Crystal Skillman

Crystal Skillman

An award-winning dramatist who writes for theater, comics, & audio. Upcoming: THE ROCKET MEN (2024 NNPN Showcase Nomination) RAIN AND ZOE SAVE THE WORLD (American Premiere), and NYT Critics' Pick OPEN (DPS ). Mid-Atlantic Arts Grant, Kilroys, NY Innovative Theatre Award, Earth Matters on Stage Prize, Bway World Winner, MUT Prize, EST/Sloan, Offie Nomination, O'Neill, BAPF, McKnight Finalist.


Plays

  • THE ROCKET MEN
    NEW 2023 PLAY COMMISSION. "The Rocket Men" is a unique theatrical experience that carries us through time in a blink of an eye to present the story of the German "Rocket Men" who used their scientific skills to flee Nazi Germany and settle in the most unlikely of places...North Alabama. These men form the backbone of NASA’s rocketry program. The play explores the dynamic relationship of...
    NEW 2023 PLAY COMMISSION. "The Rocket Men" is a unique theatrical experience that carries us through time in a blink of an eye to present the story of the German "Rocket Men" who used their scientific skills to flee Nazi Germany and settle in the most unlikely of places...North Alabama. These men form the backbone of NASA’s rocketry program. The play explores the dynamic relationship of Wernher von Braun and Heinz-Hermann Koelle, a lesser-known young German rocketeer, who joined the "Operation Paperclip" team several years later. These two have set their sights on space exploration and colonization beyond the moon. Still, as the play counts down to the launch of Apollo 11, we experience the haunting cost of their scientific advancements - their technology is based on the V-2 rockets built by slave labor. Played by six female-identifying women, “The Rocket Men” shines a modern, unflinching light on this story, as NASA prepares to fly to the moon once more asking who gets to be remembered in the history books, and why?

  • RAIN AND ZOE SAVE THE WORLD
    US Premiere 2023-24; UK Premiere, 2022. Two Seattle teenagers embark on an impulsive motorcycle journey to join a group of oil protesters on the east coast. But as they follow a major pipeline across the country, what began as two young activists' longing to belong to something greater than themselves gives way to Rain and Zoe discovering that the true danger in this world might just be growing up. Available for License on request.
  • OPEN
    AWARD WINNING NYTimes Critics' Pick. Recently published with Dramatists Play Service, OPEN is a magic show without magic. A woman called The Magician seems to pantomime a myriad of tricks, but her act reveals she is attempting the impossible—to save the life of her lover, Jenny.  Impossible as it may seem, this Magician’s magic act may be our last hope against a world filled with intolerance and hate. 
  • KING KIRBY (co-written with Fred Van Lente)
    NOW A RIVETING AUDIO DRAMA with BROADWAY PODCAST NETWORK. NYTimes Critics Pick. A true life story about Jack Kirby, the man who co-created of the Marvel universe, King Kirby is an epic comic book story of the most famous cartoonist you never heard of. A real-life "Adventures of Kavalier & Klay", King Kirby asks what happens when an artist doesn't own his own legacy? Can he ever get it back?
  • PULP VÉRITÉ
    Playwrights Center March 3rd 2021. Joy is an active member of the filmmaking collective Pulp Vérité when she is captured and held overseas for years until she escapes to the United States for the impossible: to bring her sister who is still a captive with ISIS home. "Pulp Vérité owns the naiveté of these young American filmmakers; with all we are currently politically facing, Pulp Vérité is a race against time."
  • THE SLEEPING WORLD
    NEW. When an unfinished play by the late Peter Abbey is discovered, his four closest friends - all fellow playwrights - meet in their old theatrical home to finish it. The content of the play, however, complicates matters, as they discover that the play is about them, their friendships, and what was lost eight, long years ago.
  • ANOTHER KIND OF LOVE
    In Another Kind of Love, A punk rock star comes back home to her former bandmates and sisters after 15 years in Seattle, for a one night gathering to honor their mother a legend in the rock world, seeking a relationship with her fifteen year old rock-star-to be niece... at the price of destroying the only family she’s got left. "A female-driven punk-rock masterpiece"! -Chloe Riley, Chicago Reader