Ezra Brain

Ezra Brain

Ezra Brain is a trans multi-disciplinary artist activist, and teacher based in NYC. As a theatre artist, their writing has been performed at the Tank, Literacy Theatre, Stop Pretending Theatre Project, Passaic Preparatory Academy, the New Masculinities Festival, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the Studio Theatre at Tierra Del Sol, the Art Garage, Dixon Place, the University of Texas A&M,...
Ezra Brain is a trans multi-disciplinary artist activist, and teacher based in NYC. As a theatre artist, their writing has been performed at the Tank, Literacy Theatre, Stop Pretending Theatre Project, Passaic Preparatory Academy, the New Masculinities Festival, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the Studio Theatre at Tierra Del Sol, the Art Garage, Dixon Place, the University of Texas A&M, and Stay True Theatre. Their play "Something’s Coming" (co-written with J. Andrew Norris) was a 2020 Finalist for the Jewish Playwriting Contest from the Jewish Plays Project. Ezra’s essays and articles have been published in 10 countries and 6 languages and they are a contributor to the "Opposing Viewpoints" series and have a chapter in a book forthcoming from Lexington Press. As a filmmaker, Ezra’s work has been accepted into multiple festivals around the world. They are an award-winning teaching artist, a proud member of Ring of Keys, the Dramatists Guild, and the Editorial Board of Left Voice

Plays

  • A Faerie Tale of New York by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 6 more
    ·
    Keyword: queer, drag + 4 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, experimental, fable/folktale, fantasy, movement/physical, political, verse
    Keyword: queer, drag, LGBTQ, performance, Queen Mab, faux Shakespeare
    One night (or is it many) at a failing drag club in NYC. Drag queens of multiple generations bitch, fight, get drunk, cry, snort coke, perform the house down, and reflect on the state of queer community, performance, and the economics of nightlife. Also Queen Mab is there. Yeah, that Queen Mab.
  • Girl: A Gender Expression by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    2–20
    ·
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: trans, gender nonbinary + 5 more
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical, political, verse
    Keyword: trans, gender nonbinary, gender, queer, artist, Depression, Transgender
    Girl: A Gender Expression is an experimental exploration of gender from a very subjective point-of-view. Girl seeks to explore the political, social, and professional experiences of being not just a trans person but a specific trans person. Mixing dialogue, speeches, dance sequences, and everything in between, Girl is a radical demand for specificity, self-acceptance, and a deconstruction of the traditional...
    Girl: A Gender Expression is an experimental exploration of gender from a very subjective point-of-view. Girl seeks to explore the political, social, and professional experiences of being not just a trans person but a specific trans person. Mixing dialogue, speeches, dance sequences, and everything in between, Girl is a radical demand for specificity, self-acceptance, and a deconstruction of the traditional ways that plays are created that attempts to shock, enrage, comfort, and challenge its audience. And maybe it’s also funny?
  • Service Industry by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: female-led, queer + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: female-led, queer, LGBTQ+, capitalism, waiters, restaurant
    (Co-written with J. Andrew Norris)

    How do you know when to quit? "Service Industry" follows Lily, an aspiring stand up comedian, as she starts a new job at a sports bar in NYC. She must balance her personal, artistic, and professional life as she navigates the endlessly complicated world of the service industry and ponders what to make of her career.
  • Something's Coming by Ezra Brain
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: biography, comedy + 5 more
    ·
    Keyword: west side story, Art and Artists + 1 more
    Genre: biography, comedy, dark comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, period, political
    Keyword: west side story, Art and Artists, genius
    Co-Written with J. Andrew Norris.

    In 1957, West Side Story premiered on Broadway and changed the face of the modern American musical. Its creators are lauded as titans in the modern theater, collectively winning 37 Tony Awards over the past 60 years. It was through fire, brimstone, vitriol and Jerome Robbins perceived insanity that this piece was born, and remains an institution to this day. In...
    Co-Written with J. Andrew Norris.

