Eliana Pipes

Eliana Pipes

Eliana Pipes is a playwright, performer and filmmaker. Her plays include DREAM HOU$E (world premiere co-production at Alliance Theater, Long Wharf Theater, and Baltimore Center Stage), Bite Me (South Coast Repertory Pacific Playwright’s Festival, NNPN National New Play Showcase), Unf*ckwithable (Drama League DirectorFest), Cowboy and the Moon (Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship, NNPN MFA Playwright's...
Eliana Pipes is a playwright, performer and filmmaker. Her plays include DREAM HOU$E (world premiere co-production at Alliance Theater, Long Wharf Theater, and Baltimore Center Stage), Bite Me (South Coast Repertory Pacific Playwright’s Festival, NNPN National New Play Showcase), Unf*ckwithable (Drama League DirectorFest), Cowboy and the Moon (Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship, NNPN MFA Playwright's Workshop), Lorena: a Tabloid Epic (The Playwright's Realm Scratchpad Series), Stand and Wait (The Fire This Time Festival). She's been awarded the KCACTF Harold & Mimi Steinberg Award and Ken Ludwig Scholarship, Leah Ryan Fund Prize for Emerging Women Writers, National Latinx Playwright Award, Dr. Floyd Gaffney National Playwriting Prize, and a two-time finalist status for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwriting Conference. As a filmmaker she won the Academy Gold Fellowship for Women through the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the inaugural WAVE Grant through Wavelength Productions to support the production of her animated short film. BA Columbia University, MFA Playwriting Boston University. More at www.elianapipes.com.

Plays

  • DREAM HOU$E by Eliana Pipes
    Recommendations: 9
    ·
    Cast: 
    7–10
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 4 more
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    Keyword: Latinx, gentrification + 7 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, experimental, farce, immersive, political
    Keyword: Latinx, gentrification, White Gaze, racism, identity, Diaspora, Surreal, meta, upward mobility
    Two Latinx sisters are appearing on an HGTV-style reality show to sell their family home, hoping to capitalize on the gentrification in their “changing neighborhood.” As they perform for the camera the show starts to slip into the surreal: one sister grapples with turmoil in the family’s ancestral past and the other learns how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the family’s future. What is the cultural cost of...
    Two Latinx sisters are appearing on an HGTV-style reality show to sell their family home, hoping to capitalize on the gentrification in their “changing neighborhood.” As they perform for the camera the show starts to slip into the surreal: one sister grapples with turmoil in the family’s ancestral past and the other learns how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the family’s future. What is the cultural cost of progress in America? And is cashing in always selling out?
  • Bite Me by Eliana Pipes
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: two hander, comedy + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, romantic comedy
    Keyword: two hander, comedy, teenagers, time jump, misfits, Race and Gender, high school
    Melody is a Black girl at an all-white suburban high school, overachieving academically and privately struggling to battle the isolation — Nathan is a misfit of another kind, a white boy in her grade with a juvenile drug habit and unceasing angst. They collide in a storage closet and form an unexpected bond that transforms and shatters them both, leaving them to pick up the pieces at their high school reunion 10 years later.
  • Cowboy and the Moon by Eliana Pipes
    Recommendations: 4
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: drama, experimental + 3 more
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    Keyword: family, Western + 4 more
    Genre: drama, experimental, immersive, period, tragedy
    Keyword: family, Western, Canon, Surreal, Imagistic, adult children of alcoholics
    A modern day alcoholic Father sees himself within his addiction as a wandering Cowboy in the Wild West. But the real world churns on for his wife and daughter, who must negotiate between playing along with his prairie fantasy and grappling with the impact of his drinking on their day-to-day lives. Cowboy and the Moon rewrites the trope of the Alcoholic Patriarch in the Western theater canon by introducing...
    A modern day alcoholic Father sees himself within his addiction as a wandering Cowboy in the Wild West. But the real world churns on for his wife and daughter, who must negotiate between playing along with his prairie fantasy and grappling with the impact of his drinking on their day-to-day lives. Cowboy and the Moon rewrites the trope of the Alcoholic Patriarch in the Western theater canon by introducing gender and race, leaving realism in the dust, and approaching everyone in the orbit of addiction with compassion.
  • Stand and Wait by Eliana Pipes
    Recommendations: 3
    ·
    Cast: 
    6–10
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    Genre: comedy, drama + 5 more
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    Keyword: Race, racism + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, fantasy, immersive, movement/physical, political, satire
    Keyword: Race, racism, slavery, Genre, Play within a play, anti-black racism, Black America, Surreal, time shifts
    In three acts that descend from broad comedy, through realism, into an antebellum dreamscape, “Stand and Wait” follows a seasoned black actress named Carla who bonds with a naïve white actress in an audition waiting room, only to be handed a script that caters to America's worst racial instincts. After a flurry of satirical twists and turns, they book the job - but on the day of the show Carla learns the...
    In three acts that descend from broad comedy, through realism, into an antebellum dreamscape, “Stand and Wait” follows a seasoned black actress named Carla who bonds with a naïve white actress in an audition waiting room, only to be handed a script that caters to America's worst racial instincts. After a flurry of satirical twists and turns, they book the job - but on the day of the show Carla learns the set was a plantation site, and starts to see ghosts. When she steps out to perform, she finds herself in a cotton field, forced to confront the history that’s haunting her, and her inability to understand her place within it.
  • Stiletto Envy by Eliana Pipes
    Recommendations: 109
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy, political + 2 more
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    Keyword: love, LGBTQ + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, political, romantic comedy, young audiences
    Keyword: love, LGBTQ, gender identity, high school
    TEN MINUTE PLAY:
    Melanie asks her old friend Shaun to teach her how to walk in heels before prom. But when their meeting takes an unexpected turn. Melanie is forced to reconcile the fact that her upbringing may be at odds with her heart.
  • CrossTalk by Eliana Pipes
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy, experimental + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, experimental, fantasy
    TEN MINUTE PLAY
    Julius has a very close relationship with Cee - she’s bubbly, she’s captivating, and she’s also his cellphone. When Julius decides to go off the grid for good, Cee fights for her life in a spirited tug of war that illuminates the complex and sometimes painful role that technology plays in our lives.