Ali MacLean

Ali MacLean

Ali MacLean is an actor and writer in Los Angeles and a graduate of the Miami University actor’s program and the LaJolla Playhouse acting conservatory. She is the winner of the 2018 John Gassner Playwriting Award, a 2019 O'Neill Finalist, the 2019 She NYC Arts Best Production, the 2020 David Sedaris Writing Prize, and the 2020 Julie Harris Playwriting Award.

Her plays and writing have been...
Ali MacLean is an actor and writer in Los Angeles and a graduate of the Miami University actor’s program and the LaJolla Playhouse acting conservatory. She is the winner of the 2018 John Gassner Playwriting Award, a 2019 O'Neill Finalist, the 2019 She NYC Arts Best Production, the 2020 David Sedaris Writing Prize, and the 2020 Julie Harris Playwriting Award.

Her plays and writing have been workshopped at the Melrose Theater, (via the HBO Workspace), the Hudson Theatre (via Comedy Central Stages), the Lyric Hyperion, Largo at the Coronet Theatre, the Naked Angels Theatre Group, the White Bear Theatre (UK), , Rogue Machine Theatre, A Noise Within Theatre, Antaeus Theatre, Zephyr Theatre, EST/LA, Theatre 40, ANDTheatre Company, The TANK NYC, The Playwrights Realm, Dramatist Guild Footlights, Summer Salt and The Arcola Theatre (UK). Ali has participated in the 24-Hour Plays Viral Monologues alongside Kenneth Lonergan and Matthew Broderick.

Distinctions:
She’s Not There: John Gassner Playwriting Award, SHE NYC Arts Best Play. Finalist: Scribe Marsha A. Croyle Award, Kitchen Dog Theatre, and Pegasus Playlabs, and Alleyway Theatre Maxim Mazumdar Prize.

Wolves At The Door: Julie Harris Award. Finalist: O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference, Creede Repertory Headwaters Festival, Screencraft, and New American Voices.

Sullen Girl: Workshopped by Playwrights Realm, Dramatists Guild Footlights. Finalist: Moxie Arts, Gary Marshall New Works, Parity Playwrights Commission.

This Will Be Our Year: Workshopped: EST/LA, Citadel of Playwrights (Resident Artist), Sundance Collective, SHE LA Arts Festival. Orchard Project Finalist. Being adapted into a musical with Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn.

I’ll Call You Mine: Workshopped: Summer Salt Playwrights Workshop, The Cloud Factory.

The Point (short play): Workshopped: Antaeus, ANDTheatre, and EST/LA.

Final Resting Place: Finalist: Kitchen Dog, Parity Playwright Commission, Women's Playwriting Prize UK, Pipeline Theatre, Ojai Playwrights Conference

The Point - full length - (workshopped at Summer Salt) EST/LA 'Pick of the Playwrights Unit', Winterfest, 2024

Frozen Oranges, a monologues she wrote and performed, was chosen from 6,500 entries to be a part of the MIND mental health charity fundraiser show at the Arcola Theatre in London.

Nominated for BroadwayWorld Awards for Best Play, Best Writer, Best Director, Best Actor

Short films: Winners at Atlanta, Toronto, Gen Art, and Palm Springs.
Screenplays: Stowe Story Labs Fellow Women in Film Mentor recipient, Writers For Writers Fellowship, Finalist: WeScreenplay Diverse Voices, Orchard Project, Chesterfield Writer’s Project. Semi-Finalist: Los Angeles International Film Festival, Scriptapalooza, Screencraft, Script Lab.

TV: MTV, VH-1, Showtime, HBO. POP TV, and FOX

Publications: 2020 David Sedaris Humor Writing Prize. Nation Books, Applause Books, and Smith & Kraus.

Member: EST/LA and their Playwrights Unit, Antaeus Theatre Playwrights Lab, The Cloud Factory, Citadel of Playwrights, The Honor Roll - an advocacy group of women+ playwrights over 40, Imagine Impact Creators Network, Greenlight Women, RespectAbility, 1in4 Coalition Writers, The Sundance Collective, and the Dramatists Guild.

A mental health advocate, MacLean was named a Talent Ambassador for MTV Mental Health Action Day. She speaks on panels (National Endowment For The Arts, Roundabout Theatre, Hollywood Fringe Fest, Women In Film, RespectAbility, Kings Head Theater, etc.) about topics such as mental health in the arts, depression, inclusion, and disability.

Plays

  • The Point - full length play by Ali MacLean
    Cast: 
    7–15
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: Alcohol, violence + 8 more
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy, drama, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: Alcohol, violence, fentanyl, small town America, Gangs, love triangle, murder, new england, modern poverty, class divide
    THE POINT is a dark thriller that follows a love quadrangle between a college student, a townie drug pusher, his junkie ex-girlfriend, and the hapless friend in love with the co-ed. The tension mounts when one of them is found dead. The story, told out of sequence, follows the aftermath of the death, but on a macro level it examines the rise of economic inequity along with corresponding opioid deaths.
    ...
    THE POINT is a dark thriller that follows a love quadrangle between a college student, a townie drug pusher, his junkie ex-girlfriend, and the hapless friend in love with the co-ed. The tension mounts when one of them is found dead. The story, told out of sequence, follows the aftermath of the death, but on a macro level it examines the rise of economic inequity along with corresponding opioid deaths.

