Garret Jon Groenveld

Garret Jon Groenveld

Garret Jon Groenveld is a poet and playwright living in San Francisco, CA with an MFA in Poetry and an MA in Playwriting from San Francisco State University. He also studied with Edward Albee at the University of Houston. He's a founding writer of PlayGround and an inaugural member of the Writers in Residence program at the Playwrights Foundation. His play “Missives” had well received productions in San...
Garret Jon Groenveld is a poet and playwright living in San Francisco, CA with an MFA in Poetry and an MA in Playwriting from San Francisco State University. He also studied with Edward Albee at the University of Houston. He's a founding writer of PlayGround and an inaugural member of the Writers in Residence program at the Playwrights Foundation. His play “Missives” had well received productions in San Francisco and New York. His play, “The Hummingbirds,” is a winner of the 2012 GAP Festival from the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley and the winner of the Internationalists Global Playwrighting Prize. This prize included six presentations in six countries (including New York, Berlin and the Netherlands) and has led to productions worldwide, including an ongoing tour of Romania and an extended run in Mexico City, Mexico. "The Hummingbirds" had in workshop with Olympia Dukakis at the Lark and was in the Theatre Resources Unlimited (TRU) Reading Series in 2015 (with Ellen McLaughlin). His play, "The Empty Nesters" was in 2014's Theatre Resources Unlimited Reading series and had a production workshop production in San Francisco in 2015. An open ended tour of the show premiered in San Francisco in 2016 and a tour is planned for 2019 with stops in LA, Chicago and New York.

Plays

  • The Hummingbirds by Garret Jon Groenveld
    Recommendations: 4
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 5 more
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    Keyword: Employment, unemployment + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, political, science fiction, tragedy
    Keyword: Employment, unemployment, Stripper, terrorism, war, identity, work, domestic terrorism
    Been unemployed too long? Welcome to a very special office of the Unemployment Bureau! Here you will work with two very special unemployment counselors to place you into a job today. It may not be a job you are qualified to do, or a job that's safe for anyone to do, but you will have to do it. Because if you can walk, you can work!

    The play also concerns domestic terrorism, strippers and...
    Been unemployed too long? Welcome to a very special office of the Unemployment Bureau! Here you will work with two very special unemployment counselors to place you into a job today. It may not be a job you are qualified to do, or a job that's safe for anyone to do, but you will have to do it. Because if you can walk, you can work!

    The play also concerns domestic terrorism, strippers and weaponized hummingbirds.

    It can be performed by two actors of any age, race or gender.

    The Hummingbirds won the 2012 Global Age Project and the 2012 Internationalists Global Playwrighting Prize (7 Presentations in 7 countries - US, Romania, Spain, Mexico, The Netherlands, Germany and Singapore).

    The play received it's English language premiere at New Jersey Rep in 2022, and is on tour in Romania (in Romanian) and has been produced in Spanish in Zaragoza, Spain and two acclaimed productions in Mexico City, Mexico.

    Also available in Spanish and Romanian.
  • The Empty Nesters by Garret Jon Groenveld
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: marriage, couples + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, romantic comedy
    Keyword: marriage, couples, children, college, road trip, sports, family
    When Greg and Frances drop their youngest child off at college in Arizona, they take a little vacation to the Skywalk at the Grand Canyon West on their way back to Los Angeles. Faced with the prospect of an empty home, these helicopter parents are faced with the question, "What do you want to be when they grow up?" A light drama exploring that unspoken period between when your kids leave and before...
    When Greg and Frances drop their youngest child off at college in Arizona, they take a little vacation to the Skywalk at the Grand Canyon West on their way back to Los Angeles. Faced with the prospect of an empty home, these helicopter parents are faced with the question, "What do you want to be when they grow up?" A light drama exploring that unspoken period between when your kids leave and before you become grandparents.

    Finalist for the Global Age Project at the Aurora Theatre in 2011, it will receive it's World Premiere at 6th Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa in 2015.
  • Disbelief by Garret Jon Groenveld
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 4 more
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    Keyword: Greek mythology, Cassandra + 4 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, fable/folktale, faith-based, political, tragedy
    Keyword: Greek mythology, Cassandra, Apollo, gods, Greek Gods, Hillary Clinton
    The story of Apollo’s gift to Cassandra, a request of unreasonable love made by a God, and a person of faith who cannot comply with the demands the faith puts upon them.
  • Missives by Garret Jon Groenveld
    Cast: 
    4–5
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: LGBTQ, epistolary + 5 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, experimental, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: LGBTQ, epistolary, sociopath, flowers, soap opera, Employment, identity
    Missives is an epistolary play exploring the friendship between Ben, a white gay man, and Lia, a black straight woman, soap operas, imaginary flowers and murderous sociopaths.

