A.A. Brenner

A.A. Brenner

A.A. Brenner (they/them) is a playwright, dramaturg, and New Yorker. Their writing blends naturalistic dialogue with heightened realism to explore queer, Jewish, and Disability themes, challenging both societal power structures and theatrical form. A.A.'s plays have been presented or commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse, National Disability Theatre, Lincoln Center, CO/LAB Theatre Group, Shakespeare Theatre...
A.A. Brenner (they/them) is a playwright, dramaturg, and New Yorker. Their writing blends naturalistic dialogue with heightened realism to explore queer, Jewish, and Disability themes, challenging both societal power structures and theatrical form. A.A.'s plays have been presented or commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse, National Disability Theatre, Lincoln Center, CO/LAB Theatre Group, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Young Playwrights Inc., The Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, Columbia University, Mason Gross School of the Arts @ Rutgers University, and The Hangar Theatre Lab Company; their play for all audiences, EMILY DRIVER'S GREAT RACE THROUGH TIME AND SPACE (co-written by Gregg Mozgala), was featured on the 2020 Kilroys List. Additionally, A.A. was a Finalist for the 2020-22 Apothetae & Lark Playwriting Fellowship, the Platform Presents 2021 Playwright's Prize, and the 2021 Columbia@Roundabout New Play Reading Series, and they have been a writer-in-residence at New York Stage and Film's 2021 Summer Season and The Lark's Beyond the Binary initiative for trans and nonbinary writers. Currently, A.A. lives on Lenape land in Brooklyn, NY, and is a 2022 graduate of the MFA Playwriting Program at Columbia University School of the Arts.

Plays

  • Blanche & Stella: A Sequela by A.A. Brenner
    Recommendations: 4
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    Cast: 
    4–6
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    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy + 1 more
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    Keyword: Tennessee Williams, queer + 6 more
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: Tennessee Williams, queer, LGBTQ, adaptation, disability, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, borderline personality disorder
    A modernized queer, Disabled new play inspired by Tennessee Williams' A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE with no cis white men and one Gentleman Caller who is not a gentleman, BLANCHE & STELLA explores and reimagines the central complex female relationships at the heart of Williams' play and canon.

    In this retelling, Blanche DuBois and Stella Kowalski are two only-children and childhood best...
    A modernized queer, Disabled new play inspired by Tennessee Williams' A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE with no cis white men and one Gentleman Caller who is not a gentleman, BLANCHE & STELLA explores and reimagines the central complex female relationships at the heart of Williams' play and canon.

