Thomas Gibbons

Thomas Gibbons

Thomas Gibbons has premiered nine of his plays at InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia: Pretending to America, 6221, Axis Sally, Black Russian, Bee-luther-hatchee, Permanent Collection, A House With No Walls, Silverhill, and Uncanny Valley. His new play, Steal Her Bones, will be produced in InterAct's 2021 season, and he is working on a play commissioned by Florida Studio Theatre. Uncanny Valley was...
Thomas Gibbons has premiered nine of his plays at InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia: Pretending to America, 6221, Axis Sally, Black Russian, Bee-luther-hatchee, Permanent Collection, A House With No Walls, Silverhill, and Uncanny Valley. His new play, Steal Her Bones, will be produced in InterAct's 2021 season, and he is working on a play commissioned by Florida Studio Theatre. Uncanny Valley was a Continued Life of New Plays Fund selection; it premiered at Contemporary American Theater Festival in 2014 (transfer to 69E69 Theatre off Broadway) and in 2015 at InterAct, San Diego Rep, and Capital Stage (Sacramento) and is published by Dramatists Play Service. Other plays include The Exhibition and Homer. His plays have also been seen at the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, off-off-Broadway at Blue Heron Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Florida Stage, Unicorn Theatre, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, New Repertory Theatre, Florida Studio Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, Center Stage, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, Kirk Douglas Theatre/Center Theater Group, Aurora Theatre, Madison Repertory Theatre, Roundhouse Theatre, and many others. He is the recipient of seven playwriting fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Roger L. Stevens Award from The Fund for New American Plays, the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwriting Award, the NAACP Theatre Award, two Barrymore Awards for Outstanding New Play, and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. Permanent Collection was the pilot selection of the National New Play Network’s Continued Life of New Plays Fund, and A House With No Walls was a subsequent selection. Both plays, along with Bee-luther-hatchee, are published by Playscripts.

Plays

  • Crisis Actors (working title) by Thomas Gibbons
    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: drama, political
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    Keyword: grief, digital manipulation + 1 more
    Genre: drama, political
    Keyword: grief, digital manipulation, mass shooting
    A work in progress commissioned by Florida Studio Theatre. CRISIS ACTORS explores a central dilemma in our age of pervasive and inescapable digital manipulation: If everything can be faked, how can we prove the reality of anything, even a human life? The play traces the agonizing journey of a mother whose young daughter is murdered when a gunman attacks her school bus. As a way of overcoming her devastating...
    A work in progress commissioned by Florida Studio Theatre. CRISIS ACTORS explores a central dilemma in our age of pervasive and inescapable digital manipulation: If everything can be faked, how can we prove the reality of anything, even a human life? The play traces the agonizing journey of a mother whose young daughter is murdered when a gunman attacks her school bus. As a way of overcoming her devastating grief, the mother sets up a Facebook page to her daughter’s memory, posting photographs and other mementoes of her brief life. To her horror, a troll calling himself “Stryker77” begins to post messages on the site, accusing the mother of being a “crisis actor” playing a role in a hoax and denying not only her daughter’s death but her very existence. As her grief is invaded and her marriage crumbles, the mother takes the dangerous step of persuading Stryker77 to meet with her face to face.
  • Steal Her Bones by Thomas Gibbons
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: drama, political
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    Keyword: atheism, religion + 1 more
    Genre: drama, political
    Keyword: atheism, religion, faith vs. science
    Scheduled for a virtual production in InterAct Theatre's 2021 season. Diana Goodwin, a renowned evolutionary biologist, is also an outspoken atheist, publicly debating evangelists about the age of the Earth and intelligent design. When she is diagnosed with cancer, she is forced to cancel a debate with Martin Banks, a theologian. Several weeks after her death, Banks publishes an article entitled "...