    THE POINT is set behind the “Tofu Curtain”, an invisible county line that divides the quaint Ivy college town of North Hampton from the run-down factory town of Holyoke in Western Massachusetts. While North Hampton boasts Smith College, Holyoke had the highest rate of pregnancies and STDs, and the largest heroin and Fentanyl trade in the New England area in 2023.
  • She's Not There by Ali MacLean
    Recommendations: 10
    ·
    Cast: 
    6–13
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 5 more
    ·
    Keyword: Depression, women + 6 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, fantasy, horror, melodrama, romantic comedy, tragedy
    Keyword: Depression, women, death, suicide, monster, mental illness, Relationships, love
    When Rob meets Anna, he thinks she’s the one. When Anna meets Rob, she thinks maybe she can finally be happy. But there is a third party in the relationship that may destroy their union. Every night a shadowy monster called The Form comes out of the walls of Anna's apartment and tries to kill her. What starts out as a meet-cute slowly descends into confusion and horror. This play personifies depression and...
    When Rob meets Anna, he thinks she’s the one. When Anna meets Rob, she thinks maybe she can finally be happy. But there is a third party in the relationship that may destroy their union. Every night a shadowy monster called The Form comes out of the walls of Anna's apartment and tries to kill her. What starts out as a meet-cute slowly descends into confusion and horror. This play personifies depression and explores how it can devastate a person and the lives of those around them.
  • This Will Be Our Year by Ali MacLean
    Recommendations: 14
    ·
    Cast: 
    4–6
    ·
    Genre: drama, musical + 2 more
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    Keyword: Relationships, Toxic love + 8 more
    Genre: drama, musical, period, tragedy
    Keyword: Relationships, Toxic love, alcoholism, miscarriage, music, rock star, rape, addiction, drugs and rock n' roll, disability
    Meet Hugo. Millions of girls want him. He could have any of them. But he wants Gen.
    Meet Gen. She’s not a people person. That is, until she meets a certain person. And she wants Hugo.
    Hugo and Gen are perfect together, but can’t be together. Year after year they keep trying and it just might kill them.

    A rocknroll tragedy by Ali MacLean
    Featuring music and lyrics by Craig...
    Meet Hugo. Millions of girls want him. He could have any of them. But he wants Gen.
    Meet Gen. She’s not a people person. That is, until she meets a certain person. And she wants Hugo.
    Hugo and Gen are perfect together, but can’t be together. Year after year they keep trying and it just might kill them.

    A rocknroll tragedy by Ali MacLean
    Featuring music and lyrics by Craig Finn from The Hold Steady.
  • Final Resting Place by Ali MacLean
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    6–16
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: serial killer, Violence against women + 6 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, satire
    Keyword: serial killer, Violence against women, murder, monologues, comedy/horror play, horror film, death and grief, the afterlife
    FINAL RESTING PLACE is a composite of stories, told by very different types of women across the country whose lives are connected by the infamous serial killer, Willy Ray Watts.
    Some are victims from beyond the grave, some are family members, cops, lawyers. Others have suffered and been discarded, yet remained nameless to society, while Willie has become famous.
    A horror movie being made based...
    FINAL RESTING PLACE is a composite of stories, told by very different types of women across the country whose lives are connected by the infamous serial killer, Willy Ray Watts.
    Some are victims from beyond the grave, some are family members, cops, lawyers. Others have suffered and been discarded, yet remained nameless to society, while Willie has become famous.
    A horror movie being made based on the killings, called Final Resting Place, is intertwined throughout the play and soon the audience isn’t able to tell fact from fiction.
  • Wolves At The Door by Ali MacLean
    Recommendations: 6
    ·
    Cast: 
    7–11
    ·
    Genre: drama, political + 1 more
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    Keyword: death and grief, mass shooting + 8 more
    Genre: drama, political, tragedy
    Keyword: death and grief, mass shooting, Toxic Masculinity, life after death, Chicago gun violence, gun control, death of a child, guns, gun debate, incels
    Wolves At The Door, winner of the Julie Harris Award and finalist for the O'Neill Theatre Conference, is a story about a couple Grace and Gavin, who lost their daughter Lucy in a shooting where she was in the wrong place wrong time. The shooter, Marc, had returned to work to kill his co-worker in an ‘incel’ styled revenge plot. Lucy was at a dance class in the building next door and was collateral damage....
    Wolves At The Door, winner of the Julie Harris Award and finalist for the O'Neill Theatre Conference, is a story about a couple Grace and Gavin, who lost their daughter Lucy in a shooting where she was in the wrong place wrong time. The shooter, Marc, had returned to work to kill his co-worker in an ‘incel’ styled revenge plot. Lucy was at a dance class in the building next door and was collateral damage. While grieving, Grace is bombarded by a stream of visitors, all who seem to want to exploit her in some manner. A Pastor wants her to convert and be the face of the ministry. A psychic wants her to connect with her daughter and be advertisement for her popular practice. A cop who was at the shooting wants absolution. Her ex-husband Mitch wants custody of half of his daughter’s ashes. Meanwhile Grace and Gavin grapple with the harassment of ‘hoaxers’ who don’t believe that Lucy is dead, and their own relationship woes, as one of them wants to heal and one isn’t ready to move on.

