Daniel Kitrosser

Daniel Kitrosser

Dan Kitrosser is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and storyteller. His plays include TAR BABY (First Fringe Award, Edinburgh Fringe, and an Amnesty International Citation for Excellence), DEAD SPECIAL CRABS (monologues published in Smith & Kraus Best Men’s and Women’s…) and THE MUMBLINGS (optioned for TV series by FOX). He cowrote the screenplay for WE THE ANIMALS which premiered at Sundance Film...
Dan Kitrosser is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and storyteller. His plays include TAR BABY (First Fringe Award, Edinburgh Fringe, and an Amnesty International Citation for Excellence), DEAD SPECIAL CRABS (monologues published in Smith & Kraus Best Men’s and Women’s…) and THE MUMBLINGS (optioned for TV series by FOX). He cowrote the screenplay for WE THE ANIMALS which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2018, winning the NEXT: Innovator Award and will open across the country this fall. Dan is currently at TimeWarner, developing his new TV series THE MOVE about Jewish and African American relations in 1980s West Philadelphia and is writing a new screenplay for Tony Award Winning producer Una Jackman. Dan was also a the resident storyteller for Central Park and Bryant Park for much of the 2000s, and is the artistic director of Writopia Lab’s Worldwide Plays Festival, a festival of plays written by young playwrights from all over the world, now in its 8th year. MFA: The New School for Drama, 2014. Dan splits his time between Portland, Oregon and New York City.

Plays

  • WHY THIS NIGHT, A Typical 19th Century Queer Shtetl Seder Murder Mystery! by Daniel Kitrosser
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    8
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    Genre: comedy, fable/folktale + 3 more
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    Keyword: Jewish, queer + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, fable/folktale, farce, mystery/thriller, period
    Keyword: Jewish, queer, murder mystery, ensemble, story theater, comedy, thriller, Passover
    It’s 1881 and Motke, the ne’er-do-well alcoholic Jewish homosexual novelist who can’t quite finish his novel, returns to his parents’ shtetl on the eve of a Passover seder unlike any other. For on this very night, right in the middle of the fekakte seder, there’s a murder! WHY THIS NIGHT is your typical queer Jewish shtetl mad-cap murder mystery, that scratches at the gray area between this world and the...
    It’s 1881 and Motke, the ne’er-do-well alcoholic Jewish homosexual novelist who can’t quite finish his novel, returns to his parents’ shtetl on the eve of a Passover seder unlike any other. For on this very night, right in the middle of the fekakte seder, there’s a murder! WHY THIS NIGHT is your typical queer Jewish shtetl mad-cap murder mystery, that scratches at the gray area between this world and the world to come.
    It's like if Agatha Christie, John Waters and Tevye the Milkman had an orgy, with mOYder!
  • Hannah + The Healing Stone by Daniel Kitrosser
    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: adventure, comedy + 4 more
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    Keyword: magical, comedy + 2 more
    Genre: adventure, comedy, experimental, fable/folktale, fantasy, young audiences
    Keyword: magical, comedy, Fantasy, goldfish
    Hannah + The Healing Stone weaves a bunch of interlocking magical tales that intersect in an everytown USA. We have pet store clerk who squeezes a healing stone so hard it floods the town (and he won't let go!), a shut-in old lady who turns into a wish-giving goldfish, two down on their luck screenwriters who get caught up in the storm--and one who learns to fly. Maddie, a Chinese food girl who is actually...
    Hannah + The Healing Stone weaves a bunch of interlocking magical tales that intersect in an everytown USA. We have pet store clerk who squeezes a healing stone so hard it floods the town (and he won't let go!), a shut-in old lady who turns into a wish-giving goldfish, two down on their luck screenwriters who get caught up in the storm--and one who learns to fly. Maddie, a Chinese food girl who is actually from Taiwan, desperately wants love and just might find the magical way to get it. And then there's Hannah, the girl who wants to leave, but can't. Hannah keeps getting sucked into other people's stories, and it's only Hannah who can save the day.
  • Dead Special Crabs by Daniel Kitrosser
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    8–10
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    Genre: adventure, comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: absurd, comedy + 8 more
    Genre: adventure, comedy, farce, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: absurd, comedy, road trip, queer, LGBTQ, gay, action, adventure, thriller, spoof
    In this wacky road-trip adventure that follows Loomer, his best friend June, Detective Horntub, Loomer’s Aunt Missy, and an unknown serial killer as they find misadventure after misadventure. While the play does get nuttier and nuttier, and darker and darker, the characters get deeper and deeper and eventually find themselves confronting new levels of their own lives and humanity.
  • Third Person by Daniel Kitrosser
    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: comedy
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    Keyword: family, comedy + 3 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: family, comedy, absurd, American Midwest, hit by lightening
    When Buck, the silent and stoic patriarch of this middle America family, is struck by lightening, he begins to narrate his life in the third person, dredging up what shouldn’t be dredged. In this comedy, the truth about family fictions comes to the forefront, as Buck and his household examine the stories they’ve told, how they’ve told them, and what murderous secrets lie underneath.
  • The Mumblings by Daniel Kitrosser
    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: gay, feminism + 1 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, romantic comedy
    Keyword: gay, feminism, sexual assault
    he's gay, she hates sex, it's a perfect marriage.
    In this two hander, Allen (a children's storyteller) and Jodie (a sex and gender anthropologist) tell the story of their marriage while playing all of the characters in each others lives, trying to get to the truth, which stories so often belie.