    Scheduled for a virtual production in InterAct Theatre's 2021 season. Diana Goodwin, a renowned evolutionary biologist, is also an outspoken atheist, publicly debating evangelists about the age of the Earth and intelligent design. When she is diagnosed with cancer, she is forced to cancel a debate with Martin Banks, a theologian. Several weeks after her death, Banks publishes an article entitled "Diana Goodwin's Final Debate," revealing that Diana had invited him to her house to hold their debate privately, and on the basis of her words he believes that she came to accept the existence of God. A bitter public battle erupts over Diana’s memory, and her partner Ellen, a reclusive artist, faces a choice—grieve in silence or confront Banks over what she sees as a fraudulent misrepresentation of Diana’s final days. As the play moves between the present and Martin and Diana's encounter, STEAL HER BONES dramatizes the clash between reason and faith, contrasting interpretations of memory, and explores a deeper mystery: Is it possible to truly know the person we most love?
  • Dark Damocloid by Thomas Gibbons
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: extinction
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, science fiction
    Keyword: extinction
    A work in progress. Mark is a philosopher at the Future of Humanity Institute, a think tank that ponders the deep future of the human race. His new book, a meditation on the various ways that humanity might be driven to extinction, has become a surprising bestseller, and he has been invited to deliver a TED talk. But while he rehearsed in the theatre, something happened---and now he's trapped and alone. As...
    A work in progress. Mark is a philosopher at the Future of Humanity Institute, a think tank that ponders the deep future of the human race. His new book, a meditation on the various ways that humanity might be driven to extinction, has become a surprising bestseller, and he has been invited to deliver a TED talk. But while he rehearsed in the theatre, something happened---and now he's trapped and alone. As he obsessively rehearses his talk for the audience that never arrived, he considers various scenarios: the eruption of a supervolcano, climate change, nuclear war, or---perhaps the most unpredictable of all---a collision with a dark Damocloid, an asteroid that cannot be seen. Finally an unexpected sign of life arrives: an ant that's found its way inside. Then a far more fantastic creature appears... By turns mysterious, funny, romantic, bleak, and paradoxically hopeful, DARK DAMOCLOID frames the darkest and most urgent of subjects in the most immediate and personal terms. How do we confront the end of everything we know and cherish?
  • Uncanny Valley by Thomas Gibbons
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: drama, science fiction
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    Keyword: artificial consciousness, Robots
    Genre: drama, science fiction
    Keyword: artificial consciousness, Robots
    Drawing on current research in artificial intelligence, robotics, and the possibility of “downloading” human consciousness as a means of extending the human lifespan, Uncanny Valley charts the relationship between Claire, a neuroscientist, and Julian, a nonbiological human. As Julian is “born” over the course of the play---first his head, then an arm, then both arms and his torso, and finally his legs---Claire...
    Drawing on current research in artificial intelligence, robotics, and the possibility of “downloading” human consciousness as a means of extending the human lifespan, Uncanny Valley charts the relationship between Claire, a neuroscientist, and Julian, a nonbiological human. As Julian is “born” over the course of the play---first his head, then an arm, then both arms and his torso, and finally his legs---Claire educates him in techniques of being as human as possible: mirroring people’s speech, engaging in small talk, playing a musical instrument. Her goal is to overcome the “uncanny valley” effect by which people’s initial fascination with a lifelike artificial human inevitably transforms into revulsion. Their deepening friendship and Julian’s growing “humanity” lead to the revelations of an unhealed sorrow in Claire’s personal life and, ultimately, the purpose for which Julian has been created. The play culminates in an unexpected encounter between them that tests their knowledge of each other and of their own natures. Uncanny Valley explores the painful divide between creator and creation, the inherent unpredictability of consciousness, and how we are redefining what it means to be human in the 21st century. Selection of the Continued Life of New Plays Fund. Published by Dramatists Play Service.
  • Chekhov on Sakhalin by Thomas Gibbons
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: adaptation, docudrama/historic
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    Keyword: Anton Chekhov, penal colony + 1 more
    Genre: adaptation, docudrama/historic
    Keyword: Anton Chekhov, penal colony, Russian history
    In 1890, Anton Chekhov embarked on one of the most puzzling episodes in his life---a grueling and dangerous trip across the breadth of Russia to visit the penal colony on Sakhalin Island off the coast of Siberia. During his three-month stay, he traveled around the island while conducting a census of the 10,000 prisoners and exiles on the island, recording their details on index cards. He also observed the...
