Eve Lederman

Eve’s play To Life was co-produced as an Equity showcase with FMC Productions, starring Loni Ackerman (of Broadway’s Cats). The play was a finalist for the New Dramatists Princess Grace Award, a semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference, a finalist for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education/Award of Excellence in Playwriting, a semifinalist for the Athena Project, and shortlisted for the 92Y Theatre Development Lab.

Nothing But The Truth was produced as an Equity showcase at the Dream Up Festival in New York starring Broadway producer Jana Robbins. Peter Filichia (Broadway Select/TheaterMania) called it an “arresting new play” and noted, “By the time the journey ends, theatergoers may well smack their heads and say they should have seen...

Eve’s play To Life was co-produced as an Equity showcase with FMC Productions, starring Loni Ackerman (of Broadway’s Cats). The play was a finalist for the New Dramatists Princess Grace Award, a semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference, a finalist for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education/Award of Excellence in Playwriting, a semifinalist for the Athena Project, and shortlisted for the 92Y Theatre Development Lab.

Nothing But The Truth was produced as an Equity showcase at the Dream Up Festival in New York starring Broadway producer Jana Robbins. Peter Filichia (Broadway Select/TheaterMania) called it an “arresting new play” and noted, “By the time the journey ends, theatergoers may well smack their heads and say they should have seen it coming. That's the mark of a talented writer.” The play also had a showcase with Post Productions in Ontario, Canada, and received stellar reviews.

The drama was named a finalist and “highly commended play” in The BBC’s International Playwriting Competition and produced as a radio drama with The Radio Theatre Project. It was also a finalist for T. Schreiber Studio & Theatre’s New Works Project, the ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition, and the Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women; shortlisted for the Urban Stages Development Program The Phoenix Theatre Festival of New American Theatre; and a semi-finalist for the Princess Grace Award/New Dramatists and Geva Theatre’s Festival of New Theatre (Rochester, NY), among others. Eve is also a recipient of the Seventh Wave Residency in Rhinebeck.

Eve’s work has been developed in New York with The Barrow Group, T. Schreiber Studio & Theatre, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, Nora’s Playhouse, Wide Eyed Productions, The Bechdel Group, and Playhouse on Park (Hartford).

Eve’s memoir Letters From My Sister: On Life, Love and Hair Removal was published by Skyhorse Publishing and released on Audible.com. The New York Times City section editor hailed the book as “a warm slice of life of the edge, with an edge.” Her essays have appeared in The New York Times and she’s contributed a story to the collection Have I Got a Guy for You (Adams Media). Eve was interviewed by Works by Women and Post Productions, appeared at Barnes & Noble and the JCC Lit Café, and has discussed her work on Good Day NY and WCBS radio.

Eve is also a monologist and has performed in New York at The Players Club, the Bryant Park Reading Room, the Nuyorican Poets Café, The Cornelia Street Café and the Upper West Side JCC. She was named one of “New York’s best emerging Jewish artists” by the Museum of Jewish Heritage and told stories on the museum’s stage. Five of her short monologues have also been produced by the Jewish Women’s Theatre in Los Angeles.

She also co-produced and co-directed A Good Uplift, a short documentary about a bra shop on the Lower East Side, run by a Hasidic mother and son. The film was featured in The New York Times, premiered at Lincoln Center’s New York Jewish Film Festival, screened on PBS (Reel NY), and appeared in more than 50 film festivals worldwide.

Scripts

To Life

by Eve Lederman

Cast Size

6

Genre

dark comedy,

drama,

tragedy

To Life is inspired by the death of my brother from stomach cancer at the age of 40. The drama depicts one afternoon in a hospital room in a death-defying traumedy revealing family secrets. Backs are turned and accusations hurled as the Rosens come together and fall apart, bound by heartbreak and humor.

The play opens with Jeffrey on a ventilator as his sisters Claire and Leah gather with their parents. Claire...

To Life is inspired by the death of my brother from stomach cancer at the age of 40. The drama depicts one afternoon in a hospital room in a death-defying traumedy revealing family secrets. Backs are turned and accusations hurled as the Rosens come together and fall apart, bound by heartbreak and humor.

The play opens with Jeffrey on a ventilator as his sisters Claire and Leah gather with their parents. Claire, in her mid-30s, hasn’t spoken to her mother and father in years. She often feuds with her strident younger sister as their relationship careens between closeness and collapse. Mom, meek and emotionally unavailable, is subservient to her husband, an outward bully but internal nebbish. While she fixates on caring for her son who is still her boy, Dad’s proclivity for violence escalates with grief. Jeffrey is a rich character as well, portrayed through the family’s anecdotes and his supernatural speech.

Confrontations unfold between family members as Dad and Claire collide over childhood abuse; Mom and Dad clash as she struggles to assert her own will; Claire wrestles with Mom over her lack of maternal love; and the whole family reminisces about their beloved guinea pig, sings the Seder’s Four Questions in Klingon, smashes glass, and clings to their fragile connection amidst the chaos. Then Jeffrey communicates that he wants his life support turned off…

To Life depicts the touching and tragic vicissitudes of living and creates both elegy and eulogy for the death of a family.

Nothing But The Truth

by Eve Lederman

Cast Size

5

Genre

drama,

radio drama,

tragedy

Inspired by deposition transcripts from a malpractice case, Nothing But The Truth portrays the relationship between patient and therapist as an intimacy more powerful and volatile than any romance. Rachel is a vivacious yet distraught young woman exploring her family secrets and fears about children with her maternal therapist Marilyn. But when Marilyn faces questions in a lawsuit for abruptly terminating Rachel...

Inspired by deposition transcripts from a malpractice case, Nothing But The Truth portrays the relationship between patient and therapist as an intimacy more powerful and volatile than any romance. Rachel is a vivacious yet distraught young woman exploring her family secrets and fears about children with her maternal therapist Marilyn. But when Marilyn faces questions in a lawsuit for abruptly terminating Rachel’s treatment, she paints her as violent and an explosive, life-altering battle ensues. Is Rachel dangerous as her therapist claims? Or is the doctor hiding her own emotional and ethical violations?

The scenes alternate between the doctor’s office and the deposition room, toying with the timeline and challenging the audience to uncover the truth: Marilyn testifies to one version of events and then the clock turns back to the doctor’s office where the facts unfold. Like Mamet’s Oleanna, the viewers’ allegiance vacillates as the protagonists’ power struggle escalates, similarly inciting and polarizing the audience.

Within this harrowing legal and psychological ordeal is a treasure trove of deposition dialogue and a complex character, both caring and conniving, to expose. This story shares a tale of betrayal that ignites a heated dialogue about the pliability of truth, dynamics of therapy and the blurry line between obsession and love.