Jennifer Rumberger

Jennifer Rumberger

Jennifer Rumberger is a playwright, essayist, and performer of live storytelling. Recent productions include The Locusts at the Gift Theatre Company, Night in Alachua County with Wildclaw Theatre, Open Blue Sky at Stella Adler/ Tisch School of the Arts and The Bride with the Living Room Playmakers and Chicago Fringe Festival. A Little Ghost Story was a second time selection for the 2019 Seven Devils...
Jennifer Rumberger is a playwright, essayist, and performer of live storytelling. Recent productions include The Locusts at the Gift Theatre Company, Night in Alachua County with Wildclaw Theatre, Open Blue Sky at Stella Adler/ Tisch School of the Arts and The Bride with the Living Room Playmakers and Chicago Fringe Festival. A Little Ghost Story was a second time selection for the 2019 Seven Devils Playwrights Conference; Night in Alachua County was also developed there in 2014. Night in Alachua County was recommended for consideration for the 2018 Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award. Jennifer was a nominee for the PoNY Fellowship and a semi-finalist for the P73 Fellowship. Jennifer’s work has been developed or presented in New York, Houston, Chicago, and Florida by The Lark Playwrights Center, id Theatre Company, The Gift Theatre Company, Black Box Acting Studio, The Living Room Playmakers, Commission Theatre Company, Wordsmyth Theatre Company, Mildred's Umbrella Theatre Company, White Rose Miami, and Northwestern University. She is a founding member and associate playwright with the Living Room Playmakers, and is currently based in New York City. MFA: Northwestern.

