Anna Langman

Anna Langman

Anna Langman (she/her) is a recent graduate of Brooklyn College’s Playwriting MFA program, having graduated from Connecticut College with a BA in English and Theatre with a concentration in playwriting in 2018. She is a queer, ace theatre artist with invisible disabilities. Her work seeks to break the way we think about theatre and about life, while always remaining inclusive to the asexual community. Her plays...
Anna Langman (she/her) is a recent graduate of Brooklyn College’s Playwriting MFA program, having graduated from Connecticut College with a BA in English and Theatre with a concentration in playwriting in 2018. She is a queer, ace theatre artist with invisible disabilities. Her work seeks to break the way we think about theatre and about life, while always remaining inclusive to the asexual community. Her plays have had staged readings and productions regionally and internationally, including at the Independent International Award for Improper Dramaturgy, where her play Beauteous Ganymede tied for this year’s first place prize, for the distinction of “a play no one will ever agree to stage.” During quarantine, she has created short plays in formats such as Zoom, Twitch, Instagram, and Minecraft. Anna is also a prolific sonnetrix and an avid Bardolator, who attended the 2018 Summer Training Institute at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA. Her love sonnet cycle can be found at @shakespeareslilsis on Instagram, and you can read more about her at annalangman.com.

Plays

  • Cardinal Directions by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    16
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: art, museum + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, experimental, movement/physical
    Keyword: art, museum, high school, teenagers, modern art, Young actors, coming of age, visual art
    Sixteen students, each belonging to a certain artistic major at their high school for the arts, embark on a voluntary field trip to an enigmatic modern art museum during the apex of their senior spring semester. Desperate to have a meaningful artistic experience, the teens (and one precocious tween) contend with their conceptions of what makes for a proper artwork, artist, and person. These casual acquaintances...
    Sixteen students, each belonging to a certain artistic major at their high school for the arts, embark on a voluntary field trip to an enigmatic modern art museum during the apex of their senior spring semester. Desperate to have a meaningful artistic experience, the teens (and one precocious tween) contend with their conceptions of what makes for a proper artwork, artist, and person. These casual acquaintances converge by chosen circumstance to forge new connections and perspectives, becoming irrevocably bonded over the course of one fateful, unassuming day.
  • Zack and the Beans by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    8
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 5 more
    ·
    Keyword: absurdism, beanstalk + 7 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, dark comedy, fable/folktale, fantasy, farce, parody/spoof
    Keyword: absurdism, beanstalk, Nursery Rhymes, parental figures, mother, coming of age, finding oneself, growing, growth
    When Zack is presented with a handful of beans, there ought only to be one thing to do with them. However, Zack cannot for the life of him figure out what that is. In a familiar nursery tale entrusted to the wrong character, nothing can go right no matter how hard it may try, unless Zack can discover his destiny in time.
  • Beauteous Ganymede by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    10–100
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, adventure + 15 more
    ·
    Keyword: Stage Directions, scenic design + 6 more
    Genre: adaptation, adventure, comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, fable/folktale, fantasy, farce, melodrama, movement/physical, mystery/thriller, pageant, pantomime, period, satire, tragedy
    Keyword: Stage Directions, scenic design, puppetry, projection design, sound design, absurdism, epic, fantastical
    A play in stage directions, Beauteous Ganymede features zero human characters and no recognizable human language whatsoever. This evening of theatre comprises a series of vignette scenes and interludes, utilizing puppetry, scenery, projections, sound and music, and more to tell stories and craft moments.
  • That Pretty Story by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    12–22
    ·
    Genre: drama, fantasy + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: women, beauty + 8 more
    Genre: drama, fantasy, movement/physical, verse
    Keyword: women, beauty, Body image, visual art, art, sculpture, mirror, artist, muse, power struggle
    A reclusive female artist strives endlessly to depict a perfect yet abstract feminine form, when just such a seemingly perfect young woman arrives in the flesh. The resulting bond between artist and muse evolves into a tumultuous wrestling over the nature of beauty and perception - and, ultimately, whether freedom and agency will ever be attainable for these two women, within the walls of the studio or in the world beyond.