    In 1890, Anton Chekhov embarked on one of the most puzzling episodes in his life---a grueling and dangerous trip across the breadth of Russia to visit the penal colony on Sakhalin Island off the coast of Siberia. During his three-month stay, he traveled around the island while conducting a census of the 10,000 prisoners and exiles on the island, recording their details on index cards. He also observed the colony’s other inhabitants: prison administrators, guards, and free settlers. Upon his return to Moscow he wrote Sakhalin Island, his only non-fiction work and certainly his least known. Chekhov’s account of his trip is an extraordinary document: an investigation of the brutal conditions under which the prisoners lived, it is also an unsparing examination of the corruption caused in “civilized” people by unlimited control over others’ lives. CHEKHOV ON SAKHALIN is a highly theatrical dramatization of Chekhov’s book, which creates the world of Sakhalin on a unit set through lighting and sound. The play requires a cast of six: one actor to play Chekhov and five others (four men and one woman) who play multiple roles, including officials, prisoners and their spouses and children, guards, wardens, and physicians.
  • Silverhill by Thomas Gibbons
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: christianity, capitalism
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: christianity, capitalism
    In 1891 the members of Silverhill, a utopian community in upstate New York, live and work in harmony, guided by the precepts of their Bible-based communism and "complex marriage." But their idyllic existence is threatened when Alden, their leader, becomes too involved with a young woman and Frank, a young member who sells their products to the outside world, proposes reorganizing Silverhill according...
    In 1891 the members of Silverhill, a utopian community in upstate New York, live and work in harmony, guided by the precepts of their Bible-based communism and "complex marriage." But their idyllic existence is threatened when Alden, their leader, becomes too involved with a young woman and Frank, a young member who sells their products to the outside world, proposes reorganizing Silverhill according to the principles of capitalism.
  • A House With No Walls by Thomas Gibbons
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    6–9
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: slavery, american race relations + 1 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: slavery, american race relations, early American history
    A bitter public battle erupts when it is revealed that the site of a new museum enshrining American liberty is the ground on which George Washington's slaves' house once stood. An African-American political activist occupies the site, demanding that the house be recreated as a reminder of the reality of slavery in our history and a memorial to the slaves' lives. He is opposed by a controversial...
    A bitter public battle erupts when it is revealed that the site of a new museum enshrining American liberty is the ground on which George Washington's slaves' house once stood. An African-American political activist occupies the site, demanding that the house be recreated as a reminder of the reality of slavery in our history and a memorial to the slaves' lives. He is opposed by a controversial African-American conservative author, who argues that blacks must lay aside their pursuit of victimhood if they are to achieve true equality. Their conflict is juxtaposed against the story of Oney Judge, one of Washington's slaves, as she struggles with the decision of whether to risk everything to escape her bondage. Moving in time between the present and the past, the play explores our relationship to troubling historical reality. How do we decide which elements of our history will be commemorated and which will be forgotten? Selection of the Continued Life of New Plays Fund.
  • Permanent Collection by Thomas Gibbons
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: Art and Artists, racism
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: Art and Artists, racism
    Soon after African-American businessman Sterling North becomes the new director of the Morris Foundation, he discovers that this world-famous art collection includes several significant African sculptures tucked away in storage. His proposal to add them to the public galleries is opposed by the foundation's long-time education director, who is loyal to the idiosyncratic wishes of the late Dr. Morris....
    Soon after African-American businessman Sterling North becomes the new director of the Morris Foundation, he discovers that this world-famous art collection includes several significant African sculptures tucked away in storage. His proposal to add them to the public galleries is opposed by the foundation's long-time education director, who is loyal to the idiosyncratic wishes of the late Dr. Morris. Spurred on by a zealous local journalist, this clash quickly escalates to public accusations of racism and a bitter struggle for control of the collection. Ultimately, the play asks how much space---literally and figuratively---the white world gives to African-Americans. What is the cost of failing to view the world through another's eyes? Pilot selection of the Continued Life of New Plays Fund. Barrymore Award, Outstanding New Play.