Photo: Joe Mazza at Brave Lux


Plays

  • We Go When We’re Ready To Go by Jennifer Rumberger
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy
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    Keyword: death, parent death + 3 more
    Genre: dark comedy
    Keyword: death, parent death, Sisters, florida, climate change
    An adult woman is caring for her dying father in the last days of his life. Her sisters and her mother are there, trying to help but mostly making a mess of things. All the women are attempting to make sense of their life choices in the face of their millennial despair while the world falls apart around them.
  • The Locusts by Jennifer Rumberger
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, horror + 1 more
    Genre: dark comedy, horror, mystery/thriller
    When a serial killer goes on a gruesome rampage in Ella’s small hometown of Vero Beach, Florida, she’s called away from her FBI training program to help apprehend him. At home, she’s confronted with the life she left behind: her pregnant and struggling sister, her scared young niece, who like Ella, is desperate to find a life somewhere else, and the dark events of her childhood that she’s tried to forget. As...
    When a serial killer goes on a gruesome rampage in Ella’s small hometown of Vero Beach, Florida, she’s called away from her FBI training program to help apprehend him. At home, she’s confronted with the life she left behind: her pregnant and struggling sister, her scared young niece, who like Ella, is desperate to find a life somewhere else, and the dark events of her childhood that she’s tried to forget. As the murders grow more horrific and the small community is frozen by fear, Ella realizes she has to confront the events of her dark past in order to stop him.
  • Night in Alachua County by Jennifer Rumberger
    Recommendations: 4
    ·
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, horror + 1 more
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    Keyword: florida, ghosts + 5 more
    Genre: dark comedy, horror, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: florida, ghosts, monster, Sisters, mother and daughter, folklore, Comedic horror
    Violet always knew she’d return to save her sister Lily from the clutches of their unrelenting and controlling mother Crystal one day. But when Lily calls her claiming to have seen a strange man in her bedroom, Violet knows that time is now. Crystal has other plans for Lily, however, and she's not about to let anyone -- not even her own daughter -- stand in her way.
  • Vulpecula by Jennifer Rumberger
    Recommendations: 3
    ·
    Cast: 
    8
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    Genre: drama, horror
    ·
    Keyword: Western, feminist
    Genre: drama, horror
    Keyword: Western, feminist
    One morning in 1875, Harper wakes in her Montana cabin to find her husband murdered and her baby daughter gone, her crib covered in blood. After thirteen years of mourning, her sister Charlotte crosses the country to pull her out of her grief. Vulpecula is a play about the struggle of terrible loneliness, the moral cost of violence, and the importance of our human connections in the great and empty space of a country being born.
  • A Little Ghost Story by Jennifer Rumberger
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: opioid addiction, Sisters + 4 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, holiday, political
    Keyword: opioid addiction, Sisters, family, coming to terms with death, feminist ghost story, ghosts
    Lettie doesn’t believe in ghosts, but when her father Jake reports that strange things are happening in the middle of the night she drops everything and heads home; to the house in Florida she grew up in, the house her dad is renovating, the house where – ten months ago – her sister Mara died of an opioid overdose. Convinced her father is in denial, but unable to shake the haunted feeling at home, Lettie calls...
    Lettie doesn’t believe in ghosts, but when her father Jake reports that strange things are happening in the middle of the night she drops everything and heads home; to the house in Florida she grew up in, the house her dad is renovating, the house where – ten months ago – her sister Mara died of an opioid overdose. Convinced her father is in denial, but unable to shake the haunted feeling at home, Lettie calls in her skeptic sister Claire to strengthen her resolve. With the holidays approaching, one family struggles to move forward in a home that, even gutted, holds tight to memories of the past. ​
  • The Little World by Jennifer Rumberger
    Cast: 
    1
    ·
    Genre: drama, zoom
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    Keyword: monologue play, COVID 19 + 4 more
    Genre: drama, zoom
    Keyword: monologue play, COVID 19, COVID, vaccine science, disinformation, mother/daughter relationship
    Elizabeth is a clinical trial coordinator and an expert on vaccine science, and does her best to inform her patients with humor, trying to combat the misinformation she’s hearing back from them regarding Covid. She has a strained relationship with her teenage daughter when one morning, she wakes up unable to see, a rare and terrifying symptom of the virus. Meanwhile, she has lost her mother into a world of...
    Elizabeth is a clinical trial coordinator and an expert on vaccine science, and does her best to inform her patients with humor, trying to combat the misinformation she’s hearing back from them regarding Covid. She has a strained relationship with her teenage daughter when one morning, she wakes up unable to see, a rare and terrifying symptom of the virus. Meanwhile, she has lost her mother into a world of conspiracy theories, compounding her sense of isolation as the situation with her daughter worsens. A monologue play written and performed over Zoom in 2021 for Northwestern scientists as the Covid vaccines were becoming available, this play serves as documentation of an extraordinary moment in human history, and how one scientist fights to maintain hope, professionally and personally, in a moment of great grief.
  • The Windows, The Doors, The Flowers, The Floors by Jennifer Rumberger
    Cast: 
    9
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: Sisters, wedding + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: Sisters, wedding, Tennessee
    When Maggie arrives late to her sister Rose’s wedding in Knoxville, she already feels the distance between her and her family. After the loss of their father, they have grown apart, and all of her sisters have made families of their own. Over the course of the rehearsal dinner, Rose announces her pregnancy and Maggie, the only one choosing not to have them, feels herself permanently drifting away from them...
    When Maggie arrives late to her sister Rose’s wedding in Knoxville, she already feels the distance between her and her family. After the loss of their father, they have grown apart, and all of her sisters have made families of their own. Over the course of the rehearsal dinner, Rose announces her pregnancy and Maggie, the only one choosing not to have them, feels herself permanently drifting away from them. When a sudden natural event throws the wedding into chaos, they all must find a way to realize they matter to each other in order to survive.
  • Open Blue Sky by Jennifer Rumberger
    Cast: 
    8
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: Sisters, wedding + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: Sisters, wedding, family, florida
    It’s early morning the day before Bailey Lawrence’s wedding in her fading family home. Her sisters, Natalie, Ansley, and Caroline are all there, helping with the preparations, when their estranged sister Abby arrives from New York. Old family tensions arise as the wedding gets closer, and as Bailey tries to find out why Abby truly is there. As the weekend moves on and family secrets arise, the family hinges...
    It’s early morning the day before Bailey Lawrence’s wedding in her fading family home. Her sisters, Natalie, Ansley, and Caroline are all there, helping with the preparations, when their estranged sister Abby arrives from New York. Old family tensions arise as the wedding gets closer, and as Bailey tries to find out why Abby truly is there. As the weekend moves on and family secrets arise, the family hinges on the verge of breaking apart--for good.
  • The Night Swimmers by Jennifer Rumberger
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Genre: comedy, drama
    On a dreary evening in early spring, Kate and Mamie find themselves stranded at a Radisson Hotel off a highway in Illinois after Kate's car breaks down on the way to Mamie's bachelorette weekend in Chicago.  At the same time, Melissa, a traveling nurse, arrives at the hotel for a job interview with her reluctant niece, Neyla, in tow.  The four women spend the weekend stranded at the hotel pool, along...
    On a dreary evening in early spring, Kate and Mamie find themselves stranded at a Radisson Hotel off a highway in Illinois after Kate's car breaks down on the way to Mamie's bachelorette weekend in Chicago.  At the same time, Melissa, a traveling nurse, arrives at the hotel for a job interview with her reluctant niece, Neyla, in tow.  The four women spend the weekend stranded at the hotel pool, along with the hotel maid, Willie, as they search for their paths as women in America today and confront the deep sense of loneliness that permeates each of their lives.
  • Laura's Party by Jennifer Rumberger
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: gay and lesbian, millennials + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: gay and lesbian, millennials, Chicago
    On a summer night in Chicago, a party rages for Laura, who just got cast in SNL. On her apartment's back porch, her friends contemplate what this means for them as they try and figure out their paths towards the future.
  • Paper Furniture (10 Minute Play) by Jennifer Rumberger
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: divorce
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: divorce
    An adult woman comes to terms with her older parents' divorce, and reflects on how their relationship has affected the way she makes choices in her own relationships.
  • Mare Cognitum (10 Minute Play) by Jennifer Rumberger
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: Fathers and Daughters, technology
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: Fathers and Daughters, technology
    A father and his adult daughter have a Facetime conversation about where they're both at in their life as they watch a lunar eclipse.
  • Crazy Horse (10 Minute Play) by Jennifer Rumberger
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy
    ·
    Keyword: drunk, halloween + 2 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: drunk, halloween, quarterlife crisis, female friendship
    Two women talk about deep shit on the floor of a bar on Halloween night.
  • The Salmon (10 Minute Play) by Jennifer Rumberger
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy
    ·
    Keyword: birthday, quarterlife crisis + 1 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: birthday, quarterlife crisis, Therapy
    A woman considers the consequences of her life choices on her 32nd birthday.
  • Paperland (10 Minute Play) by Jennifer Rumberger
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: office, suicide + 1 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: office, suicide, stapler
    Two women confront their existential terror at the office.
  • entangled black holes (10 Minute Play) by Jennifer Rumberger
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: romantic comedy, millennials
    Genre: comedy, drama, romantic comedy
    Keyword: romantic comedy, millennials
    Two old friends meet up at their 15th high school reunion.
  • Red, Purple, Blue, Green (10 Minute Play) by Jennifer Rumberger
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 4 more
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    Keyword: American politics, absurd comedy + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, political, science fiction
    Keyword: American politics, absurd comedy, dark comedy
    Three people play cards after the world has ended.