  • Gooseberry Jam by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 6 more
    ·
    Keyword: kitchen appliances, apocalypse + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, experimental, opera, political, science fiction, tragedy, verse
    Keyword: kitchen appliances, apocalypse, environment, extinction, kitchen, baking
    The animals are gone from the city, and down in the streets, roving packs of humans seek nobly to fill the roles of the lost species, if only they could remember what animals were. Meanwhile, safe inside her high-rise tower, Dr. leads a self-sufficient life amongst the rituals of her kitchen, when the "animals" begin knocking at her windowpane. In the post-civilization city, how can anyone survive...
    The animals are gone from the city, and down in the streets, roving packs of humans seek nobly to fill the roles of the lost species, if only they could remember what animals were. Meanwhile, safe inside her high-rise tower, Dr. leads a self-sufficient life amongst the rituals of her kitchen, when the "animals" begin knocking at her windowpane. In the post-civilization city, how can anyone survive daily existence, connect across species, and most importantly of all, how do we remember what we have lost?
  • The Wingèd Ones by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, drama + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: island, shipwreck + 7 more
    Genre: adaptation, drama, fable/folktale, fantasy, verse
    Keyword: island, shipwreck, Shakespeare, poetry, Coleridge, triumph, rain, verse, storytelling
    On an otherworldly island where no one comes and no one goes, the rain has not ceased for ten years. With the seas rising and the skies falling, the last remaining residents are ready to say their goodbyes — until one legendary visitor arrives and twists their fates irrevocably. In this verse drama, numerous poetic and dramatic influences converge to form a new tale of tragedy and triumph.
  • Gray Play by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    17–20
    ·
    Genre: experimental, fantasy + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: gray, loneliness + 7 more
    Genre: experimental, fantasy, movement/physical, tragedy
    Keyword: gray, loneliness, Solitude, perception, circus, experimental, dance, tuesday, monochrome
    GRAY PLAY
    A bazaar
    A circus of perception
    The human tragedy
    A symphony of loneliness
    A life drawing
    A piece of realism
    A tuesday
  • Call On the Rotary Next Time by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    6–21
    ·
    Genre: comedy, commedia dell'arte + 4 more
    ·
    Keyword: love, impossible + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, commedia dell'arte, dark comedy, fantasy, farce, science fiction
    Keyword: love, impossible, letters, pen pals, mailman, Arlecchino, baby doll, writing, communication, Relationships
    Somewhere in this universe or another, a professional pen pal keeps busy at his typing, stone-chiseling, and smoke-signaling, while mourning the disappearance of his dearest and only friend. When the mythical Mailman arrives, the order of reality is turned on its head. In this impossible play, the nature of love, relationships, communication, and physics are called into question; but most importantly — where's Thchrachveldtz?
  • The Ace Ish: An LGBTQIAce Revue by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    7–12
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: asexual, asexuality + 5 more
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy, drama, experimental, verse
    Keyword: asexual, asexuality, queer, pride, femme, LGBTQIA+, revue
    An exploration of one person's experience of asexuality, told through seven voices. As the characters perform poetry and burlesque, attend a rave, battle through conflicting ideologies, and confess their deepest secrets, we gain a collaged portrait of an asexual individual.
    Based on collages and The Ace Ish of the Aesthetic of Discontent Zine by @glam_grrrl.
  • every second HALF THE TIME. by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    7–13
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 6 more
    ·
    Keyword: lovers, No Exit + 8 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, experimental, fantasy, melodrama, pageant, science fiction, verse
    Keyword: lovers, No Exit, desert, dali, paper, jewels, color, absurdist, art, collage
    In the Sadlands desert, under the gaze of a silent god, four lovers are trapped within their own drama, unable to leave unless they break free of their heartache - and their keepers are not immune either. Described as No Exit meets Beckett meets Midsummer meets Caryl Churchill meets Life is a Dream, as painted by Dali and written by Moliere, this short evening of theatre has only one rule: Don't sink.