    In this retelling, Blanche DuBois and Stella Kowalski are two only-children and childhood best friends ("sisters") who end up living together after Blanche goes through a cataclysmic breakup and shows up unannounced on Stella's doorstep in Washington, D.C. Now adults, the pair must navigate mismatched expectations and their own maladaptive coping mechanisms as they question what to do when the people they love aren't quite who they appeared to be.
  • Transgressions by A.A. Brenner
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: Gay and LGBTQ, genderqueer + 7 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, melodrama, romantic comedy
    Keyword: Gay and LGBTQ, genderqueer, Non-Binary, Transgender, breast cancer, illness, abuse, relationship abuse, college age
    After being diagnosed with breast cancer and abandoned by their (now ex-)fiancée, nonbinary poet Jess struggles to fend for themselves amongst the wreckage of their formerly-idyllic home. When they receive an unexpected visit from college ex Val, it seems like they may have finally gotten the help they've so desperately craved. But things aren’t as simple as they seem, and Jess must wrestle for control...
    After being diagnosed with breast cancer and abandoned by their (now ex-)fiancée, nonbinary poet Jess struggles to fend for themselves amongst the wreckage of their formerly-idyllic home. When they receive an unexpected visit from college ex Val, it seems like they may have finally gotten the help they've so desperately craved. But things aren’t as simple as they seem, and Jess must wrestle for control over their illness, their identity, and their life before it's too late.
  • Emily Driver's Great Race Through Time and Space by A.A. Brenner
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    4–6
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    Genre: adventure, comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: disability, disabled persons + 1 more
    Genre: adventure, comedy, docudrama/historic, political, young audiences
    Keyword: disability, disabled persons, History
    As a history-obsessed 12-year-old, Emily Driver uses her YouTube channel to celebrate landmark moments of activism and change. So when her request for a needed wheelchair is denied, she takes matters into her own hands – and launches into a time-travelling trip across the country where she meets trailblazing leaders from the past who have fought for equal rights. Co-written with Gregg Mozgala and originally...
    As a history-obsessed 12-year-old, Emily Driver uses her YouTube channel to celebrate landmark moments of activism and change. So when her request for a needed wheelchair is denied, she takes matters into her own hands – and launches into a time-travelling trip across the country where she meets trailblazing leaders from the past who have fought for equal rights. Co-written with Gregg Mozgala and originally comissioned by La Jolla Playhouse and National Disability Theatre, EMILY DRIVER'S GREAT RACE THROUGH TIME AND SPACE follows a young woman's journey as she learns the power of speaking up, and how one voice can inspire others to fight the forces of ableism and create a more equitable world.
  • Damocles by A.A. Brenner
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    5–9
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    Genre: comedy, experimental + 6 more
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    Keyword: intersex, Transgender + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, experimental, fable/folktale, fantasy, farce, parody/spoof, political, satire
    Keyword: intersex, Transgender, nonbinary, election, American politics, LGBTQ
    In 1843, a twenty-three year-old intersex man named Levi Suydam asked the town board of selectmen in Salisbury, Connecticut to validate his right to vote in a hotly-contested local election.
    This play is not about that election.
    A synthetically-fragmented fantasia about voting rights, elections, American society, and, yes, the ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, DAMOCLES follows Levi on his quest for...
    In 1843, a twenty-three year-old intersex man named Levi Suydam asked the town board of selectmen in Salisbury, Connecticut to validate his right to vote in a hotly-contested local election.
    This play is not about that election.
    A synthetically-fragmented fantasia about voting rights, elections, American society, and, yes, the ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, DAMOCLES follows Levi on his quest for equal rights, and also questions and satirizes the cis-hetero power structures on which our country's founders built our nation.
  • The Wind Cries Mary by A.A. Brenner
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: LGBTQ, queer + 7 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, experimental
    Keyword: LGBTQ, queer, disability, absurdism, neoabsurdism, memory, death, cerebral palsy, suicide
    After agreeing to a dinner date with long-lost childhood friend Mary, Reg is forced to reconcile their idyllic early memories with the complex and oft-disturbing realities of adulthood as they confront the ghosts of their past.
    A multi-dimensional neo-absurdist play, THE WIND CRIES MARY questions the confines of reality, memory, and death through a queer, disabled lens.
  • God is Dead & April's Getting Married by A.A. Brenner
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: comedy, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: LGBTQ, queer + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, faith-based, political
    Keyword: LGBTQ, queer, Lesbian, Mormon, religion, bildungsroman, coming of age, memory, marriage
    Five years after graduating from high school, El and Elliott have moved onward and upward with their lives...or have they? After receiving a wedding invitation from Mormon ex-best friend and girlfriend April, they are forced to reexamine their past relationships and selves as they struggle to answer the question that has continued to haunt them for the past five years: what happened, actually? And what does...
    Five years after graduating from high school, El and Elliott have moved onward and upward with their lives...or have they? After receiving a wedding invitation from Mormon ex-best friend and girlfriend April, they are forced to reexamine their past relationships and selves as they struggle to answer the question that has continued to haunt them for the past five years: what happened, actually? And what does this mean for their futures—and for April's?
    God is Dead & April's Getting Married examines the tenuous nature of memory and reality while exploring the intersections of queerness, religion and friendship. This time-bending comedy-drama strives to answer one of life's most hotly debated questions: do people ever truly change?