  • Bee-luther-hatchee by Thomas Gibbons
    Cast: 
    5–8
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: autobiography, american race relations
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: autobiography, american race relations
    Shelita Burns, an African-American editor, publishes Bee-luther-hatchee, the autobiography of a reclusive 72-year-old woman named Libby Price. Shelita has never met Libby, and when the book wins a prestigious award she decides to deliver it to her in person. To her profound shock, the actual author of the book is a white man named Sean Leonard. Furious and resentful, Shelita accuses Sean of perpetrating a hoax...
    Shelita Burns, an African-American editor, publishes Bee-luther-hatchee, the autobiography of a reclusive 72-year-old woman named Libby Price. Shelita has never met Libby, and when the book wins a prestigious award she decides to deliver it to her in person. To her profound shock, the actual author of the book is a white man named Sean Leonard. Furious and resentful, Shelita accuses Sean of perpetrating a hoax, while he defends the book as a truthful work of imagination. Their confrontation, played out on the edge of the racial divide, builds to a jarring act of violence.
  • Black Russian by Thomas Gibbons
    Cast: 
    9–15
    ·
    Genre: drama, political
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    Keyword: Stalinism, fathers + 1 more
    Genre: drama, political
    Keyword: Stalinism, fathers, son
    Alternating between past and present, Black Russian dramatizes the journeys of a father and son. Eugene is an African-American agronomist who emigrates to the Soviet Union in the 1930s to help build the 'workers' paradise." His son Misha---half white, half black, half Russian, half American---comes to America in 1996 to discover his heritage. Barrymore Award, Outstanding New Play.
  • Axis Sally by Thomas Gibbons
    Cast: 
    9–12
    ·
    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama
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    Keyword: Axis Sally, World War II + 1 more
    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama
    Keyword: Axis Sally, World War II, treason
    Docudrama based on the life of Mildred Gillars, the most notorious of the American "radio traitors" who broadcast Nazi propaganda from Berlin during World War Two.
  • 6221 by Thomas Gibbons
    Cast: 
    15–25
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    Genre: docudrama/historic, political
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    Keyword: movement
    Genre: docudrama/historic, political
    Keyword: movement
    A three-act documentary drama for a large ensemble, 6221 charts the twenty-year history of the radical group MOVE and its relationship to the city of Philadelphia. Beginning with the groups's founding in Powelton Village, the play culminates in the violent encounter of 1985 when police dropped an improvised bomb on their house in West Philadelphia. The resulting fire killed eleven MOVE members, including...
    A three-act documentary drama for a large ensemble, 6221 charts the twenty-year history of the radical group MOVE and its relationship to the city of Philadelphia. Beginning with the groups's founding in Powelton Village, the play culminates in the violent encounter of 1985 when police dropped an improvised bomb on their house in West Philadelphia. The resulting fire killed eleven MOVE members, including five children, and destroyed an entire city block.
  • Pretending to America by Thomas Gibbons
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: Torture
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: Torture
    Benjamin Olaya, a political refugee and torture victim from an African country, is about to undergo his hearing before the Immigration Service. His caseworker, Liz Petersen, will accompany him but has to inform him that his chances of being accepted are uncertain. In order to summon the courage to attend the hearing, Benjamin must face the moment in his torture when his will to resist was broken.
  • Homer by Thomas Gibbons
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama
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    Keyword: Civil War, photography
    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama
    Keyword: Civil War, photography
    On the eve of a major Civil War battle, a Union captain confronts the traveling photographer who captures war's aftermath.
  • The Exhibition by Thomas Gibbons
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: physical deformity
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: physical deformity
    One-act play about the life of John Merrick, the "Elephant Man," and his relationship with Dr. Frederick Treves.