  • Happy Enough by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, experimental + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: archive, robot + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, experimental, satire, science fiction
    Keyword: archive, robot, Garbage, environmental, technology, Solitude, absurdism, retrofuturism, artificial intelligence, library
    In the Archive, the Archivist and the Robot work tirelessly and contentedly at their job of receiving and cataloguing all of the things. Living in one room, processing the remnants of everyone else's lives, sifting through their detritus and reminiscences, the Archivist and Robot do their best to pluck out moments of meaning for themselves. When human and robot begin to share stories and memories from...
    In the Archive, the Archivist and the Robot work tirelessly and contentedly at their job of receiving and cataloguing all of the things. Living in one room, processing the remnants of everyone else's lives, sifting through their detritus and reminiscences, the Archivist and Robot do their best to pluck out moments of meaning for themselves. When human and robot begin to share stories and memories from their own pasts, the two are able to catch a glimmer of what their futures might be — if ever they can find it within themselves to leave the Archive behind.
  • So Be It by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: Newspaper, pollution + 8 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, science fiction
    Keyword: Newspaper, pollution, Garbage, trash, children, adult, Exploration, The Little Prince, youth, environment
    On a small planet that has built up over time out of Earth's detritus, humans of different ages must cope with a world that is at once nascent and dying. Status and societal positions dissolve as the inhabitants learn from each other and a new social order emerges out of the dust.
  • Not Nothing by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    5–7
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 4 more
    ·
    Keyword: absurdism, Godot + 8 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, dark comedy, drama, period, satire
    Keyword: absurdism, Godot, plays about writers, coming of age, grief, male friendship, flowers, writing, birth and death, time
    On a street, on a sidewalk, stands a sign. By that sign, stand two men. One a writer, one a curious disciple, the two bond over their reactions to the sign above, a call for memorial donations in lieu of flowers. Once they begin to talk, they discover the things that they can learn and teach, barter and trade, & share and give with one another. Though the city and its people move past and move on, these two...
    On a street, on a sidewalk, stands a sign. By that sign, stand two men. One a writer, one a curious disciple, the two bond over their reactions to the sign above, a call for memorial donations in lieu of flowers. Once they begin to talk, they discover the things that they can learn and teach, barter and trade, & share and give with one another. Though the city and its people move past and move on, these two unassuming men foster an unwitting friendship that spans minutes and lifetimes.
  • A healer of birds by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: healing, health + 7 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, experimental
    Keyword: healing, health, ailments, absurdism, Godot, Hurt, pain, cure, bittersweet
    They need healing. He's a healer. But what are their ailments, and can they be cured? What is healing, what is medicine, what suffering and relief is real and what imagined, and how can we discern the difference?
  • Bestest Bitches Till We Die by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 4 more
    ·
    Keyword: alchemy, red bull + 8 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, experimental, fantasy, melodrama, verse
    Keyword: alchemy, red bull, verse, frenemies, women, love potion, truth serum, bathtub, Lesbian, betrayal
    Two young women get together to rekindle their relationship as frenemies and besties, but each arrives with an agenda — and a gift that is not what it seems. When unrequited love meets long-hidden betrayal, and truth serum meets love potion, the night boils over to become an entirely different beast. In this verse drama, can the women's relationship survive the unsurvivable?
  • Didi and the Poet by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, verse
    ·
    Keyword: absurdism, separation + 7 more
    Genre: adaptation, verse
    Keyword: absurdism, separation, poetry, ladders, Godot, love, wistful, bittersweet, verse
    A poet is left to their own devices to carve out a space in the empty world — until the love of their life returns, breaking apart the structural illusions of the world on which they had been operating. In this play, poesy meets absurdism by the side of the road, and neither will ever be the same.
    Didi and the Poet is a tribute to Waiting for Godot, intertwining verse with prose and companionate...
    A poet is left to their own devices to carve out a space in the empty world — until the love of their life returns, breaking apart the structural illusions of the world on which they had been operating. In this play, poesy meets absurdism by the side of the road, and neither will ever be the same.
    Didi and the Poet is a tribute to Waiting for Godot, intertwining verse with prose and companionate friendship with romantic love on the liminal side of the road.
