Elise Wien

Elise Wien

Hello! I’m Elise Wien, a playwright who works in the genre of tender absurdism – building worlds that reflect the cruel and chaotic nature of our own, with characters who must rely on each other for connection and support to survive them.

My plays include Osher & the Infinite Curtain (Residency, VoxLab), OTP (Academic Production, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), [cowboy face] (Winner, Kennedy...
Hello! I’m Elise Wien, a playwright who works in the genre of tender absurdism – building worlds that reflect the cruel and chaotic nature of our own, with characters who must rely on each other for connection and support to survive them.

My plays include Osher & the Infinite Curtain (Residency, VoxLab), OTP (Academic Production, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), [cowboy face] (Winner, Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting; Finalist, Leah Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Writers), and Craters, or the making of the making of the moon landing (Academic Production, Smith College; Reading, Corkscrew Theater Festival). I have worked with Undiscovered Countries, The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals, Dixon Place, The Tank, American Lore Theater, and the Hopkins Center for the Arts. I am a recent graduate of Boston University’s Playwriting MFA program.

Plays

  • OTP by Elise Wien
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy
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    Keyword: fan fiction, Barack Obama + 1 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: fan fiction, Barack Obama, American presidents
    It’s 2015, and 15-year-old best friends Ceci and Michelle are taking the fanfiction website Archive of
    Our Own by storm. Michelle, a Junior Statesman of America, wants to author The Best Obama
    Fanfiction ever written. Can she read up on drone strikes, deportations, and Operation Neptune Spear
    and still find time to kiss Barack in front of the Jellyfish tank at the Chicago Aquarium?
    ...
    It’s 2015, and 15-year-old best friends Ceci and Michelle are taking the fanfiction website Archive of
    Our Own by storm. Michelle, a Junior Statesman of America, wants to author The Best Obama
    Fanfiction ever written. Can she read up on drone strikes, deportations, and Operation Neptune Spear
    and still find time to kiss Barack in front of the Jellyfish tank at the Chicago Aquarium?

    OTP is a story of political malaise, misplaced nostalgia, and what we do when we are incapable of reimagining our futures.
  • Freestyle Hand Entry by Elise Wien
    Recommendations: 7
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    Cast: 
    1
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    Genre: comedy
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    Keyword: judaism, JCC + 1 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: judaism, JCC, gender
    Ches recounts their attempts to get to a bag of Bugles stuck in the vending machine in the JCC rec room.
  • Osher and the Infinite Curtain by Elise Wien
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: adaptation
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    Keyword: Dybbuk, adaptation + 2 more
    Genre: adaptation
    Keyword: Dybbuk, adaptation, judaism, Kabbalah
    On his deathbed, Osher found spirit in autoplay—as he was hooked up to oxygen and lost the ability to speak, he watched hours and hours of Kabbalah YouTube. The Kabbalah of anger, forgiveness, of loss. He stopped acknowledging the presence of his daughter, Leye, and his husband, Sender. And then he died. Now, months after his passing, Leye visits the local Kabbalah Center, fueled by a desire to understand this...
    On his deathbed, Osher found spirit in autoplay—as he was hooked up to oxygen and lost the ability to speak, he watched hours and hours of Kabbalah YouTube. The Kabbalah of anger, forgiveness, of loss. He stopped acknowledging the presence of his daughter, Leye, and his husband, Sender. And then he died. Now, months after his passing, Leye visits the local Kabbalah Center, fueled by a desire to understand this change in her father. We travel through time (and web servers) to witness whether Leye and Sender can grapple with the loss of a loved one turned stranger.
  • TUB WARZ by Elise Wien
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy
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    Keyword: bathroom, Youtube + 2 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: bathroom, Youtube, reality tv, Childhood
    When Sam learns that her new bathroom has been the site of Tub Warz, Tampa's most famous Youtube programming, she must negotiate with Terri Topdrain to fulfill her wettest and wildezt dezirez.
  • Wheel by Elise Wien
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy, experimental + 2 more
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    Keyword: grief, yom kippur + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, experimental, faith-based, movement/physical
    Keyword: grief, yom kippur, shiva, mirror, vase, objects, togetherness
    Years ago, Mom left Dad when she fell in love with the vase he made, the one that mangled his arm in a freak pottery wheel accident.
    This year, on Yom Kippur, Ko introduces Dad to their new partner - a mirror. This year, too, Mom's vase has died.
    Will Dad forgive Mom and comfort her at the shiva? Will Mom grieve her partner? Will we find absolution???

    About unlikely love that...
    Years ago, Mom left Dad when she fell in love with the vase he made, the one that mangled his arm in a freak pottery wheel accident.
    This year, on Yom Kippur, Ko introduces Dad to their new partner - a mirror. This year, too, Mom's vase has died.
    Will Dad forgive Mom and comfort her at the shiva? Will Mom grieve her partner? Will we find absolution???

    About unlikely love that springs up in isolation, and the rituals of togetherness we share over/and over/and over.
  • cara has a hole in her head by Elise Wien
    Recommendations: 10
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: dark comedy
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    Keyword: gun violence, camp + 4 more
    Genre: dark comedy
    Keyword: gun violence, camp, hot dogs, candy, vignettes, healing
    A camp for people who have survived shootings. It has all the regular camp stuff, like tie-dye and fireside sing alongs, and some of the nonregular stuff, like the terror of a guiltful existence.
  • [cowboy face] by Elise Wien
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    7–10
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    Genre: dark comedy, experimental + 1 more
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    Keyword: technology, start-ups + 4 more
    Genre: dark comedy, experimental, satire
    Keyword: technology, start-ups, matt, cowboys, blazing saddles, internet
    RidgeRock Tech seems like the perfect place to work: beer on tap, a flexible vacation policy, and at least 16 different employees named Matt. But when the new customer support rep Greb joins the office, they sense something dire is coming. Corinne and Kayuri are slacking off with rigor, Diane is slipping into panic, and Greb’s mentor Julie is nowhere to be found. Something is lurking in the Meditation Room.
  • Craters or the making of the making of the moon landing by Elise Wien
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
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    Keyword: film, 1960s + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, political
    Keyword: film, 1960s, American, conspiracy, Hoax, moon, space
    Meet the film team responsible for staging the Apollo 11 moon landing.
    Or at least, partially responsible—until their lead actor Neil was whisked away at the last minute when NASA decided to go in a different direction. Now, director Sylvia and her crew are being held prisoner in a classified warehouse somewhere under Kansas, with nothing to do but make a documentary about their thwarted attempt at...
    Meet the film team responsible for staging the Apollo 11 moon landing.
    Or at least, partially responsible—until their lead actor Neil was whisked away at the last minute when NASA decided to go in a different direction. Now, director Sylvia and her crew are being held prisoner in a classified warehouse somewhere under Kansas, with nothing to do but make a documentary about their thwarted attempt at creating the footage that would inspire the world. Craters is an exercise in fact-finding, (re)enactment, and the power of simulation.