    The play flips back and forth in time from the past as we see what set Marc on his path and as he gears up to exact his plan, and the present with Grace trying to come to terms with the aftermath.
  • Sullen Girl by Ali MacLean
    Recommendations: 3
    ·
    Cast: 
    4–8
    ·
    Genre: drama, tragedy
    ·
    Keyword: child abuse, trauma + 7 more
    Genre: drama, tragedy
    Keyword: child abuse, trauma, siblings, war, female sexuality, incest, alcohol drugs and violence, drug addiction, complex grief
    After her mother dies, Gen and her brother Kellan find home life with their abusive father unbearable. However, once she escapes is when the real hell begins. Flipping back and forth in time, Gen grows up in a house that is haunted with horrible secrets which she takes with her as a young adult battling life in the Big Apple. She begins to realize no matter how many times she changes her life, her childhood...
    After her mother dies, Gen and her brother Kellan find home life with their abusive father unbearable. However, once she escapes is when the real hell begins. Flipping back and forth in time, Gen grows up in a house that is haunted with horrible secrets which she takes with her as a young adult battling life in the Big Apple. She begins to realize no matter how many times she changes her life, her childhood trauma is waiting for her until she conquers it.
  • Bits N Pieces by Ali MacLean
    Recommendations: 6
    ·
    Cast: 
    1
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: songwriting, mental illness + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, musical, zoom
    Keyword: songwriting, mental illness, break ups, adult relationships, comic violence, Stalking, mental hospital
    Lindsey, a woman in her 20s-30s, makes a video to her Ex, apologizing for her past behaviors.
  • Those People by Ali MacLean
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: American race relations and racism, racism + 6 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: American race relations and racism, racism, American schools, children and guns, guns, kids, justice, cycles of violence
    A Southern gothic tale about bullying, parenting, and racism in a small town in Georgia.

    Ms. Hicks has called Justin’s mother and grandfather to her office to discuss Justin’s behavior. Now she has to deal with theirs.
  • The Point by Ali MacLean
    Recommendations: 4
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: violence, dating + 8 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: violence, dating, Alcohol, drugs and violence, drug addiction, working class, thriller, twist love triangle, Massachusetts, Bon Jovi
    Murph and Scanlan join lovebirds Teenie and Lugo for a debaucherous party deep in the Massachusetts woods. At first, they miss the underlying tension between the couple but then they realize the night is about to take a deadly turn.
  • The Fifth Beatle by Ali MacLean
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: Beatles, music + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, farce, period
    Keyword: Beatles, music, murder, music industry
    The team behind the Beatles is dealing with a major PR snafu, but luckily they may have the perfect solution.
  • I'll Call You Mine (Work In Progress) by Ali MacLean
    Cast: 
    4–6
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: high school sweethearts, male mental health + 8 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: high school sweethearts, male mental health, death, grief, unrequited love, Toxic love, misogyny, wedding, Rock Climbing, abusive relationships
    Paul's life fell apart when Molly left town, but now she's back with her fiance and Paul will do anything to win her over.

    Turning the trope of the rom-com on its ear, and riding the line between funny and frightening, I'll Call You Mine follows Paul's downward spiral as he pursues Molly and won't take no for an answer. I’ll Call You Mine, is prompted by the Zombies...
    Paul's life fell apart when Molly left town, but now she's back with her fiance and Paul will do anything to win her over.

    Turning the trope of the rom-com on its ear, and riding the line between funny and frightening, I'll Call You Mine follows Paul's downward spiral as he pursues Molly and won't take no for an answer. I’ll Call You Mine, is prompted by the Zombies song of the same name, as well as their song “Maybe After He’s Gone”. This comedic thriller falls somewhere between Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, Duncan MacMillan’s Monster, and Anthony Shaffer’s Murderer.

    I'll Call You Mine is the third from MacLean's Zombies Plays Trilogy - plays based on songs by the 60’s rock group The Zombies. Each play (She’s Not There, This Will Be Our Year, and I’ll Call You Mine) examines relationships from a different toxic theme: depression and co-dependence, adultery and addiction, obsession and revenge. When love is the drug, relationships have the ability to make zombies of us all.