Rachael Carnes

Rachael Carnes

Rachael received a 2020 Oregon Literary Fellowship, a 2021 Lighthouse Writers Workshop Advanced Dramatic Writing Fellowship, and has had more than 250 readings, development workshops and full productions, across the U.S., U.K., the Middle East, Canada and Asia, with recent invitations to develop work at the William Inge Theatre Festival (2018), the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Playwriting Intensive (...
Rachael received a 2020 Oregon Literary Fellowship, a 2021 Lighthouse Writers Workshop Advanced Dramatic Writing Fellowship, and has had more than 250 readings, development workshops and full productions, across the U.S., U.K., the Middle East, Canada and Asia, with recent invitations to develop work at the William Inge Theatre Festival (2018), the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Playwriting Intensive (2019), the Midwestern Dramatists Center Conference (2018 & 2019), the Mid-America Theater Conference (2019 & 2020), the American Association for Theatre in Higher Education New Play Development Series (2019), the Sewanee Writers’ Conference (2019), the Ivoryton Playhouse Women Playwrights Initiative (2019), the Parson’s Nose Theatre’s Women Playwright Series (Winter and Fall, 2019), the Cambridge U.K. WriteON Festival (2019) and the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival (2019 & 2022) and the Great Plains Theatre Conference (2020/2021) with her play selected for full production at Great Plains in 2023. Her work is seen in many literary journals, including the Coachella Review, the Silk Road Review, Feels Blind Literary, the Extinction Rebellion, Some Scripts, the StoneCoast Review, Quince Magazine, Hamilton Arts & Letters, Smith & Kraus Best Plays and Best Monologues anthologies (2021 & 2022), the Hominum Journal, the Canyon Voices Literary Magazine, the Ponder Review and more. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Rachael is the founder and editor of CodeRedPlaywrights, a consortium of writers across the country, responding to gun violence. She served for three years as regional representative for the Dramatists Guild of America, is a national voting member of the League of Professional Theatre Women, is the coordinator of New Play Development for KDC Theatre, London, and is a festival reader for the Athena Project, the Blank Theatre Living Room Series and the American Association of Theatre in Higher Education.

Plays

  • AN ABUNDANCE OF CAUTION, A Play for Videoconference
    A Play for Zoom
  • APEX PREDATOR
    10-Minute Play: At a small campground — Margaret, a field biologist, camps alone.
  • A SAFE PLACE
    Two-Minute Play: A Father Contemplates loss, all the way around the world.
  • BINDERS
    BETTY, FRED and BARNEY on a rocket bound for Mars.

    Made into a film in 2020 by DEAN PRODUCTIONS, which premiered at the Silicon Beach Film Festival in 2021.
    (An actor playing 'FRED' won an award for best Supporting Actor!)
  • BOOTS
    It's Thursday, and BILLIE and MINKY's relationship isn't improving.

    Oh, and MINKY is a sock monkey.
  • BROTHERS
    Two-minute play: A response to gun violence in places of worship.

    Dedicated to the memory of David and Cecil Rosenthal.
  • CANOPY
    Full-Length Play: Both characters are in their seventies, and played by a man and a woman — Two roles shared among four actors. A coin toss accents transitions throughout — So that the roles are assigned randomly from scene to scene. Not only are we seeing folks onstage who are older, because that’s rare as hen’s teeth, we’re also seeing a play about two men or two women or a man and a woman — In a slippery,...
    Full-Length Play: Both characters are in their seventies, and played by a man and a woman — Two roles shared among four actors. A coin toss accents transitions throughout — So that the roles are assigned randomly from scene to scene. Not only are we seeing folks onstage who are older, because that’s rare as hen’s teeth, we’re also seeing a play about two men or two women or a man and a woman — In a slippery, permeable random chance experiment. It’s just about love — And the patience love requires.

    Featured in the Carlo Annoni Prize library, Italy.

