Allyson Dwyer

Hii! I'm a theater artist from New Jersey who creates work about the Internet, communication, alienation, systems and time.

My work has been supported or seen at: The Brick, The Exponential Festival, Clubbed Thumb, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Lucille Lortel Theatre, Workshop Theater, Road Theatre, Theater Accident, Wild Project. Finalist: SohoRep Lab, Alpine Fellowship, Sam French OOB Festival, Arthouse Inkubator. Semi-finalist: Ars Nova PlayGroup, Colt Coeur Artistic Residency, Pipeline Theatre PlayLab, Princess Grace Award. Proud alumna of The Road's UC4, Clubbed Thumb ECWG, Brick SoundLab. Commissions include EST/Sloan, the Constitution Commission, and a "Leap of Faith" session from the Alcove at Lucille Lortel Theatre. My digital audio-film-play Arrow of Time was an official selection...

Hii! I'm a theater artist from New Jersey who creates work about the Internet, communication, alienation, systems and time.

Arrow of Time

by Allyson Dwyer

Cast Size

3—5

Genre

drama,

experimental,

melodrama,

radio drama,

science fiction

A tender-odyssey audio drama heard through sixty scenes, sixty years, of a life.

In the near distant future, work is closer than family and we continue to never quite notice the true value of time. The years pass by, the secrets to their importance washed away by the immutable existence of entropy. By the time they’re old, what will the Arrow of Time reveal to Cheryl, Bob, and Paul?

A tender-odyssey audio drama heard through sixty scenes, sixty years, of a life.

An Instant Message

by Allyson Dwyer

Cast Size

Genre

dark comedy,

drama,

experimental,

period,

radio drama,

romantic comedy

~10 MIN PLAY~ In the age of dial-up, a New Jersey teen saves up lunch money to buy a phone card to call her boyfriend in Kansas. Their first conversation might've gone like this. Or so she remembers.

Nothing Remained But Voice And Bones

by Allyson Dwyer

Cast Size

Genre

comedy,

dark comedy,

drama,

experimental

In second grade, Narcissus visits overweight Mel and informs her that she is cursed to search for perfection but to never find it. Unable to grapple with this truth, she spends a lifetime letting this curse define every relationship, even those between her past selves. Only Mel can find a way to break out of a cycle of self-hatred that keeps her from realizing what is truly beautiful about her body and her...

by Allyson Dwyer

Cast Size

Genre

comedy,

drama,

experimental,

period

In the midst of puberty, 12-year-old Marissa discovers The Hub, a chat room where a group of young losers and outcasts can do or be anything, and together escape the confines of reality. Under the alias Ami-chan, Marissa begins her first relationship with a sixteen year old gamer, but soon finds that even online, it's hard to hide who she really is. As Marissa learns to grow up in this new digital frontier, she...

Website: https://allysondwyer.com

Artistic Statement

Representation

allyson.marie.dwyer@gmail.com

Recommended by

Off-White; Or the Arab House Party Play

by Alyssa Haddad-Chin

I had the honor of experiencing a reading of this play, and it is perfection, a real treasure for actors and audiences alike. A lean, razor-sharp, hyper-focused tale that had the room filled with laughter, groans, moans, and more. Set within a single location, a single evening and a singular moment in American history, the setting of early 2000s/post-9/11 America is brilliantly conveyed to unearth the darkness of what lie under the nostalgia of a time we still have yet to reckon with as a country. Moving & vital.

I had the honor of experiencing a reading of this play, and it is perfection, a real treasure for actors and audiences alike. A lean, razor-sharp, hyper-focused tale that had the room filled with laughter, groans, moans, and more. Set within a single location, a single evening and a singular moment in American history, the setting of early 2000s/post-9/11 America is brilliantly conveyed to unearth the darkness of what lie under the nostalgia of a time we still have yet to reckon with as a country. Moving & vital.
Duckass

by Dan Caffrey

Dan is brilliant because there is nothing funnier, cooler, creepier than stuff with a self-aware rock-a-billy southern gothic type twist. Poor Sherman, he just wanted to be cool and didn't realize being a cool guy is a wild world to navigate & perhaps he was actually putting a target on his back (or head?). Dan squeezes so many jokes, lore and even character development (those two intense sisters and their push-n-pull game of Uno) into a mere 13 pages. A frightening joy.

