John Adams

John Adams

John Adams is a playwright, improviser and communications professional from Kansas City. He is the author of Old Girl, which premiered at the the Barn Players' 2016 6x10 Ten Minute Play Festival (Mission, Kansas), and Some Specter, which premiered at Whim Productions' 2018 Alphabet Soup: Stories from Queer Voices festival (Kansas City). He was selected as a Presenting Playwright for the Midwest...
John Adams is a playwright, improviser and communications professional from Kansas City. He is the author of Old Girl, which premiered at the the Barn Players' 2016 6x10 Ten Minute Play Festival (Mission, Kansas), and Some Specter, which premiered at Whim Productions' 2018 Alphabet Soup: Stories from Queer Voices festival (Kansas City). He was selected as a Presenting Playwright for the Midwest Dramatists Center first three conferences in 2017 (Old Girl), 2018 (Some Specter), and 2019 (Through the Darkest of Stars, Toward the Brightest of Futures).

He performs with three comedy improv teams, including That’s No Movie, a group that performs a heavily stylized "genre" style of improv. This has allowed him to study and perform tropes from a range of genres, including space opera, romcom, slasher, secret agent, zombie, Disney Princess, Hitchcock, Nicholas Sparks tearjerker, Rankin Bass holiday claymation special and Hanna Barbera animated meddling-kids mystery. He works to include this love of genre into his work as a playwright, as well. That's No Movie regularly performs at improv festivals and pop-culture conventions across the country, including the Del Close Marathon (New York City), the Chicago Improv Festival, the Chicago Nerd Comedy Festival, the Kansas City Improv Festival, the Omaha Improv Festival, Planet Comicon, O Comic Con, Crypticon and the MidWest Game Fair.

John produces comedy shows in Kansas City, including The Big Screen on a Little Stage (June 2019 to present), America's Improv Test Kitchen (monthly from September 2016 to March 2019), and That's No Movie's Improvised Film Festival (July 2018 as part of Kansas City Fringe).

Plays

  • The Damp, Dark Room Just Off the Parlor by John Adams
    Recommendations: 7
    ·
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, horror + 4 more
    ·
    Keyword: Victorian, monster + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, horror, mystery/thriller, period, romantic comedy, science fiction
    Keyword: Victorian, monster, lovecraft, comedy, romance, gay, LGBTQ, mystery
    In Victorian England, a junior investigator with Scotland Yard looks into a wealthy couple's bizarre murder. But danger looms from within the couple's home -- and within their troubled son.
  • Some Specter by John Adams
    Recommendations: 12
    ·
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: adventure, comedy + 6 more
    ·
    Keyword: Scooby Doo, hardy boys + 8 more
    Genre: adventure, comedy, dark comedy, drama, horror, mystery/thriller, parody/spoof, tragedy
    Keyword: Scooby Doo, hardy boys, gay, LGBTQ, male friendship, gay straight relationships, grief, teenagers, high school, ghosts
    Ben and Lucas were a great team – the one and only Boy Sleuths of Little Apple, Kansas. Together they would track down werewolves, witches and warlocks, pulling the masks of these alleged “monsters” to reveal greedy investment bankers seeking to defraud helpless widows. But now, Lucas is dead – killed in a tragic, all-too-real accident. And Ben grudgingly agrees to solve the latest crime with Gabriel, Lucas’s...
    Ben and Lucas were a great team – the one and only Boy Sleuths of Little Apple, Kansas. Together they would track down werewolves, witches and warlocks, pulling the masks of these alleged “monsters” to reveal greedy investment bankers seeking to defraud helpless widows. But now, Lucas is dead – killed in a tragic, all-too-real accident. And Ben grudgingly agrees to solve the latest crime with Gabriel, Lucas’s wise-cracking, pot-smoking boyfriend. But as the young detectives search for clues to unmask the Specter of Sparrow Pond, they realize that the real mystery isn’t some scary monster; it’s the unspoken secret between them.
  • Through the Darkest of Stars, Toward the Brightest of Futures by John Adams
    Recommendations: 9
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, farce + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: gender bending, gender roles + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, farce, period, satire, science fiction
    Keyword: gender bending, gender roles, comedy of manners, comedy, Surreal
    In this short comedy of moon manners, ingenue Pureson Cloveheart has entered into the employ of Mrs. Grittine Danvers in her manor home on a mining moon far across the matriverse. Life seems perfect for innocent Pureson... until his rakish sister, Scoundrette, arrives and attempts to ensnare him into a scandalous plot.
  • Old Girl by John Adams
    Recommendations: 8
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama, tragedy
    ·
    Keyword: death, grief + 3 more
    Genre: drama, tragedy
    Keyword: death, grief, afterlife, family, heaven
    Following his death, Neil is reunited with Molly, someone he knew in life, though her exact identity is a mystery to him at first. As Neil begins to understand who Molly is and what she meant to him, the two of them begin a redemptive journey through their darkest days to a place of healing.
  • The Record Don't Stop Spinnin' for Robby Ray Robinson by John Adams
    Recommendations: 4
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: country music, Relationships + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, parody/spoof, period, science fiction
    Keyword: country music, Relationships, marriage, 1970s, guitar, aliens, celebrity
    It’s New Years Eve 1974 when Loodie finds her husband, legendary country crooner Robby Ray Robinson, holed up in a motel room with nothing but alcohol and heroin for company. He’s cheated, he’s lied, he’s sinned. But Robby Ray still loves Loodie. And Loodie still loves Robby Ray. Will their love bring them back together… or just hurt them more? Also: Loodie is an evil fish woman from the planet Neptune.