Steven Carl McCasland

Steven Carl McCasland

STEVEN CARL McCASLAND is the founder and Artistic Director of The Beautiful Soup Theater Collective, for which he has directed Lift, Rags, Moose Murders, Yentl, A Doll's Life, Alice Au Pays Des Merveilles, Twelfth Night, Crossing Brooklyn and more. McCasland's revivals of Rags and A Doll's Life featured heavily revised librettos, painstakingly put together using many lost drafts. The end results...
STEVEN CARL McCASLAND is the founder and Artistic Director of The Beautiful Soup Theater Collective, for which he has directed Lift, Rags, Moose Murders, Yentl, A Doll's Life, Alice Au Pays Des Merveilles, Twelfth Night, Crossing Brooklyn and more. McCasland's revivals of Rags and A Doll's Life featured heavily revised librettos, painstakingly put together using many lost drafts. The end results were comprehensive looks at long-troubled musicals in rare New York revivals. He also directed the world premiere of his plays neat & tidy, BLACK [Billy Learns About Captain Kirk] and BLUE: a fable. Beautiful Soup was founded in the summer of 2010. Steven received his Bachelor in Arts for Directing from Pace University.

In 2009, Steven was commissioned to adapt poet Jack Wiler's anthologies into a solo performance about Wiler's struggle with HIV. That play, Fun Being Me, was workshopped with Jack in the title role before his passing in 2009. His other plays, When I'm 64, Hope & Glory, The Tip, Opheliacs Anonymous, Fifth Position, Blue, Pulchritudinous (Huntington Award in Playwriting - First Place), neat & tidy and Billy Learns About Captain Kirk have all received productions regionally and in Manhattan.

In June of 2011, Steven premiered his original adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Setting Wonderland in the heart of Paris, he also directed and was featured in the cast as the Mock Turtle. After its one week workshop, Alice Au Pays Des Merveilles was picked up for an extended run at The SoHo Playhouse through September. His play neat & tidy made a splash on the Bowery in May of 2012, with critics hailing McCasland as a new Thornton Wilder and the play as one of the Top Dramatic Plays of the year.

After critically acclaimed workshops of Steven's plays Little Wars and What Was Lost in 2014, Beautiful Soup partnered with The Clarion Theatre to present five of his plays in repertory. Those five plays began on May 7th, 2015 and ran through the end of the month. Also featured in rep were 28 Marchant Avenue, Der Kanarienvogel (The Canary) and a revival of neat & tidy. His writing has been acclaimed by New York critics as "brilliant", "riveting", "mesmerizing" and "extraordinary".

Steven's plays Little Wars, Shades Of Blue: The Decline and Fall of Lady Day, What Was Lost, 28 Marchant Avenue: Six Summers At Hyannis Port are available for purchase at Amazon.com and the Drama Book Shop.

While not at the theater, Steven maintains life as a private vocal and acting coaching, prepping New York actors on new material and for upcoming auditions. In addition, he runs a blog of free, public domain monologues, all written by him. "The Bone Orchard Monologues", all inspired by the lives of famous figures from history, can be found by visiting http://boneorchardmonologues.wordpress.com. Steven is also the Events and Social Media Manager for New York's Drama Book Shop, where he interviews playwrights and authors in the shop's Arthur Seelen Theatre throughout the year.

Most recently, his play MEMORARE, chronicling the lives of eight Catholic nuns during the Harlem Race Riots of 1964 made its world premiere in New York City at St. John's Lutheran Church on Christopher Street.

Plays

  • Little Wars
    France, 1939. Tensions are high. The booze is flowing. War is coming. The coolest women on earth are having the what-if dinner party you always imagined. Together they'll drink, scoff and face their demons. Someone has a secret. All of them have confessions. Join Agatha Christie, Gertrude Stein, Dorothy Parker, Alice B. Toklas, Lillian Hellman and more for the dinner party of your dreams. Called "...
    France, 1939. Tensions are high. The booze is flowing. War is coming. The coolest women on earth are having the what-if dinner party you always imagined. Together they'll drink, scoff and face their demons. Someone has a secret. All of them have confessions. Join Agatha Christie, Gertrude Stein, Dorothy Parker, Alice B. Toklas, Lillian Hellman and more for the dinner party of your dreams. Called "brilliant", "mesmerizing" and "astonishing" by New York critics, Little Wars is now available for licensing through private contract with the playwright.

    Previously seen at: Roy Arias Theatre (NYC), The Clarion Theatre (NYC), Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society (Bermuda). Upcoming productions: The Little Theatre Group of Costa Rica (Costa Rica), PRIME Productions (Minneapolis).
  • Memorare
    In Memorare, a young Nigerian postulant arrives at a New York City convent for refuge, prayer and a new beginning on a hot summer day in July, 1964. Meanwhile, a 14-year-old black boy has been shot and killed by a white police officer in Harlem. The streets are raging with riots. The questions that arise in the aftermath of the the postulant's arrival will change the Sisters of Mercy, and the postulant,...
    In Memorare, a young Nigerian postulant arrives at a New York City convent for refuge, prayer and a new beginning on a hot summer day in July, 1964. Meanwhile, a 14-year-old black boy has been shot and killed by a white police officer in Harlem. The streets are raging with riots. The questions that arise in the aftermath of the the postulant's arrival will change the Sisters of Mercy, and the postulant, forever.

    Memorare made its World Premiere in January of 2018. Critics called it "a fascinating and timely piece of work" and McCasland’s writing "skillful and delicate".
  • 28 Marchant Avenue: Six Summers at Hyannis Port
    In 28 Marchant Avenue, Steven Carl McCasland draws back the curtain on The Kennedy Family's Hyannisport compound. Examining five summers in the family's lives, the play focuses on the lobotomy of Rose Marie Kennedy. Spend each fading summer with John, Joe, Eunice, Kathleen, Bobby, Pat, Rose, Joseph and Rosemary as the family grapples with their skeletons.

    "McCasland’s view of the...
    In 28 Marchant Avenue, Steven Carl McCasland draws back the curtain on The Kennedy Family's Hyannisport compound. Examining five summers in the family's lives, the play focuses on the lobotomy of Rose Marie Kennedy. Spend each fading summer with John, Joe, Eunice, Kathleen, Bobby, Pat, Rose, Joseph and Rosemary as the family grapples with their skeletons.

    "McCasland’s view of the Kennedy Household may not be totally factual, but feels absolutely emotionally spot-on. He has obviously done his research. This is the “Camelot” JFK grew up in, before his widow and her minions cynically bestowed that tag on their White House stay." - TheatrePizzazz

    4m, 6f - 100 minutes, optional intermission
  • What Was Lost
    In What Was Lost, beloved stage actress Laurette Taylor returns to the stage after a six-year hiatus. BroadwayWorld's Kristen Morale called the play "the most riveting" she had ever seen. For the first time in over a decade, she takes to the stage sober. Chronicling her process from the first rehearsal of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie through her legendary first performance as...
    In What Was Lost, beloved stage actress Laurette Taylor returns to the stage after a six-year hiatus. BroadwayWorld's Kristen Morale called the play "the most riveting" she had ever seen. For the first time in over a decade, she takes to the stage sober. Chronicling her process from the first rehearsal of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie through her legendary first performance as Amanda Wingfield, What Was Lost is a piercing look at the lies we tell ourselves in order to survive.

    "In What Was Lost, McCasland effectively depicts the plunge into the unknown—with its terrors and exhilarations—that is a production of a new play. At times, he evokes Williams’ “memory play” techniques as the characters’ art and lives intertwine." - DiscDish