    Ben is a little lost, and he reaches out to Lia, his neighbor across the hall (whose a little lost herself). How? By slipping letters under her door. Pretty soon, she’s writing back, and their friendship blossoms only...
    Missives is an epistolary play exploring the friendship between Ben, a white gay man, and Lia, a black straight woman, soap operas, imaginary flowers and murderous sociopaths.

    Ben is a little lost, and he reaches out to Lia, his neighbor across the hall (whose a little lost herself). How? By slipping letters under her door. Pretty soon, she’s writing back, and their friendship blossoms only through these letters – never face to face – and we get to see character’s inner lives in ways that other plays cannot explore. The clincher for their friendship is their shared obsession of their favorite soap opera actress, Trixie Evans, America’s favorite vixen/tramp from “Through the Hourglass.” We follow their romantic struggles as well, Lia’s marriage and Ben’s tragic romance with Stephen. And just then every thing seems to have settled into, if not happiness, contentment, an act of violence comes between them, and we also come to know the most charming sociopath you’d never want to meet.

    Commissioned by PlayGround as their first commission, it appreared in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival in 2004. It premiered at Theatre Rhino in 2005 and had it's New York Premiere at 59E59 in 2008.
  • The Serving Class by Garret Jon Groenveld
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: comedy, farce + 2 more
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    Keyword: gay, gay marriage + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, farce, mystery/thriller, romantic comedy
    Keyword: gay, gay marriage, class, social class, social commentary, wealth, LGBTQ, 1%, 99%
    Join in on this comedic take on marriage from the point of view of the gay men who are employed in its planning! The Serving Class is 90 breathless minutes looking at the type of gay men who live off of the super-rich and an ironic examination of gay marriage. Our hero is Buddy Beauchamps, an effervescent interior decorator, who gets sucked into the planning the wedding of his biggest client’s daughter....
    Join in on this comedic take on marriage from the point of view of the gay men who are employed in its planning! The Serving Class is 90 breathless minutes looking at the type of gay men who live off of the super-rich and an ironic examination of gay marriage. Our hero is Buddy Beauchamps, an effervescent interior decorator, who gets sucked into the planning the wedding of his biggest client’s daughter. Which turns out great for our Buddy, because it will put him into close contact with his biggest crush; the renowned photographer Creighton Bale! Little does he know his arch-rival, Danner Gotleib (florist to the elite), is also out for Creighton; which creates a love triangle the likes of which you’ve never seen! Add to that a generous dose of mockery of the eccentricities of super rich, a high joke per page ratio and a winning fast paced structure, “The Serving Class” offers a take on romantic comedies that will leave you rolling in the aisles (but don’t worry, the bride will look stunning as she steps over you in her Christian Loubouton red bottomed heals and custom made Vera Wang gown!)

    Winner of the 2010 Global Age Project at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley, CA and Finalist for the Mountain Playhouse 2012 International Comedy Playwrighting Festival
  • The Spy by Garret Jon Groenveld
    Cast: 
    8–11
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    Genre: dark comedy, melodrama + 3 more
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    Keyword: spy, ensemble
    Genre: dark comedy, melodrama, mystery/thriller, political, tragedy
    Keyword: spy, ensemble
    Two countries, our country and the other, are at war. A spy is captured coming across the border. He says he is from our country, that he is returning from deep under cover to reclaim his life, his wife, his child. Is he what he says he is?

    An exploration of an unreliable main character.
  • The Twin by Garret Jon Groenveld
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: adventure, comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: conjoined twins, cops + 6 more
    Genre: adventure, comedy, dark comedy, drama, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: conjoined twins, cops, hitman, doctor, waitress, diner, trains, tumors
    The Twin is the story of a young man with an embedded twin, clutching his spine like a monkey clutches a tree that he’d like to be free of. It’s also about a young woman, who left everything behind to take care of her estranged father. It’s also about that father and the tumor induced vision of an illicit affair long since ended. It’s also about a pair of sisters, one a cop and one a hitman, driven to chase...
    The Twin is the story of a young man with an embedded twin, clutching his spine like a monkey clutches a tree that he’d like to be free of. It’s also about a young woman, who left everything behind to take care of her estranged father. It’s also about that father and the tumor induced vision of an illicit affair long since ended. It’s also about a pair of sisters, one a cop and one a hitman, driven to chase each other down. It’s also about the twin that gets removed, how it grows to full size and the havoc that creates.

    4 actors – each playing two parts, two acts, a lot of unexpected story telling. Of the four roles, the three youngest can be played by non-white actors (a little hint to the passing of white, straight male dominance.)