Shelley McPherson

Shelley McPherson is a New York-based actor and playwright. She is the book writer for SEEING STARS, which was first performed in a concert reading featuring Kelli O’Hara and Jesse Tyler Ferguson at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater. SEEING STARS, received a developmental workshop at The York Theatre Company in New York and was one of 12 Next Link musicals jury-selected for production at NYMF (directed by Jenn Thompson, choreographed by Liza Gennaro, and with fight direction by the Tony Award-winning BH Barry). SEEING STARS has been a finalist for developmental workshops at NAMT and The O’Neill National Musical Theater Conference. Shelley’s play, EXIT ZERO, has had readings at Boomerang Theatre Company and Classical Theatre of Harlem and was a finalist in Campfire Theatre Company’s inaugural...

Shelley McPherson is a New York-based actor and playwright. She is the book writer for SEEING STARS, which was first performed in a concert reading featuring Kelli O’Hara and Jesse Tyler Ferguson at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater. SEEING STARS, received a developmental workshop at The York Theatre Company in New York and was one of 12 Next Link musicals jury-selected for production at NYMF (directed by Jenn Thompson, choreographed by Liza Gennaro, and with fight direction by the Tony Award-winning BH Barry). SEEING STARS has been a finalist for developmental workshops at NAMT and The O’Neill National Musical Theater Conference. Shelley’s play, EXIT ZERO, has had readings at Boomerang Theatre Company and Classical Theatre of Harlem and was a finalist in Campfire Theatre Company’s inaugural new play festival; it is currently a finalist for Ashland New Play Festival. MOMMY BABY was chosen for Boomerang Theatre Company’s 2014 First Flight Developmental Reading Series (directed by Martha Banta, featuring Keira Naughton, Laurie Wells, Todd Gearhart, and Molly Carden). KNIFEPLAY, directed by Jerry Ruiz with a cast including Mary Bacon and Noah Racey, received a reading at Boomerang Theatre Company’s First Flight 2018. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the 72nd Street Gang Playwrights’ Collective, AEA, and SAG-AFTRA. She holds an M.A. from Northwestern University.

Scripts

WHO DO YOU LOVE?

by Shelley McPherson

Synopsis

Fred and Arlene work through their grief while dancing non-stop in a 24-hour marathon.

Fred and Arlene work through their grief while dancing non-stop in a 24-hour marathon.

Seeing Stars

by Shelley McPherson

Synopsis

It’s 1937 in New York City. While reigning Light Heavyweight Champion Eddie "Bare Knuckles" McSorley prepares to retire from boxing, his old friend and rival in the ring, "Gentleman" Joe Sullivan, returns to Hell’s Kitchen and Delaney’s Gym, where he and Eddie trained together as boys. Joe has been gone for a decade, having abandoned boxing after blinding an opponent in his first professional fight. Jean Barker...

It’s 1937 in New York City. While reigning Light Heavyweight Champion Eddie "Bare Knuckles" McSorley prepares to retire from boxing, his old friend and rival in the ring, "Gentleman" Joe Sullivan, returns to Hell’s Kitchen and Delaney’s Gym, where he and Eddie trained together as boys. Joe has been gone for a decade, having abandoned boxing after blinding an opponent in his first professional fight. Jean Barker, an ambitious reporter who wants off the “ladies’ page” to cover sports, strikes a bargain with her editor at the World Chronicle: if she can convince Joe to challenge Eddie in the champ’s last bout before retiring, she will get the story. Joe and Eddie both fall in love with her. Although she is attracted to each of them and confused about her feelings, she lets ambition come first and manipulates Joe into agreeing to fight Eddie.
Doc Mulligan, a racketeer who owns a piece of Eddie, is the landlord of Delaney’s Gym, Charlie Delaney’s business and home. Doc threatens to shut down Delaney’s if Eddie retires. Despite this, Charlie tries to persuade Eddie that if he beats Joe he should use the prize money to square his debts with Doc and leave boxing. Meanwhile, Eddie confides in Joe that he cares for Jean, unaware that Joe feels the same way. In the ring, challenger Joe starts slow but wins the fight in a fourth-round knock-out, with help from his signature right hook. Following the fight, Jean at last realizes she’s in love with Eddie, not Joe. During a party celebrating Joe’s victory, Charlie reveals an unexpected gift that allows him to save the gym, and newly minted sports writer Jean proposes to Eddie.