    In 1957, West Side Story premiered on Broadway and changed the face of the modern American musical. Its creators are lauded as titans in the modern theater, collectively winning 37 Tony Awards over the past 60 years. It was through fire, brimstone, vitriol and Jerome Robbins perceived insanity that this piece was born, and remains an institution to this day. In Something's Coming, we meet our heroes at the beginning of the writing process, and follow them through the highs, lows, burnt cigarettes and double shots of whiskey that created the greatest American musical.
  • Arden by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    8
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, drama + 8 more
    Genre: adaptation, drama, experimental, fable/folktale, fantasy, melodrama, movement/physical, romantic comedy, tragedy, verse
    A radical re-appropriation of Shakespeare's "As You Like It", "Arden" follows Rosalind as they discover their gender fluidity, come to terms with the world around them, and accept that we are not all alone unhappy.
  • She's Gone by Ezra Brain
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: love, loss
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: love, loss
    She’s Gone follows Sam, a genderqueer person in their 20s and 30s, as they end various relationships throughout the play. Each scene features the ending of a new relationship with new woman--all played by the same actress. Sometimes they end with a bang and sometimes with a whimper. In-between each scene, we see a fragment that exists out of time. These fragments give us insight into Sam’s past. Slowly, we...
    She’s Gone follows Sam, a genderqueer person in their 20s and 30s, as they end various relationships throughout the play. Each scene features the ending of a new relationship with new woman--all played by the same actress. Sometimes they end with a bang and sometimes with a whimper. In-between each scene, we see a fragment that exists out of time. These fragments give us insight into Sam’s past. Slowly, we begin to understand why they continually self-sabotage and we begin to grapple with the nature of love, loss, and relationships.

  • Antigone by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    6–12
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, period + 4 more
    Genre: adaptation, period, political, tragedy, verse, young audiences
    In a new adaptation, Sophocles' classic is refocused in on the relationship between Antigone and her sister; asking the question of how one lives in a world that is unfair and unforgiving.
  • Run. Hide. Fight. by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    8–30
    ·
    Genre: drama, experimental + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: teenagers, school shooting
    Genre: drama, experimental, political, verse, young audiences
    Keyword: teenagers, school shooting
    Co-written with J. Andrew Norris

