Pauline David-Sax

Pauline David-Sax

Pauline David-Sax is a playwright, children’s book author & educator living in Brooklyn, NY. She spent eighteen years working in New York City public schools as a middle school teacher and administrator before turning her attention to writing. She was awarded the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award (2020) for How We Survived and has been named a finalist for the Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women (...
Pauline David-Sax is a playwright, children’s book author & educator living in Brooklyn, NY. She spent eighteen years working in New York City public schools as a middle school teacher and administrator before turning her attention to writing. She was awarded the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award (2020) for How We Survived and has been named a finalist for the Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women (2020-21), Mad Cow Theatre’s Women’s Voices Festival (2021), the Women Playwright Series at Centenary Stage Co. (2021), Players Club of Swarthmore’s New Play Festival (2020) and HRC Showcase Theatre’s national playwriting contest (2019), as well as a semi-finalist for American Blues Theater’s Blue Ink Playwriting Award (2022). Her debut children’s picture book EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE received an Ezra Jack Keats Writer Honor (2022) and her second picture book THE TIME MACHINE was selected for the November/December 2023 Kids Indie Next list. Pauline is a member of Dramatists Guild, SCBWI and Honor Roll!, an advocacy group of women+ playwrights over 40. She is also a lyricist currently participating in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. Find out more at paulinedavidsax.com.