    Monologue included in the Smith & Kraus Best Men's Monologues of 2022.
  • CATALYST
    On the eve of revolution, two strangers become friends, and find a new meaning of family.
  • COLLECTIVE GROUPINGS OF ANIMALS
    Ten-Minute Play: A riff on Mark Bly's Kafka's Train exercise.
  • CONFLUENCE
    Seven weeks into quarantine, an intervention. (This play was written for video conference, or could be performed on a real stage, if and when that becomes possible again.)
  • CONTRAPPOSTO
    10-Minute Play: Venus complains about the male gaze to Botticelli. 1485.
  • COMPLIMENTARY WIFI
    10 Minute-Play: A couple assesses their relationship on their 10th anniversary.

  • CORNUCOPIA
    10-Minute Play: A quiet evening at home, on the eve of Thanksgiving.
  • CRABS(DOT)COM
    10-Minute Play: Marty helps Cheryl rethink her choices.
  • CREATIVE LITTLE GARDEN
    As bulldozers threaten gardens across NYC, one woman fights Big Development.
  • CROSSING THE AMUR: A Third Installment in the Sock Monkey ™ Cycle
    A Third Installment in the Sock Monkey ™ Cycle

    “When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it cannot be cured.”
  • CURBED
    Three-Minute play: A woman waits for her bus.

    Published in the Silk Road Review, 2020.
  • DARK, LEAFY GREENS — A Play for Videoconference
    Online school is an adjustment, but one thing's for sure: Friends matter now, more than ever.

    Published in Feels Blind Literary Magazine Issue #6.
  • DIFFICULT MONKEYS
    A brief summary:
    “Luckily, or unluckily, there is nothing in our lives
    That does not end — Sooner or later.”
  • ECHOLOCATION
    One-Minute Play: A female orca whale grieves for a dead child in U.S. custody.
  • EGG IN SPOON
    10-Minute Play: A not-too-distant future where diseases run wild and women's rights are in question.

    Published in the Coachella Review, Fall 2019
  • ELEVEN
    10-Minute Play: Tween Ella and her mom both agree — it's just a tough age.
  • EVERYBODY HATES MARIAH CAREY
    5-Minute Play: The Holidays can be hard, A ridiculous and goofy Christmas Play.
  • EVERYDAY AVIATION: A Play for Videoconference
    A father's late night panic finds surprising allies.

    "We had a truly amazing time working on this powerful, touching, and truly honest piece." - Jeffrey Stanzel, Artistic Director, Theatre Three.

    Published in the Hominum Journal and Canyon Voices Literary Magazine, 2021.

    Monologue included in the Smith & Kraus Best Men's Monologues of 2022.
  • FALSTAFF RISETH
    Full-Length Play: A play with a play within a play within a musical within a play by puppets who do a play. Based on Henry the IV Part One.
  • FORCEFULLY DENIED
    5-Minute Play: A documentary-theatre play, sourced from Supreme Court Nomination Hearing Testimony, by Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford, and a statement by Senator Susan Collins, October 5, 2018, Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution, inked in 1787, and the step-by-step instructions of a sexual assault evidence collection kit (SAECK), that comes in a sealed package, with an expiration date.
  • FAIRVIEW TRAINING CENTER
    One-Act: Focusing on the history of the Eugenics movement in this country and the chronic mistreatment of people with disabilities, this play drops into a moment in time and two possible futures, one with some support, one without.