  • Wild, Magic Solitude by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: biography, fantasy + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: Oscar Wilde, aesthetics + 6 more
    Genre: biography, fantasy, period
    Keyword: Oscar Wilde, aesthetics, fairy tale, children, Victorian, allegory, undefined, Sonnet
    Oscar Wilde was a writer and the champion of the Aesthetic movement in the 1800s when he was suddenly convicted of indecency and homosexual conduct. While his work played every night at the Theatre Royal, he found himself trapped in jail. This play is an exploration and a reimagination of that moment, posing the question of what must happen when an irrepressable artist is kept captive. 
  • Unless You Remember by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: commedia dell'arte, dark comedy + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: isolation, absurdism + 8 more
    Genre: commedia dell'arte, dark comedy, experimental, movement/physical, tragedy
    Keyword: isolation, absurdism, absurdist, female, Sisters, Quarantine, memory, Victorian, fair, faire
    Alcesta and Ambrosine are sisters, either by birth or because they have been isolated for so long that they have forgotten that they began as anything else. While they wander for years through a decrepit labyrinthine estate, this play provides a glimpse of their struggle to maintain a grasp on the realities of their past and the world beyond. Are their recollections real, or has their isolation consumed all...
    Alcesta and Ambrosine are sisters, either by birth or because they have been isolated for so long that they have forgotten that they began as anything else. While they wander for years through a decrepit labyrinthine estate, this play provides a glimpse of their struggle to maintain a grasp on the realities of their past and the world beyond. Are their recollections real, or has their isolation consumed all hope of holding onto their memories of life outside the walls?
  • )Lunalae( by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    1
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: female, metatextual + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, fantasy, science fiction
    Keyword: female, metatextual, Frankenstein, room of one's own, Eros, reading, wings, building, hands-on, literature
    A lone woman reads and seeks to write, drawing upon the musings of Virginia Woolf and Mary Shelley in the hopes of building and fulfilling a room of her own. Dreams and nightmares infiltrate her space, and through them, the woman forges and flexes the wings she has been waiting for.
  • The Apple Corps by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, farce
    ·
    Keyword: food, cafeteria + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, farce
    Keyword: food, cafeteria, school, military, Farce, rapidfire, based on a true story
    In a wannabe-military operation that polices the nutrition of school cafeteria food, a rogue clue leads to new mutiny with an old rival and former ally. Can the Corps regain their authority and their craisins? You'll just have to read and find out.
  • iSIS by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    8
    ·
    Genre: adventure, docudrama/historic + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: ISIS, FBI + 8 more
    Genre: adventure, docudrama/historic, drama, political
    Keyword: ISIS, FBI, media, internet, undercover, Politics, jihad, terrorism, American, millennials
    Based on the true story of two American college students who were lured to join ISIS by two undercover FBI agents, this heightened Expressionist play explores the complicated journey that led these students to search for something to believe in, in all the wrong places.
  • Hide and Jo Seek by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy
    ·
    Keyword: woods, hiking + 5 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: woods, hiking, strangers, encounter, joe, hide and seek, coffee
    Two strangers with the same name meet briefly in the woods. One innocent hiker, one enigmatic fugitive — is something sinister afoot, or could they just be joeshing around?
  • Patience is for Poltoons !! : a Play-ful Poem-ful Performance Piece by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    1
    ·
    Genre: comedy, experimental + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: absurdist, Beckett + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, experimental, tragedy
    Keyword: absurdist, Beckett, words, sound, sonic, alliterations, literary, experimental, desperation, meaningless
    “Patience is for Poltoons !!: a Play-ful Poem-ful Performance Piece” is an embrace of the arbitrary nature of syllables and sentiments; of signs, signifiers and signifieds; of technicalities and traitorous truths. The piece draws upon archaic words and contemporary echoes in a mad dash toward a conclusion, any conclusion, that might result from such exploration. It is the ultimate exercise in existentialism,...
    “Patience is for Poltoons !!: a Play-ful Poem-ful Performance Piece” is an embrace of the arbitrary nature of syllables and sentiments; of signs, signifiers and signifieds; of technicalities and traitorous truths. The piece draws upon archaic words and contemporary echoes in a mad dash toward a conclusion, any conclusion, that might result from such exploration. It is the ultimate exercise in existentialism, and its success is dependent on our faith in the exercise itself.