Plays

  • Cotton's Tale by Pauline David-Sax
    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: comedy
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    Keyword: anthropomorphic animals, comedy + 2 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: anthropomorphic animals, comedy, Beatrix Potter, rabbits
    FULL LENGTH, approx. 110 minutes. 2020-21 Henley Rose finalist. Selected for the Women Playwright Series at Centenary Stage Co. (2021) and Women's Theatre Festival's Occupy the Stage (2020). A would-be children’s book author arrives in the forest looking for inspiration; a young rabbit seizes the chance to tell her tale. But what really happened in the carrot patch that day? Join Cottontail on her...
    FULL LENGTH, approx. 110 minutes. 2020-21 Henley Rose finalist. Selected for the Women Playwright Series at Centenary Stage Co. (2021) and Women's Theatre Festival's Occupy the Stage (2020). A would-be children’s book author arrives in the forest looking for inspiration; a young rabbit seizes the chance to tell her tale. But what really happened in the carrot patch that day? Join Cottontail on her quest to tell her story even as it pits her against the triple threat of Peter, Miss Potter and the patriarchy.
  • How We Survived by Pauline David-Sax
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: biography, drama
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    Keyword: Jewish, German-Jew + 4 more
    Genre: biography, drama
    Keyword: Jewish, German-Jew, Survival, suicide, generations, immigration
    FULL LENGTH, approx. 75 min. Winner of the 2020 Jane Chambers Prize for Excellence in Feminist Playwriting and named a finalist in the 2020 Players Club of Swarthmore New Play Festival and the 2019 HRC Showcase Theatre national playwriting contest. Inspired by the playwright’s grandmother’s self-published memoir with the same name, How We Survived is an exploration of how we choose to make sense of, and...
    FULL LENGTH, approx. 75 min. Winner of the 2020 Jane Chambers Prize for Excellence in Feminist Playwriting and named a finalist in the 2020 Players Club of Swarthmore New Play Festival and the 2019 HRC Showcase Theatre national playwriting contest. Inspired by the playwright’s grandmother’s self-published memoir with the same name, How We Survived is an exploration of how we choose to make sense of, and remember, our lives. An elderly grandmother, a German Jew who escaped to the United States in the 1930s, moves into a nursing home as her adult daughter takes charge of cleaning out her apartment. The grandfather’s suicide forty years earlier haunts them both, and as questions are answered and secrets unearthed it leads both mother and daughter to consider what it means, and what it takes, to be a survivor.
  • Goldfish Have No Memory by Pauline David-Sax
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: Robots, siblings + 1 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: Robots, siblings, grief
    FULL LENGTH, approx. 75 min. Selected for the 2021 Women's Voices Festival (Mad Cow Theatre). When Eric’s twin sister Ava dies unexpectedly, he uses his skills in robotics to create a replica based on the data Ava has left behind. As Ava-22’s machine learning progresses, Eric is at first comforted by having his sister back in his life, then dismayed as he discovers that the artificially intelligent version...
    FULL LENGTH, approx. 75 min. Selected for the 2021 Women's Voices Festival (Mad Cow Theatre). When Eric’s twin sister Ava dies unexpectedly, he uses his skills in robotics to create a replica based on the data Ava has left behind. As Ava-22’s machine learning progresses, Eric is at first comforted by having his sister back in his life, then dismayed as he discovers that the artificially intelligent version of Ava has no need for him. Goldfish Have No Memory asks whether technology can mitigate grief and what it means to truly know someone.
  • Illusion of Control by Pauline David-Sax
    Cast: 
    8
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: magic, Magician
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: magic, Magician
    (Currently in revision) FULL LENGTH, approx. 120 min. After the death of a famous white magician in early 1900s New York, three people vie for control of his legacy: his widow, his African-American assistant, and his illegitimate son. But there can be only one Gellar the Great.
  • Exposure by Pauline David-Sax
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: drama, period
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    Keyword: 1920s, Art and Artists + 4 more
    Genre: drama, period
    Keyword: 1920s, Art and Artists, gender roles, feminism, abortion, miscarriage
    FULL LENGTH, approx. 90 min. Finalist for the Todd McNerney Playwriting Award (2018). In the early 1920s two women struggle to define themselves. Georgia gained notoriety as the subject of husband Alfred’s photographs and now fights to be taken seriously as a painter in her own right. Beck endures an uninspiring job while waiting for her husband, aspiring photographer Paul, to achieve the financial success...
    FULL LENGTH, approx. 90 min. Finalist for the Todd McNerney Playwriting Award (2018). In the early 1920s two women struggle to define themselves. Georgia gained notoriety as the subject of husband Alfred’s photographs and now fights to be taken seriously as a painter in her own right. Beck endures an uninspiring job while waiting for her husband, aspiring photographer Paul, to achieve the financial success necessary to support a family. After Beck suffers a miscarriage, Alfred and Georgia invite her and Paul up to their lake house for a visit, setting off an unanticipated chain of events. Paul sees the trip as a chance to show his latest work to Alfred, now a successful gallery owner, in the hopes that he can convince Alfred to include it in an important upcoming show. Georgia, creatively blocked after reading recent reviews, finds Paul’s work inspiring, but Alfred is more interested in having Beck model for him. Beck agrees, both flattered by Alfred’s attention and hopeful that it will give her influence to advocate for Paul. When Beck’s attempted interferences threaten to undermine Georgia’s career, loyalties are tested and secrets exposed. (Note: this play is loosely inspired, but not based on, the lives of Georgia O'Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand and Beck Strand.)
  • Frida Sofia Is Not Dead by Pauline David-Sax
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: satire
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    Keyword: TV, social media + 1 more
    Genre: satire
    Keyword: TV, social media, modern mythology
    10 MIN PLAY. In classical mythology, Cassandra is cursed to speak the truth about the future without ever being believed. In this modern homage, Cassandra is the director of a school that has recently experienced a tragic building collapse. Her attempts to use a TV interview as a platform for warning others of future calamity is threatened by the news of an apparent miracle: a rescue worker claims to have heard...
    10 MIN PLAY. In classical mythology, Cassandra is cursed to speak the truth about the future without ever being believed. In this modern homage, Cassandra is the director of a school that has recently experienced a tragic building collapse. Her attempts to use a TV interview as a platform for warning others of future calamity is threatened by the news of an apparent miracle: a rescue worker claims to have heard the voice of a child who has survived the accident.
  • Strawberry Daiquiri by Pauline David-Sax
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    1
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    Genre: comedy
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    Keyword: monologue, parent-child relationships
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: monologue, parent-child relationships
    MONOLOGUE. A trip to a department store to buy a blender for her son and his girlfriend brings back memories for Joyce.
  • Clara Lemlich Shavelson monologue by Pauline David-Sax
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    1
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    Genre: biography, docudrama/historic
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    Keyword: Labor history
    Genre: biography, docudrama/historic
    Keyword: Labor history
    MONOLOGUE. Clara Lemlich Shavelson, best known as the young woman whose words inspired The Uprising of 20,000 (the massive 1909 strike of New York City’s garment workers) is now 65 years old, widowed, and wanted for questioning by the U.S. Senate. What does it mean to be accused of "un-American" activity when you have spent your life working on behalf of ALL Americans?