  • FOUR POINTS
    10-Minute Play: The indications and contraindications of physical and chemical restraints during the holidays.
  • FREE, 25-MINUTE, 5-MILE RIDE
    10-Minute Play: This little play imagines a young couple somewhat protected – or are they? – by the supernatural, on the day the Staten Island ferry crashed, in 2003.
  • FUMBLEWINTER
    One-Act: In the year 930, the Age of Settlement, over the previous fifty years or so, the population of Iceland, this geologically-rich, but resource-poor island (about the size of Oregon) has grown from one, to nearly 10,000 people, who are scattered across the land, and dispersed into a multitude of self-appointed, and pretty shitty, kingdoms. They come together to discuss the impending apocalypse, but are...
    One-Act: In the year 930, the Age of Settlement, over the previous fifty years or so, the population of Iceland, this geologically-rich, but resource-poor island (about the size of Oregon) has grown from one, to nearly 10,000 people, who are scattered across the land, and dispersed into a multitude of self-appointed, and pretty shitty, kingdoms. They come together to discuss the impending apocalypse, but are too distracted with witch hunts, and the latest gadgets, to get much done.
  • FUMBLEWINTER (Full-length version)
    Dizzy Vikings addicted to their phones and their world in ruin — a commentary on the relationship between internalized oppression and environmental collapse – using mostly stupid jokes.
  • GREEN BOOTS
    10-Minute Play: At Green Boots, the name given to the unidentified corpse of a climber that’s become a landmark on the main Northwest Ridge route of Mount Everest. An imagined dialogue between Ronald Reagan and writer/advocate Randy Shilts.
  • GIRL VS. TROLL
    In the frozen north, little Gerda demonstrates that girls can do anything. Based on "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Anderson.
  • HEALTHY NEW HABITS
    Larry hopes that talking to someone might help him with his ennui. (That's French.)

    Published in 2022 edition of Some Scripts
  • HELPER
    10-Minute Play: Bailey is worried about his/her friend.
  • ICE FRONT
    10-Minute Play, inspired by the life of Elsie Parmann, beloved family matriarch (1921-2016), and member of the Norwegian Nazi Resistance, called "Ice Front". In the U.S., the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") has come to be epitomize hate and fear. This play, part of 365 Women a Year: A Playwriting Project, is dedicated to refugees, wherever they flee from home. It will be...
    10-Minute Play, inspired by the life of Elsie Parmann, beloved family matriarch (1921-2016), and member of the Norwegian Nazi Resistance, called "Ice Front". In the U.S., the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") has come to be epitomize hate and fear. This play, part of 365 Women a Year: A Playwriting Project, is dedicated to refugees, wherever they flee from home. It will be published in the Silk Road Review: A Literary Crossroads, in June 2020.
  • ILL COMES FORTH
    5-Minute Play: A monologue channeling '45' through Richard III's usurpation in 1493.
  • INCREDIBLY CUTE
    5-Minute Play: A monologue in a box.
  • INERTIA
    10-Minute Play: Happy human-sock monkey relationships are all alike; every unhappy human-sock monkey relationship is unhappy in its own way.

    This play appears in The Smith & Kraus Best 10-Minute Plays, 2021 Anthology.
  • IN TRAINING
    10-Minute Play: Welcome to the job from hell. A play in the dark.
  • INTERMOLECULAR FORCES
    A three-part monologue, exploring the photoelectric effect of a global pandemic on an AP Chemistry teacher.
  • JOIN THE MOVEMENT
    10-Minute Play: Alison reconsiders Julie's invitation to attend a leggings party.
  • LADY COPS
    Ten-minute play: In the long-running cop drama "Cagney & Lacey" Detectives Lacey and Cagney solve crimes in Manhattan's 14th precinct. Their balance of toughness and sensitivity make them stronger as a team as an unstoppable crime-fighting duo.
  • LANTANA
    5-minute Play: Sourced from a publicly-available 9-1-1 call, made November 28, 2017, from a park in Lantana, FL, and the publicly-available online Facebook comments made in response to a news article, months later, referencing its release.

  • LARGE-HEARTED GIVING
    One-Minute Play: A new spin on a holiday classic!
  • LAST EXIT
    10-Minute Play: In the Last Exit on Brooklyn Coffeehouse, in a pre-tech Seattle, heated backgammon and espresso shots provide fertile ground for a not-yet icon to find his voice. A play about limitation and life.
  • LAUDANUM
    10-Minute Play: A commentary on the opioid crisis
  • LE BREXIT
    DIDI et GOGO sont tristes.
  • LIGHT MEAT
    A tense holiday in the gated community.