Knifeplay

by Shelley McPherson

Synopsis

Liz's dream acting job becomes a Broadway nightmare onstage and off as her manipulative, gaslighting male co-star and an enabling director and apologist colleagues force her to defend her life during rehearsals for a Cold War-era spy thriller. Who is mad? Who is sane? Is that a dagger she sees before her?

Liz's dream acting job becomes a Broadway nightmare onstage and off as her manipulative, gaslighting male co-star and an enabling director and apologist colleagues force her to defend her life during rehearsals for a Cold War-era spy thriller. Who is mad? Who is sane? Is that a dagger she sees before her?

Exit Zero

by Shelley McPherson

Synopsis

When Tim, a tattooed cartoonist, discovers he and his grandparents are going to lose their South Jersey home to foreclosure, he invites a “shoobie” (tourist) to be a summer tenant. The shoobie, Chantelle, a Black lawyer from Philly who has just been laid off, is on the first vacation of her life. Though it’s not exactly a holiday living with Tim’s grandparents – Lou, a bigoted dry-drunk, and Marge, his enabling...

When Tim, a tattooed cartoonist, discovers he and his grandparents are going to lose their South Jersey home to foreclosure, he invites a “shoobie” (tourist) to be a summer tenant. The shoobie, Chantelle, a Black lawyer from Philly who has just been laid off, is on the first vacation of her life. Though it’s not exactly a holiday living with Tim’s grandparents – Lou, a bigoted dry-drunk, and Marge, his enabling wife – Chantelle falls for Tim, who at 21, already has two kids he is struggling to support with his on-again/off-again girlfriend, Caitlin.

While Chantelle encourages Tim to pursue his art, Lou barely conceals his hostility towards Chantelle, and it escalates until one night he assaults her. She leaves and secretly buys the family home.

When Tim discovers that Chantelle has bought the house, which has been in his family since the Civil War, he confronts his grandparents and finally discusses the truth of his mother’s death.

Mommy Baby

by Shelley McPherson

Synopsis

Kim leaves home, abandoning her husband and two teenaged daughters, and crashing on her single sister Kate’s couch. She soon picks up where she left off long ago with her fun-loving high school boyfriend, Wayne. Kim’s sexually charged oldest daughter, Lily, follows her runaway mother to Kate’s apartment and takes revenge on her by seducing Wayne. When Lily, 16, reveals she is pregnant with Wayne’s baby, the...

Kim leaves home, abandoning her husband and two teenaged daughters, and crashing on her single sister Kate’s couch. She soon picks up where she left off long ago with her fun-loving high school boyfriend, Wayne. Kim’s sexually charged oldest daughter, Lily, follows her runaway mother to Kate’s apartment and takes revenge on her by seducing Wayne. When Lily, 16, reveals she is pregnant with Wayne’s baby, the sisters are forced to confront the tremendous heartache and unexpected rewards of motherhood and childhood, marriage and singlehood. Mommy Baby is a play about having kids, not having kids, and just being a kid.

Be Mine

by Shelley McPherson

Synopsis

In the dystopic future, 2084, Mark, a middle-aged refugee from New York, arrives in the South Middle Lands, sometime after The Second Flood, which has wiped out the Atlantic coast and perhaps the Pacific coast, as well. Darling and Sweetheart, two well-meaning southern ladies who foster refugees, discover Mark to be both exotic and quaint. Since the Final Shutdown, people aren’t able to travel, information is...

In the dystopic future, 2084, Mark, a middle-aged refugee from New York, arrives in the South Middle Lands, sometime after The Second Flood, which has wiped out the Atlantic coast and perhaps the Pacific coast, as well. Darling and Sweetheart, two well-meaning southern ladies who foster refugees, discover Mark to be both exotic and quaint. Since the Final Shutdown, people aren’t able to travel, information is limited and knowledge is mostly memory. Mark is forced to choose whether to become a dependent foster pet or take his chances trying to get to the west, if it still exists.