Calley N. Anderson

Calley N. Anderson

CALLEY N. ANDERSON is a Brooklyn-based playwright from Memphis, TN. Her work has been staged at several colleges and 10-minute play festivals around the country, including recent commissions by the Davidson College Theatre Department and the University of Memphis Department of Theatre and Dance. Anderson is currently a National Black Theatre SOUL Series LAB Resident Playwright, was a 2022 MacDowell Fellow, and...
CALLEY N. ANDERSON is a Brooklyn-based playwright from Memphis, TN. Her work has been staged at several colleges and 10-minute play festivals around the country, including recent commissions by the Davidson College Theatre Department and the University of Memphis Department of Theatre and Dance. Anderson is currently a National Black Theatre SOUL Series LAB Resident Playwright, was a 2022 MacDowell Fellow, and is an alum of the Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellows (2020-21), Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group (2021-22), The Civilians R&D Group (2021-22), American Theatre Group PlayLab (2020-22), and Liberation Theatre Company Writing Residency Program (2022-2023). Beyond playwriting, Anderson was previously the Showrunner’s Assistant for Season 2 of One of Us Is Lying (Peacock) and is currently Program Manager at NY Writers Coalition. BA: Davidson College | MFA: New School for Drama. calleynanderson.com

Plays

  • Interlopers by Calley N. Anderson
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: drama
    Genre: drama
    Today should only be about one thing——Gwendolyn Tarver’s homegoing. But at 11:30am on a Saturday at Seventh Baptist Church, the Tarver family’s attention is fractured once her will is read. Something that her daughter Cassandra assumed would be quick and simple is primed to shake the foundations of this family. Interlopers is a play about legacies, grief, belonging, and how we become who we are—especially as mothers and daughters.
  • The Alligator by Calley N. Anderson
    Cast: 
    5–6
    ·
    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller
    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller
    After his recent mental breakdown, 15-year-old Bradley just wants life to return to normal. But when a haunting figure wearing a dapper suit made of alligator skin begins tormenting him, Bradley must turn to the only person who might be able to help: his estranged father. "The Alligator" is a Southern gothic tale of legacies, perceptions, fear, and coming-of-age in Blackness.
  • Everyone But Us by Calley N. Anderson
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    5–6
    ·
    Genre: drama, science fiction
    ·
    Keyword: mirror, Surreal + 1 more
    Genre: drama, science fiction
    Keyword: mirror, Surreal, Relationships
    In the world just beyond a mirror's reflection, five co-workers try their best to do their jobs well: be a voice in someone's head and make them happy. But what happens when the world outside the mirror blends with the world inside it?
  • The Julies: A Kinda Sorta Adaptation of Strindberg's Miss Julie by Calley N. Anderson
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    7
    ·
    Genre: adaptation
    ·
    Keyword: Miss Julie, meta-theater + 2 more
    Genre: adaptation
    Keyword: Miss Julie, meta-theater, multi generation, multiple time periods
    Six actors and one narrator take us through a meta-theatrical journey that asks an essential question of August Strindberg's classic: who is Miss Julie? Set in multiple time periods and locations in the United States, The Julies analyzes the power dynamics at play in the canonical play and shifts them beyond their current boundaries of identity, gender, and place. This one-act play is an attempt to push...
    Six actors and one narrator take us through a meta-theatrical journey that asks an essential question of August Strindberg's classic: who is Miss Julie? Set in multiple time periods and locations in the United States, The Julies analyzes the power dynamics at play in the canonical play and shifts them beyond their current boundaries of identity, gender, and place. This one-act play is an attempt to push adaptation further and create more space for questions than interpretations or answers.
  • Collective Empathy Formation from 1968 and 2018 by Calley N. Anderson
    Recommendations: 5
    ·
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: drama, political
    ·
    Keyword: political social questions, social change + 5 more
    Genre: drama, political
    Keyword: political social questions, social change, empathy, 1960s America, History, black history, black lives matter
    Five research study participants gather in a conference room. Their task appears simple and straight-forward: select 10 events from the year 1968 that they feel impacted the nation’s conscious and view of empathy. What transpires is a reflection of what is seen, heard, and missed when history, memory, and living bodies must merge in unflinching ways.
  • Performative by Calley N. Anderson
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: black lives matter, bookstore + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, political
    Keyword: black lives matter, bookstore, allyship
    Inspired by Katherine Morgan's fall 2020 article "About That Wave of Anti-Racist Bestsellers Over the Summer...," this play tackles the realities of difficult conversations, the nature of allyship and activism, choosing wins and battles, and what it means to have to do any of this while you fight for your life.
  • Trick or Treat? by Calley N. Anderson
    Recommendations: 6
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy
    ·
    Keyword: halloween, Black comedy + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy
    Keyword: halloween, Black comedy, Black America, black lives matter
    There's a cultural touchstone in Black America that, if you see another Black person running, you follow without question. But what happens after you've followed? Where do you run? What do you discover? Trick or Treat? gives comedic answers to those questions while highlighting the realities of what it means to be a Black man in America.
  • Carousel by Calley N. Anderson
    Recommendations: 3
    ·
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: romantic comedy
    ·
    Keyword: flirting, discovery + 1 more
    Genre: romantic comedy
    Keyword: flirting, discovery, Ancient Greek Philosophy
    Does a spark always start a fire, or can it die out?
    In this 10-minute play, two young men engage in a tête-à-tête about truth, self, and love at a lonely airport baggage claim.