    Is it a metaphor? No. Perhaps, if it must be, but it musn’t.
  • Cohabitation by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama, horror + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: horror, yellow wallpaper + 6 more
    Genre: drama, horror, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: horror, yellow wallpaper, housewife, Retro, absurdist, psychological, short, halloween
    When an unwanted inhabitant invades the home Mel shares with her partner Dee, her sense of comfort and ownership in her space is forever overthrown. Where did the interloper come from? Is it the only one? Will Mel ever be safe in her own house again? Was she ever? A short, creepy play written in Halloween season, vibing with the tradition of the Yellow Wallpaper.
  • The Home Gardening Network by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    1
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 4 more
    ·
    Keyword: Ironic, housewife + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, experimental, parody/spoof, period, satire
    Keyword: Ironic, housewife, gardening, 1950's, afterlife, vacuum, TV, one-woman, absurdism, existentialist
    Scarlett vacuums in a vacuum. She gardens in a garden. She lives in a living room. All the while, she pitches us the deeply, unsettlingly true reasons as to why we should do as she says: buy telephones for the dead, give potted flowers to the living, plant gardens that can be seen from space, and more. Tune in to Scarlett's segment on the Home Gardening Network today. You may never be the same.
  • Hello TODAY! by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    2–3
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: housewife, irony + 5 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, parody/spoof, satire
    Keyword: housewife, irony, 1950s, women, hostess, video, Domestic
    A short play in ironic housewifery, in which two women show us how it's done, in the style of a 1950s instructional video. Adapted from a collage piece by @glam_grrrl.
  • Refractions by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    6–10
    ·
    Genre: drama, horror + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: Body image, mirror + 6 more
    Genre: drama, horror, mystery/thriller, science fiction, tragedy
    Keyword: Body image, mirror, broken glass, food, exercise, weight, imprisonment, Freedom
    Hidden inside a human experiment, subjects are trapped within cubes of one-way mirror, with nothing to look at but their own reflections. When the time comes to break free, will they seize the opportunity, or is it too late to escape their own personal hells of self-loathing?
  • The Honor System by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    1–50
    ·
    Genre: experimental, horror
    ·
    Keyword: hands, Voiceover
    Genre: experimental, horror
    Keyword: hands, Voiceover
    We wait for the time to arrive, and then it does.
  • Eyes & Lashes by Anna Langman
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    10–50
    ·
    Genre: experimental
    ·
    Keyword: Eyes, watching + 3 more
    Genre: experimental
    Keyword: Eyes, watching, panopticon, ensemble, dialogue-free
    Order must be maintained - after all, everyone is watching.
  • To the Moon & by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    1
    ·
    Genre: fantasy, science fiction + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: moon, standoffs + 3 more
    Genre: fantasy, science fiction, tragedy
    Keyword: moon, standoffs, birds, feathers, space
    Luce sits on the moon and gazes across the gulf at those on Earth. Will the standoff ever come to an end?
  • NOBODY BREATHE by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    2–10
    ·
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: Quarantine, Covid-19 + 3 more
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: Quarantine, Covid-19, superstore, mist, Wordless
    Go on, go to the supermarket. It's probably fine. I swear.
    A wordless short play written for the Quarantine Playwriting Bake Off.
  • Last by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: verse
    ·
    Keyword: last words, last + 5 more
    Genre: verse
    Keyword: last words, last, lasting, earth, coronavirus, the end, absurdist
    Two old friends discuss the concept of Earth's last words, as one tries their hand at writing them. A #1MPF Coronavirus Play Project creation.
  • U good? by Anna Langman
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: experimental, science fiction + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: Closet drama, Quarantine + 4 more
    Genre: experimental, science fiction, verse
    Keyword: Closet drama, Quarantine, contagion, coronavirus, instagram, texting
    A new iMessage sonnet saga microinstaclosetdrama. A visual written piece in text messages, exploring the tension and necessity of staying in touch without touching. Written for @contagious_closet_dramas on Instagram.