    Published in the Ponder Review.
  • MAINTAINING A SPACE CUSHION
    In which three astronauts, with apparently minimal training, hurdle through space on their mission to Mars.
  • MALHEUR
    Full-Length Play: In a converted brothel in the middle of nowhere, adjacent to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, in Harney County, Oregon — A place where people converge in small groups to do one of two things: watch migratory birds, or hunt, few people ever do both — Characters grieve the loss of a future past, a once-great nation, a stolen place, an ideal, over mini muffins and coffee. And one character comes to...
    Full-Length Play: In a converted brothel in the middle of nowhere, adjacent to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, in Harney County, Oregon — A place where people converge in small groups to do one of two things: watch migratory birds, or hunt, few people ever do both — Characters grieve the loss of a future past, a once-great nation, a stolen place, an ideal, over mini muffins and coffee. And one character comes to terms with a loss —
  • ME DIRECT
    Deep in the Cascade forest, a community theatre production struggles to get a play on its bipedal feet.
  • NEWTOWN/LANTANA
    10-Minute Play: A documentary play, sourced verbatim from police reports, public 9-1-1 audio files and social media comments.
  • MOUSE & OWL
    ONE-MINUTE PLAY: Two creatures with plenty to lose, look around a bit.

    Published by the Extinction Rebellion, London, 2020.
  • NOT A BIRD
    Ten-Minute Play: A meditation on the reproductive rights of women.
  • n95
    Full-Length: In the Pacific Northwest, Summer 2018, humans, animals - and yellow jackets - consider a future with more wildfire smoke, and a past that might have prevented it.

    Created in 36 hours, with a creative team of 20+ people. (And one really good dog.)
  • OPPORTUNITIES
    10-minute play: A staff meeting takes a wrong turn.
  • PARTNER OF —
    10-Minute Play: Monticello, VA, 1787 — 14-year-old Sally Hemings is made ready by her mother and the ghost of her grandmother, to accompany Thomas Jefferson, who is 30 years older than she is, to Paris. Trigger warning: Assault, abuse, rape.

    Thank you to Fade to Black in Houston, TX, and the research team at Monticello, for consultation.

  • PERMISSION
    10-Minute Play: An intergenerational #MeToo conversation.
  • PERSONAL BEST (A teeny Valentine for Zoom)
    KAY misses folding sweaters. TONY thinks he'll live forever. Can they find love?
  • PIONEERS
    Full-Length: RORY wants to be a better person, but "MAIA" has other plans.
  • POCKETS
    A preschool teacher soothes a classroom full of tiny students through another lockdown drill.
  • 91st & POWELL BLVD.
    10-minute play: Written in a tone-poem style.
  • PRACTICE HOUSE
    Full-Length: A university campus — 1933. Women receive training in home economics, "A tool of the utmost importance in building up forces which increase physical well-being of the population," writes Albert Mann, Dean of the New York College of Agriculture. "And which make for a reduction in the number of persons thrown back to the state for support by reason of physical, mental, or moral failure...
    Full-Length: A university campus — 1933. Women receive training in home economics, "A tool of the utmost importance in building up forces which increase physical well-being of the population," writes Albert Mann, Dean of the New York College of Agriculture. "And which make for a reduction in the number of persons thrown back to the state for support by reason of physical, mental, or moral failure.”

    Practice House is a 2019 New Dramatists Princess Grace Award Semi-Finalist.
  • PROPAGATION
    Looking back to see forward.
  • PUDDING
    A family connects across time and space.
  • RAY'S CANDY STORE
    Ten-Minute Play: In the heart of New York's East Village, Philosopher King Ray dispenses love and wisdom along with egg creams.

    Published in the Spring 2023 edition of Review Americana
  • RIPPLE
    Ten-Minute Play: Two black holes, one bigger than the other, consider the implications of merging.

