Nina Morrison

Nina Morrison

Nina Morrison is a playwright, screenwriter, director, and teaching artist. Nina is currently working on Hearts on Fire, a musical developed with composer Jeannie Fry, which will have a staged reading at The Jungle Theater in June 2023. Other current projects include Valu, a feature length screenplay adaptation of her play of the same title; and this spring she is directing The Roommate by Jen Silverman at...
Nina Morrison is a playwright, screenwriter, director, and teaching artist. Nina is currently working on Hearts on Fire, a musical developed with composer Jeannie Fry, which will have a staged reading at The Jungle Theater in June 2023. Other current projects include Valu, a feature length screenplay adaptation of her play of the same title; and this spring she is directing The Roommate by Jen Silverman at Riverside Theatre. She is a lecturer for the IowaLink Program at the University of Iowa. She teaches playwriting for Chicago Dramatists and for the Iowa Young Writer's Studio, and she is continuing to teach creative writing at The Summer Writing Residency offered through the Belin-Blank Center, Gifted and Talented Development, at the University of Iowa.

Nina was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Iowa in 2020; she was one of the 2019-2020 University of Iowa Provost's Postgraduate Visiting Writers. She was a 2019 finalist for the Jerome Playwriting Fellowship, and a 2018 and 2019 finalist for New Dramatists. Nina's play, Féminaal, was presented by The Grumble Theater, a Twin Cities company, directed by Alison Ruth. Nina's play Aurora fra Bergen, or, Ibsanity, was presented by Fordham University.

Nina is currently based in Iowa City, and before Iowa she was based in New York City. Select NYC credits: Nina wrote and directed the plays Arrow In and Girl Adventure: Parts 1-4. Both plays were presented by Dixon Place, and selected for The HOT! Festival of Queer Performance and the Little Theatre series. Nina was a Dixon Place Artist-in-Residence, and she was a WORKSPACE Writer-in-Residence, a residency program of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She holds an MFA in Directing and an MFA in Playwriting both from the University of Iowa.

Plays

  • Hearts on Fire by Nina Morrison
    Cast: 
    8–17
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: shippers, gay + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, musical, political
    Keyword: shippers, gay, boy bands, musical, Toxic Masculinity, LGBTQ+ playwright, Non-binary characters, LGBTQ+
    Hearts on Fire is a pop musical written by Nina Morrison with music by Jeannie Fry. The boyband Hearts is at the top of the charts in 2019 America. Daniel, an Iowa high school student, is questioning his sexuality. Daniel has become a secret TJ shipper, meaning he ships Tegen and Jesse, two members of Hearts. He has befriended Alex, a non-binary TJ shipper, and they make “proof” videos that they post on social...
    Hearts on Fire is a pop musical written by Nina Morrison with music by Jeannie Fry. The boyband Hearts is at the top of the charts in 2019 America. Daniel, an Iowa high school student, is questioning his sexuality. Daniel has become a secret TJ shipper, meaning he ships Tegen and Jesse, two members of Hearts. He has befriended Alex, a non-binary TJ shipper, and they make “proof” videos that they post on social media. The videos are filled with clips culled from Hearts concerts. The footage is of Tegen and Jesse grabbing each other’s asses, whispering, holding hands, sitting in each other’s laps and generally looking more like boyfriends than friends. The shipping somehow helps Daniel and Alex feel more comfortable about their own identities and sexualities. The videos become very popular, and the record label gets concerned.
  • The Age of Innocence by Nina Morrison
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, experimental + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: Non-binary characters, California Wildfires + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, experimental, political
    Keyword: Non-binary characters, California Wildfires, costumes, LGBTQ+, LGBTQ+ playwright
    Inspired by a real-life public breakup announcement between two celebrity writers and by the Edith Wharton novel of the same title, The Age of Innocence is a play about the public announcement of the breakup of two people named Jess and Ellen. In a small museum in Los Angeles surrounded by raging wildfires, Jess and Ellen talk the audience through their romantic and personal obstacles sometimes using period...
    Inspired by a real-life public breakup announcement between two celebrity writers and by the Edith Wharton novel of the same title, The Age of Innocence is a play about the public announcement of the breakup of two people named Jess and Ellen. In a small museum in Los Angeles surrounded by raging wildfires, Jess and Ellen talk the audience through their romantic and personal obstacles sometimes using period costumes and role play. The play is a comedic take on identity, gender, love and change at a certain age.
  • Aurora fra Bergen, or, Ibsanity by Nina Morrison
    Cast: 
    7
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, comedy
    ·
    Keyword: Ibsen, Lesbian + 4 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy
    Keyword: Ibsen, Lesbian, Norway, LGBTQ+ playwright, LGBTQ+adult women, LGBTQ+
    Aurora fra Bergen, or, Ibsanity is a modern queer comedic reimagining of Ibsen's Lady from the Sea. Set in Oslo, a woman haunted by a mysterious former lover is visited by her old friend, Aurora, from Bergen.
  • Valu by Nina Morrison
    Cast: 
    8–25
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, political + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: queer, centers lgbt characters + 2 more
    Genre: dark comedy, political, science fiction
    Keyword: queer, centers lgbt characters, diverse cast, women leads
    A queer sci-fi, Valu takes place in the year 2070. The most devoted aide to the Queen
    falls desperately in love with the woman leading the rebel army.
    Eventually she must decide whether to protect the queen who saved
    her life or to help the woman she loves destroy the corrupt
    queendom she serves.
  • Féminaal by Nina Morrison
    Cast: 
    12
    ·
    Genre: comedy, experimental + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: Paris, Lesbian + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, experimental, musical
    Keyword: Paris, Lesbian, French New Wave, French Pop, feminist, LGBTQ+, LGBTQ+ playwright, play with music, Brechtian
    Féminaal, written by Nina Morrison with music by Zoë Woodworth, presents a world that satirizes the misogyny in French New Wave Cinema and the culture at large: set in 1960’s Paris and the Present Day, this work imagines a setting where women are celebrated for their excess and debauchery and never held to a bizarrely high standard of “historical accuracy.” A genre-defying new play with music inspired by the Yé...
    Féminaal, written by Nina Morrison with music by Zoë Woodworth, presents a world that satirizes the misogyny in French New Wave Cinema and the culture at large: set in 1960’s Paris and the Present Day, this work imagines a setting where women are celebrated for their excess and debauchery and never held to a bizarrely high standard of “historical accuracy.” A genre-defying new play with music inspired by the Yé-Yé Girls of French Pop, Morrison’s work combines progressive feminist ideals with raucous comedic antics to create a theatrical landscape at once familiar and utterly original.