells vintage clothing, bags, and jewelry on Poshmark, eBay, and Mercari.

Elaine got her undergrad theater degree from Trinity University, studying under regional theater titan Paul Baker and playwright Eugene McKinney. Her master's is from SMU.

Plays

  • Dear Donald/Dear Hillary (Their Secret Correspondence) by Elaine Liner
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, political + 1 more
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    Keyword: Politics, american satire + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, political, satire
    Keyword: Politics, american satire, contemporary comedy, contemporary satire, epistolary
    Imagine an 8-year-old millionaire in Forest Hills, Queens, getting paired up as a pen pal to a feisty 8-year-old girl in Chicago. They start writing letters and keep the correspondence going, sporadically through high school, college, marriages and divorces (his), scandals (his and hers) -- right up to November 2020.

    Inspired by AR Gurney's "Love Letters," this epistolary comedy...
    Imagine an 8-year-old millionaire in Forest Hills, Queens, getting paired up as a pen pal to a feisty 8-year-old girl in Chicago. They start writing letters and keep the correspondence going, sporadically through high school, college, marriages and divorces (his), scandals (his and hers) -- right up to November 2020.

    Inspired by AR Gurney's "Love Letters," this epistolary comedy two-hander is drawn from things they really said ... and things they should have.

    Best aspect: the actors read the dialogue, just like the Gurney play. Minimal set (two desks? two music stands? two lecterns?). Ability to impersonate the actual people not required.
  • The Catfish & The Mermaid: a 10-minute play by Elaine Liner
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, fable/folktale + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: feminism, swimming + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, fable/folktale, young audiences
    Keyword: feminism, swimming, comedy, marriage, classical mythology
    A twist on an old Texas myth about a catfish who turns a girl into a mermaid. In this new version, the girl has to choose between her first love - swimming in the river - and the boring boy she's supposed to marry. A beguiling catfish offers an alternative, but the girl has to make the choice. It's lighthearted. No swearing. Child-appropriate. And "woke."
  • Finishing School by Elaine Liner
    Cast: 
    4–5
    ·
    Genre: comedy, romantic comedy
    ·
    Keyword: adult comedy, happy ending
    Genre: comedy, romantic comedy
    Keyword: adult comedy, happy ending
    This comedy about life’s second act finds older gents Al and Wizzer meeting on a park bench every morning to read and mock newspaper obits. Their daily rituals— shooting the bull about sports, women loved and lost and the many annoyances of aging—are suddenly shaken up by the appearance of a friendly young woman and her flirty mom. Wizzer pep-talks lonely widower Al to convince him to break out of his self-...
    This comedy about life’s second act finds older gents Al and Wizzer meeting on a park bench every morning to read and mock newspaper obits. Their daily rituals— shooting the bull about sports, women loved and lost and the many annoyances of aging—are suddenly shaken up by the appearance of a friendly young woman and her flirty mom. Wizzer pep-talks lonely widower Al to convince him to break out of his self-imposed “quantum of solace” and maybe find love again, while also dealing with his own fear of ending up in the memory care unit at their assisted living facility. Punctuated with true-to-life moments familiar to anyone with an aging parent or spouse, the play takes an upbeat attitude toward life after 60, 70 and beyond.

    Winner, 2017-18 American Association of Community Theatres NewPlayFest. Premiered at Elkhart Civic Theatre, IN; with subsequent productions in Minnesota and Nebraska.
  • A Ripping Christmas Carol by Elaine Liner
    Cast: 
    10–15
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: A Christmas Carol, holiday + 2 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, holiday, satire, young audiences
    Keyword: A Christmas Carol, holiday, community theater, high school
    A new twist on the old Dickens favorite - a lighthearted sequel perfect for kids, teens, and community theaters. Now Scrooge is a philanthropist, Bob Cratchit is handling the business (and stressed to the max), Tiny Tim is a lonely kid with a food addiction, and the visiting Ghosts of Christmases Present, Future, Past and Future Perfect Subjunctive are getting annoyed at having to work again on Christmas Eve....
    A new twist on the old Dickens favorite - a lighthearted sequel perfect for kids, teens, and community theaters. Now Scrooge is a philanthropist, Bob Cratchit is handling the business (and stressed to the max), Tiny Tim is a lonely kid with a food addiction, and the visiting Ghosts of Christmases Present, Future, Past and Future Perfect Subjunctive are getting annoyed at having to work again on Christmas Eve. Full of anachronistic references and a hint of a whodunnit (the urchins are missing all over London), this fun little play rips into Dickens -- with a guaranteed happy ending (with dancing!)
  • Sweater Curse: A Yarn about Love by Elaine Liner
    Cast: 
    1
    ·
    Genre: comedy
    ·
    Keyword: knitting, literature + 2 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: knitting, literature, wit, female
    A smart piece of wit-lit, this one-woman one-act comedy weaves together an obsession with knitting and tales of the sweaters and romances that unraveled under the age-old "curse" that warns never to knit for the one you love -- he or she will leave before you finish the sweater. With lessons drawn from the knitters in The Odyssey, A Tale of Two Cities, the works of Shakespeare (he mentions knitting a...
    A smart piece of wit-lit, this one-woman one-act comedy weaves together an obsession with knitting and tales of the sweaters and romances that unraveled under the age-old "curse" that warns never to knit for the one you love -- he or she will leave before you finish the sweater. With lessons drawn from the knitters in The Odyssey, A Tale of Two Cities, the works of Shakespeare (he mentions knitting a LOT in his plays) and other classic sources, the play is written for a not-young woman looking back at how knitting helped heal her broken heart and why casting on stitches too soon can doom a relationship. "Like listening to a good friend who has lots of stories to tell" -- review, Dallas Morning News, 2014.