    Published in the Hamilton Arts & Letters, 2021.
  • SALAD DAYS
    10-MINUTE PLAY: Three mature women explore the past and the future, at Flower Arranging Class.
  • SEA CHANGE
    Two-Minute Play: In 1823, Mary Shelley and her four-year-old sail home for England. A widow, she's determined to write.
  • SEX AND VIOLENCE
    One-Act: A playwright attempts to self-produce a ten-minute seven-person play from 3,000 miles away.
  • SEX AND VIOLENCE (THE MUSICAL)
    One-Act: The MUSICAL version of the play about the making of the 10-minute play for seven actors.
  • SHELTER IN PLACE
    10-Minute Play: A response to gun violence — This short piece examines the destructive work of assault rifles against first-hand accounts from the murders at SandyHook.
  • SHIPWRECK
    10-Minute Play: Weaving together 500-years of separating children from their parents. Set on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
  • SH*T TRAIN
    10-Minute Play: All aboard.
  • SOUP: A play for videoconference
    A couple attempts to navigate a new normal, over Zoom.

    Winner: 2021 Young-Howze Theatre Award for best short play for Zoom.
  • STANDARDS AND PRACTICE
    10-Minute Play: Commentary on those "recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes" — set in 230 B.C.
  • SUBDUCTION ZONE
    One-Minute Play: The parents of either the victim, or the perpetrator, of gun violence, receive a phone call.
  • SUSPENDED ANIMATION
    5-Minute Play: Sleeping Beauty wakes up.
  • SYZYGY
    The best part of air travel is yogurt parfaits. Or finding God. Or understanding fate. Or all of the above.


    Published in the Stonecoast Review, Summer 2020. Nominated for 2020 Pushcart Prize.
    Featured as part of the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival, 2022
  • THE APPOINTMENT
    10-minute play: ZAC and DEB seek some support for their long-term relationship.
  • THE ARRIVAL OF A TRAIN
    5-Minute Play: From the POV of Jeanne Lumière, sister to the famous Lumière brothers — A commentary on the glut of women who will never EVER be recognized for their effort in art, science, math, etc. — Short-listed by the Women in Film Project, The Female Gaze, London, 2018.
  • THE BALLAD OF THE INSTACART DRIVER
    An everyday hero makes a living.
  • THE BELL WITCH
    A dark night in the country reveals secrets that shoulda stayed buried.

    Published in Smith & Kraus Best 10-Minute Plays of 2022.
  • THE BIRTHDAY (A Play for Videoconference)
    Josh is really not sure about this Zoom party ideas.
  • THE BUSTLE IN A HOUSE
    One-Act: During a quiet weekend in Orange County in 1659, mirth ensues.
  • THE FUNCTION OF PEBBLES
    We're all just stuck in a Whac-a-Mole game, amirite?

    Published in 'Hello Godot! An Anthology of One Act Plays' 2022
  • THE GROUP PROJECT (A Play for Videoconference)
    A group of Middle Schoolers are *supposed* to make water clocks, over Zoom.
  • THE INVENTION OF PICKLE BALL
    10-Minute Play: An invitation to a naked wedding might be just the spark this couple needs.
  • THE KITCHEN
    MONOLOGUE — A bone is bent, not broken, but the averted crisis exposes a family in trouble.
  • THE ONE ABOUT THE HAMSTER (co-written with Hugh Brinkley)
    10-Minute Play: Gary wakes up to find his hamster missing, and takes an epic journey through career crisis, the audience and into intergalactic space and back again. It’s a hero’s journey, with a hamster.
  • THE NEW PUPPY (A Play for Videoconference)
    Josh's new puppy isn't even here yet, but his pals are onboard.
  • THE PACT
    10-Minute Play: Two characters — Played by four people — Explore the magical realism that can connect the generations.
  • THE PERFECT WIFE
    Full-length play: England, 1769: As revolution between England and its American colonies simmers, candy-colored Georgian society pits the woeful, starving masses against the excessive powers of the rich elite. Sir Thomas Day, rebuffed at every turn from would-be wives, despite his fortune, grows frustrated, and hatches a plan to steal an orphan, and raise her to be the Perfect Wife. I wrote this because I was...
    Full-length play: England, 1769: As revolution between England and its American colonies simmers, candy-colored Georgian society pits the woeful, starving masses against the excessive powers of the rich elite. Sir Thomas Day, rebuffed at every turn from would-be wives, despite his fortune, grows frustrated, and hatches a plan to steal an orphan, and raise her to be the Perfect Wife. I wrote this because I was pissed about Roy Moore and his ilk. Based on real events.