    Run. Hide. Fight. explores what happens at the site of a school shooting after the cameras leave. Utilizing a found structure based around the Department of Homeland Security's active shooter protocols, this play for teenagers is striving to engage with an often-talked about political issue from a new perspective.
  • Hysterical Naked by Ezra Brain
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical
    Hysterical Naked" explores themes of mental illness and drug addiction through following two characters--A and B--who are using drugs to escape the world around them and their own minds. This piece uses modern dance, stage violence, and theatrical styles drawn from Sarah Kane and Antonin Artaud. "Hysterical Naked" contains text that is new as well as some lines that are drawn from Alan Ginsberg,...
    Hysterical Naked" explores themes of mental illness and drug addiction through following two characters--A and B--who are using drugs to escape the world around them and their own minds. This piece uses modern dance, stage violence, and theatrical styles drawn from Sarah Kane and Antonin Artaud. "Hysterical Naked" contains text that is new as well as some lines that are drawn from Alan Ginsberg, Karl Marx, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Sarah Kane, and William Shakespeare.
  • How To Be Happy by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, farce
    ·
    Keyword: zoom, Covid-19
    Genre: comedy, farce
    Keyword: zoom, Covid-19
    How to Be Happy is a Zoom play and follows a distinguished professor of psychology whose award-winning class "How to Be Happy" has been moved online due to the coronavirus pandemic.
  • Illyria by Ezra Brain
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    8
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, drama + 4 more
    ·
    Keyword: LGBTQ, Shakespeare
    Genre: adaptation, drama, experimental, political, tragedy, verse
    Keyword: LGBTQ, Shakespeare
    A re-imagining of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Illyria imagines how the plot would play out if it took place today. Issues of gender, sexuality, politics, and class are played out with reinterpretations of Shakespeare's' classic characters. Viola, our hero, must discover who she is and decide what she stands for while facing down Feste, a malevolent force dedicated to ensuring that the old order continues.
  • Rumblings of the Coming Storm by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    2–3
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, experimental + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: anarchy, dance + 1 more
    Genre: adaptation, experimental, political
    Keyword: anarchy, dance, stage combat
    "Rumblings of the Coming Storm' is a movement piece that examines the nature of oppression under capitalism and how to resist it. Freely adapted from the timeless writings of Lucy Parsons, this play pairs her words with dance and stage violence to tell an intimate and expansive story of how capitalism works and how the workers must resist it. This play combines the two movement vocabularies of dance...
    "Rumblings of the Coming Storm' is a movement piece that examines the nature of oppression under capitalism and how to resist it. Freely adapted from the timeless writings of Lucy Parsons, this play pairs her words with dance and stage violence to tell an intimate and expansive story of how capitalism works and how the workers must resist it. This play combines the two movement vocabularies of dance and stage violence to show the fundamental conflict between workers and bosses under capitalism. One performer (the worker) will be a dancer and the other (the boss) will be a fighter.
  • Silence or Violence by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: experimental, horror + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: trauma, HIV/AIDS + 2 more
    Genre: experimental, horror, political, tragedy
    Keyword: trauma, HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ, in your face
    A group of broken people live and hurt themselves in a London that exists outside of time
  • Be by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: Tolstoy, poetry + 2 more
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical, political, verse
    Keyword: Tolstoy, poetry, war, War and Peace
    An experimental poetry and movement piece inspired by the words of Leo Tolstoy, "Be" documents two people who begin in sync and then, through the machinations of society, are forced apart and both go down their different, tragic, paths.
  • For Allison, with regret by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: experimental
    ·
    Keyword: regret, mental illness
    Genre: experimental
    Keyword: regret, mental illness
    Two people exist in a theatrical space, perhaps they have always been there. Perhaps they haven't.
  • Boyfriends and Friends and Boys by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama, tragedy
    ·
    Keyword: mental illness, suicide
    Genre: drama, tragedy
    Keyword: mental illness, suicide
    Two strangers meet on the bridge where they both planned to kill themselves.
  • Don't Get Lost by Ezra Brain
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, fable/folktale
    ·
    Keyword: hansel and gretel, trauma + 1 more
    Genre: adaptation, fable/folktale
    Keyword: hansel and gretel, trauma, cycles of abuse
    Inspired by "Hansel and Gretel" this play explores the nature of trauma, the cycle of abuse, and victimization using the trappings of a fairy tale.
  • A Place You Go by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama, experimental + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: trauma, school shooting + 1 more
    Genre: drama, experimental, political, tragedy, verse
    Keyword: trauma, school shooting, gun violence
    A non-linear exploration of the mind of a school shooter. "A Place You Go" tracks how trauma is passed from one person to another and is recreated across different situations.
  • All Palaces Are Temporary Places by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: drama, experimental + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: LGBTQ, mental illness + 1 more
    Genre: drama, experimental, political
    Keyword: LGBTQ, mental illness, dysfunctional family
    A malevolent force comes into the lives of three siblings and forces them to understand the darkness with which they exist.
  • Weak Beautiful People by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof + 1 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, LGBTQ
    Inspired by Tennessee William's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," this play explores a one-night stand that doesn't go how either party wanted it to.
  • The Weight We Carry by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: LGBTQ, brother and sister + 1 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: LGBTQ, brother and sister, family
    An estranged brother and sister reconnect after the young sister runs away from home and shows up at her brother's house.
  • Classical Violence by Ezra Brain
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical + 1 more
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical, political
    Classical Violence explores the boxes that young boys are put into that leads them to violence later in life. Combining dance, stage violence, classical music, and theatre, Classical Violence outlines that tragedy of learned toxic masculinity."