Jen Silverman

Jen Silverman

Jen Silverman is a New York-based writer. Her plays include Witch (Writers Theatre, The Geffen Playhouse in LA); Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties… (Woolly Mammoth, Southwark Playhouse in London, MCC); The Roommate (Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Steppenwolf directed by Phylicia Rashad, Long Wharf, South Coast Repertory, Theater Biel/Solthurn in Switzerland, Salón Teatro in...
Jen Silverman is a New York-based writer. Her plays include Witch (Writers Theatre, The Geffen Playhouse in LA); Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties… (Woolly Mammoth, Southwark Playhouse in London, MCC); The Roommate (Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Steppenwolf directed by Phylicia Rashad, Long Wharf, South Coast Repertory, Theater Biel/Solthurn in Switzerland, Salón Teatro in Spain, etc); and The Moors (Yale Repertory Theatre, The Playwrights Realm, Seymour Center in Sydney, Red Stitch in Melbourne). Jen is a member of New Dramatists, and an affiliated artist with The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis. She’s a two-time MacDowell Colony fellow, a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, the Helen Merrill Award, an LMCC Fellowship, and the Yale Drama Series Award. She was the 2016-2017 Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellow at the Lark.

Jen is the author of The Island Dwellers, a collection of interlinked stories which was published by Random House and long-listed for the 2019 PEN America Literary Awards. Her first novel, We Play Ourselves, is forthcoming with Random House in 2021. Jen also writes for TV and film. She has written for Netflix and Showtime, and is currently in development on original projects with Annapurna, A24, and FX. Education: Brown, Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Juilliard. More info: www.jensilverman.com

Plays

  • The Roommate by Jen Silverman
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Recently divorced and living in an old house in Iowa, Sharon finds a sensible roommate like herself—a woman in her fifties—to make ends meet. But she quickly learns that Robyn is a fugitive of sorts, who couldn’t be further from the ladies in her book club. As both women become close, each recognizes in the other an overwhelming desire to transform her own life. But the only question is: what will be the price...
    Recently divorced and living in an old house in Iowa, Sharon finds a sensible roommate like herself—a woman in her fifties—to make ends meet. But she quickly learns that Robyn is a fugitive of sorts, who couldn’t be further from the ladies in her book club. As both women become close, each recognizes in the other an overwhelming desire to transform her own life. But the only question is: what will be the price of that transformation. A dark comedy about what it takes to re-route your life - and what happens when the wheels come off.
  • The Moors by Jen Silverman
    Recommendations: 9
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    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 3 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, experimental, mystery/thriller, period
    Two sisters and a dog live out their lives on the bleak English moors, and dream of love and power. The arrival of a hapless governess and a moor-hen set all three on a strange and dangerous path. The Moors is a dark comedy about love, desperation, and visibility.
  • COLLECTIVE RAGE: A PLAY IN 5 BETTIES;IN ESSENCE A QUEER & OCCASIONALLY HAZARDOUS EXPLORATION; DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL AND YOU READ ABOUT SHACKLETON & HOW HE EXPLORED THE ARCTIC?;IMAGINE THE ARCTIC AS A PUSSY & IT’S SORT OF LIKE THAT by Jen Silverman
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy
    Betty is rich. Betty is lonely. Betty’s a dutiful wife, but Betty’s busy working on her truck. Betty wants to talk about love, and Betty wants Betty, but Betty needs to hit something. And Betty keeps using a small hand mirror to stare into parts of herself she’s never examined. Meanwhile, Betty decides to stage a production of that play-within-a-play from…what’s it called? Summer’s Midnight Dream? In Collective...
    Betty is rich. Betty is lonely. Betty’s a dutiful wife, but Betty’s busy working on her truck. Betty wants to talk about love, and Betty wants Betty, but Betty needs to hit something. And Betty keeps using a small hand mirror to stare into parts of herself she’s never examined. Meanwhile, Betty decides to stage a production of that play-within-a-play from…what’s it called? Summer’s Midnight Dream? In Collective Rage, five different women named Betty collide at the intersection of anger, sex, and the “thea-tah.”
  • STILL by Jen Silverman
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    41 year old Morgan's son was born dead, queer dominatrix Dolores is pregnant with a child she doesn't want, and failed midwife Elena seeks either redemption or a career change. All three women confront their fears, desires, and each other, while Morgan's baby Constantinople roams the world, searching for the meaning of the word “wow,” a satisfying explanation of love, and above all, his mother.
  • Wink by Jen Silverman
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, political
    Sofie is an unhappy housewife. Gregor is her bread-winning husband. Dr. Franz is their psychiatrist. Wink is the cat. And Gregor has just skinned the cat. Violent desires, domestic terrorism, and feline vengeance at any cost make WINK a dark comedy about the thin, thin line between savagery and civilization.
  • Phoebe In Winter by Jen Silverman
    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental
    When three brothers return home from a distant war, they prepare to settle into their old lives. But a knock at the door yields a girl named Phoebe who accuses them of killing her own three brothers, and demands reparations—that they must become her new family instead. As Phoebe's presence changes the very structure of their family, a war that was once far away now threatens to re-ignite inside their home.