Dan is brilliant because there is nothing funnier, cooler, creepier than stuff with a self-aware rock-a-billy southern gothic type twist. Poor Sherman, he just wanted to be cool and didn't realize being a cool guy is a wild world to navigate & perhaps he was actually putting a target on his back (or head?). Dan squeezes so many jokes, lore and even character development (those two intense sisters and their push-n-pull game of Uno) into a mere 13 pages. A frightening joy.
Until You Come Back to Me

by Carl Holder

I thankfully saw a wonderful online reading of this during lockdown and still find myself thinking about its tender absurdities. Carl has such a gift for nuance, whether its the spaces between how we communicate or how he animates onomatopoeia on the page, as if the script were a comic book. His writing becomes animated in how specific his choices are. But the most lasting image to me is the deceitful intimacy of our phones, how we supplant our IRL relationships with the false warmth of an inanimate device. It may feel real, but it is anything but.

I thankfully saw a wonderful online reading of this during lockdown and still find myself thinking about its tender absurdities. Carl has such a gift for nuance, whether its the spaces between how we communicate or how he animates onomatopoeia on the page, as if the script were a comic book. His writing becomes animated in how specific his choices are. But the most lasting image to me is the deceitful intimacy of our phones, how we supplant our IRL relationships with the false warmth of an inanimate device. It may feel real, but it is anything but.
bacon sausage veggie noodles

by kathy ng

maybe one of my most favorite plays ever, BVSN is an imagination odyssey, a spa for the brain, a floating mind puzzle, a string of magic code word poetry. It's a play about metaphors seen and unseen, about a worrying future where the answers are beneath our feet, hiding inside a sweet potato, covered in the smoke of unrest. I am always thinking about the sweet little mages in this play. Kathy animates so much of the sadness in our world through humor and beauty and playfulness, and it moves me so much.

maybe one of my most favorite plays ever, BVSN is an imagination odyssey, a spa for the brain, a floating mind puzzle, a string of magic code word poetry. It's a play about metaphors seen and unseen, about a worrying future where the answers are beneath our feet, hiding inside a sweet potato, covered in the smoke of unrest. I am always thinking about the sweet little mages in this play. Kathy animates so much of the sadness in our world through humor and beauty and playfulness, and it moves me so much.
The Ancestry Dot Com Play

by Alyssa Haddad-Chin

Alyssa's comedy is so bright & nuanced because her dialogue comes from characters that feel lived in and real. People often speak comedically because in real life we reach for humor in times of stress, discomfort and alienation. But beneath the layer of detachment and quips, you feel real people with deep existential problems that are too painful to begin to contend with - especially alone. Such complicated characters, in such a tight, tiny, perfect package. This could easily be produced today and should!

Alyssa's comedy is so bright & nuanced because her dialogue comes from characters that feel lived in and real. People often speak comedically because in real life we reach for humor in times of stress, discomfort and alienation. But beneath the layer of detachment and quips, you feel real people with deep existential problems that are too painful to begin to contend with - especially alone. Such complicated characters, in such a tight, tiny, perfect package. This could easily be produced today and should!

View all 11 recommendations

Allyson Dwyer

Scripts

Arrow of Time

by Allyson Dwyer

An Instant Message

by Allyson Dwyer

Nothing Remained But Voice And Bones

by Allyson Dwyer

The Hub

by Allyson Dwyer

Off-White; Or the Arab House Party Play

Duckass

Until You Come Back to Me

bacon sausage veggie noodles

The Ancestry Dot Com Play