Sophia Valera Heinecke

Sophia Valera Heinecke

Sophia Valera Heinecke is a playwright, performer, dramaturg, and banjo player. She has been an artist fellow with the Performance Project at University Settlement and received the John Golden Award for Playwriting and the Issac Kwock Award for Social Justice. Her work has been explored and performed at The Performance Project at University Settlement, The Performing Garage, Pratt Manhattan Galleries, by The...
Sophia Valera Heinecke is a playwright, performer, dramaturg, and banjo player. She has been an artist fellow with the Performance Project at University Settlement and received the John Golden Award for Playwriting and the Issac Kwock Award for Social Justice. Her work has been explored and performed at The Performance Project at University Settlement, The Performing Garage, Pratt Manhattan Galleries, by The Bats (of The Flea), Upstream Artist Collective, Dixon Place, and WOW Theater Cafe. She was the head of Development at Experimental Bitch Presents from 2019-2020 and is a former member of the Cut/Edge Writers collective. Her chapbook Smoke Show was published by Sleep Hazzard Press in 2020.

Plays

  • FireWater TriggerBust by Sophia Valera Heinecke
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    5–7
    ·
    Genre: adventure, dark comedy + 1 more
    Genre: adventure, dark comedy, drama
    FireWater TriggerBust follows a young woman who is presented with the opportunity to leave her dead end job as a convenience store clerk by selling her small plot of land in North Dakota to an oil company for hydraulic fracturing.
  • Trash Lord: Domestication by Sophia Valera Heinecke
    Recommendations: 3
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: biography, dark comedy + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: Relationships
    Genre: biography, dark comedy, experimental
    Keyword: Relationships
    Trash Lord: Domestication is a performative gender exploration that compares process losing and finding oneself through love and the process of domesticating wild animals. Artist Sophia Valera Heinecke presents a meditation on the politics of self sacrifice and modern relationships that is both poetic and provocative, utilizing a tapestry of personal stories and accounts based on the research work of Jane...
    Trash Lord: Domestication is a performative gender exploration that compares process losing and finding oneself through love and the process of domesticating wild animals. Artist Sophia Valera Heinecke presents a meditation on the politics of self sacrifice and modern relationships that is both poetic and provocative, utilizing a tapestry of personal stories and accounts based on the research work of Jane Goodall, Jared Diamond, and other experts in the field. Part of the Trash Lord Trilogy, the deeply personal yet factually based Trash Lord: Domestication will leave you questioning the ways society and biology lead us to commit to our romantic and sexual partners.

  • Silver Family by Sophia Valera Heinecke
    Cast: 
    10–15
    ·
    Genre: biography, docudrama/historic + 4 more
    ·
    Keyword: NYC, queer + 7 more
    Genre: biography, docudrama/historic, drama, experimental, immersive, melodrama
    Keyword: NYC, queer, art, warhol, visual art, visual, Effects of trauma, drug addiction, sexuality
    The Silver Family is the story of the emblematic family built by Andy Warhol along with his Factory. This story spans 1967 to 1973 beginning in Andy's childhood home (3252 Dawson Street in Pittsburgh, mid 1930's) and bleeding quickly into Andy's prime days in The Silver Factory and the surrounding hot spots of New York City.
  • Laurie and Lou by Sophia Valera Heinecke
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    3–4
    ·
    Genre: docudrama/historic, experimental + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: experimental, short + 3 more
    Genre: docudrama/historic, experimental, musical, romantic comedy
    Keyword: experimental, short, rock and roll, music, 20th century history of women
    An examination of memorializing, and the bygone value of taking a chance on new collaborators, Laurie and Lou follows the relationship between Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed and the impact that gender plays on the media's depiction of artist couples.
  • Please, Mrs. West by Sophia Valera Heinecke
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: gender, Race + 2 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: gender, Race, class, celebrity
    Set in 2019, Kanye West has been assassinated on the campaign trail approaching the date for the presidential election, for which he is a nominee. Kim Kardashian is sitting down for an interview - something that for once is not controlled by her mother, or, she hopes, centering around her own pop culture identity. The "interview" quickly devolves into a conversation between two strong and notable...
    Set in 2019, Kanye West has been assassinated on the campaign trail approaching the date for the presidential election, for which he is a nominee. Kim Kardashian is sitting down for an interview - something that for once is not controlled by her mother, or, she hopes, centering around her own pop culture identity. The "interview" quickly devolves into a conversation between two strong and notable women contending with issues of motherhood, public life in the age of new and social media, and female celebrity.