  • THE PLAGUE
    Exploring the moral manifestation of unconscious social systems or environments where women continually face hostility, through the lens of competitive dance.

    With choreography. And fighting!
  • THE UPPING
    One-Act: What are our assumptions, how do our ideas of women, as happy wives and mothers, cloud the roles that we're afforded? And what if that's all we can be?
  • THE SECRET LIFE OF BIVALVES
    10-Minute Play: What happens in the tide pool stays in the tide pool.
  • THREE THINGS REMAIN
    One Act Radio Play: Exploring intergalactic universals through the purr of a ’63 Alfa Romeo, breakfast foods and cats.

  • TV — PHONES — POOL
    10-Minute Play: Walter and Ray prepare for the day ahead.
  • TWO BUNNIES TALKING
    Three-Minute Play: Get-Out-The-Vote play, for two bunnies.
  • UNDERFUR (co-written with Hugh Brinkley)
    10-Minute Play: Chauncey — A middle aged British raccoon — Receives a survey from the local municipal court, forcing him to question everything.
  • UPLIFT
    Two trapeze artists reckon with nine months of quarantine.
  • UTØYA
    Two-Minute Play: Four victims of white nationalism meet in the land of the midnight sun.

    Published in Some Scripts Literary Journal, 2019.
  • A VERY STABLE GENIUS (Co-written with Sharai Bohannon, Ben Brinkley, Diana Burbano, Greg Burdick and Jordan Elizabeth Henry)
    A timeless work of staggering, unparalleled artistry. Believe me.
  • WABI SABI
    10-Minute Play: Friends from the past reconnect in High School.

    Available as part of A YOUNGER TEN: WRITING THE TEN MINUTE PLAY by Gary Garrison.
    www.garygarrison.com/younger-ten-plays
  • WATERFALL
    One-Minute Play: A friend remembers a victim of gun violence.
  • WHAT A MEMORY LOOKS LIKE
    Animals find solace in unlikely kinships.

    Published in Some Scripts Literary Magazine, and by the Extinction Rebellion, 2020.
  • WHAT HAPPENED IN THE WHITE HOUSE LAST NIGHT
    A one-minute play.
  • WHAT WE ARE NOT LOOKING FOR
    One-Minute Play: A protester speaks.
  • WINDBERRY CREEK
    In Oregon's Cascade Mountains, three generations of women grapple with the past and an uncertain future.

    A monologue from this play will be featured in the Smith & Kraus Best Women's Monologues, 2021 Anthology.
  • WONDERWOMEN
    On an archipelagic island nation, a shero prepares to save the world.
  • YONCALLA
    Full-length play: This play is seeking development.

    Yoncalla, Oregon: one hundred years ago, a dinky town about 45 minutes south of where I live. Sounds cute enough, but like many towns in the West – Yoncalla tells a pretty dark story. There’s a lawless alchemy to these pioneer outposts, where ‘settlement’ runs over whole peoples, where prejudice finds a foothold, then a platform, then a...
    Full-length play: This play is seeking development.

    Yoncalla, Oregon: one hundred years ago, a dinky town about 45 minutes south of where I live. Sounds cute enough, but like many towns in the West – Yoncalla tells a pretty dark story. There’s a lawless alchemy to these pioneer outposts, where ‘settlement’ runs over whole peoples, where prejudice finds a foothold, then a platform, then a foundation.

    Yoncalla takes us to the past, to find today, and tomorrow.
  • 137
    A meeting of an online Extraterrestrial-Curious Social Club has surprising outcomes.
  • THE SPLENDID GIFT
    A woman mourns for her life, cut down by gun violence. Part of the #CodeRed Plays collection.
  • TWELFTH DAY
    A modern epiphany.