    Includes a in depth use of projections throughout the piece.
  • You Already Know or God to White People by Sophia Valera Heinecke
    Cast: 
    1
    ·
    Genre: experimental, faith-based
    ·
    Keyword: god, spirituality + 2 more
    Genre: experimental, faith-based
    Keyword: god, spirituality, Race, White Supremacy
    Now is the time of reckoning. You... I'm talking to you, yes WHITE PEOPLE.
  • Why I by Sophia Valera Heinecke
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    5–6
    ·
    Genre: drama, melodrama
    ·
    Keyword: autism, LGBTQ + 1 more
    Genre: drama, melodrama
    Keyword: autism, LGBTQ, memory
    Why I is a memory play cataloguing the catastrophic events surrounding one family and the cracking down on underaged drinking in the Canadian town of Windsor. Told from the perspective of Aiden, the older autistic son of failed Canadian bar tender and eternal party boy Colin Reith, on the day of his wedding. Why I examines modern expectations of starting a family and the harsh realities of the old adage...
    Why I is a memory play cataloguing the catastrophic events surrounding one family and the cracking down on underaged drinking in the Canadian town of Windsor. Told from the perspective of Aiden, the older autistic son of failed Canadian bar tender and eternal party boy Colin Reith, on the day of his wedding. Why I examines modern expectations of starting a family and the harsh realities of the old adage ' it takes a village to raise a child.'
  • Solo: An American Choreopoem by Sophia Valera Heinecke
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    8–10
    ·
    Genre: adventure, biography + 2 more
    Genre: adventure, biography, comedy, docudrama/historic
    A brother and sister team up for a road trip across a futuristic America in the hopes of saving a community of artists from perishing at the hands of the corrupt government.

    The play has a heavy live drawing component and is considered visual story telling because of the recommended presentation is at the intersection of theater, visual art, and live music.

    It is highly suggested...
    A brother and sister team up for a road trip across a futuristic America in the hopes of saving a community of artists from perishing at the hands of the corrupt government.

    The play has a heavy live drawing component and is considered visual story telling because of the recommended presentation is at the intersection of theater, visual art, and live music.

    It is highly suggested by the playwright that the artists drawing on stage should also be women or female presenting to serve as a visual cue as their guide to the protagonist (also a woman).

    Check out the first part of a recent workshop here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrR3EqbbD6g
  • Trash Lord: by Sophia Valera Heinecke
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    1
    ·
    Genre: biography, comedy + 3 more
    Genre: biography, comedy, dark comedy, experimental, melodrama
    Utilizing the synergy of her lived experience and panache for collecting trash, Sophia Heinecke takes audiences on a dumpster diving whirlwind of androgyny. Trash Lord: What Men and Found Objects Have Taught Me About Building My Best Self is a personal examination of the life form Sophia Valera Heinecke and her specific gender identities as they have developed through items literally picked out of the garbage...
    Utilizing the synergy of her lived experience and panache for collecting trash, Sophia Heinecke takes audiences on a dumpster diving whirlwind of androgyny. Trash Lord: What Men and Found Objects Have Taught Me About Building My Best Self is a personal examination of the life form Sophia Valera Heinecke and her specific gender identities as they have developed through items literally picked out of the garbage. Each chapter begins and ends with real life found object stories allowing the tangibility of the objects and emotions to effectively convey the societal confusion of gender as spectrum, while still centering around a narrative architected from a distinct, female perspective.
  • Going To Market by Sophia Valera Heinecke
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: 1990, Bronx + 1 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: 1990, Bronx, Crime drama
    Going To Market the story of Devin, a young father on the run from his home in Virginia in the early '90s. He and his 13 year old daughter relocate to Hunts Point in the Bronx, and they find that adjusting to a new life in a new city as outsiders is harder--and more dangerous--than they thought.

    Development supported by The Kevin Spacey Foundation America: http://www.kevinspaceyfoundation.org/profiles/going_to_market/