Schaeffer Nelson

Schaeffer Nelson

Schaeffer Nelson is a Kansan playwright, screenwriter, and multi-disciplinary horror writer living in Oakland. His plays include Mice, Kings of Israel, and Hottest Church Dads (Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2024). His horror play, Mice (Ensemble Studio Theatre LA, 2017) earned critical praise, described by LAist as “a taut 70-minute psychological thriller” and prompting The Los Angeles Times to dub...
Schaeffer Nelson is a Kansan playwright, screenwriter, and multi-disciplinary horror writer living in Oakland. His plays include Mice, Kings of Israel, and Hottest Church Dads (Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2024). His horror play, Mice (Ensemble Studio Theatre LA, 2017) earned critical praise, described by LAist as “a taut 70-minute psychological thriller” and prompting The Los Angeles Times to dub Nelson, “an intriguing new voice…who should be heard.”

Nelson’s creepypastas have been viewed and streamed over 300,000 times on podcasts such as Creepy and Mr. Creepypasta, and can be heard on YouTube and most major streaming platforms. His non-horror prose has appeared in Camp Magazine and Palaver.

He is a member of Oakland Theater Project and Ensemble Studio Theater LA, and an alum of Ensemble Studio Theatre LA’s New West Playwrights. He is also a proud mentor with PEN America’s Incarcerated Writer’s Program.

By day, he works in the paperwork side of construction.

Plays

  • Hottest Church Dads by Schaeffer Nelson
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: Evangelical Christianity, Growing-up evangelical + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: Evangelical Christianity, Growing-up evangelical, homophobia, gay, Christian
    It's 2004. Jason and Bryan— two white, Evangelical teenage boys— don’t have much experience being gay. But they know the same Christian music. And they have opinions about which men at church are the hottest. And they have time on their hands. Until it runs out.

    - Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2024
  • What They Hid in the Corpse by Schaeffer Nelson
    Cast: 
    1–2
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, horror + 1 more
    Genre: dark comedy, horror, mystery/thriller
    Peter, a gay, small-town Minnesotan, is abandoned by his long-term boyfriend. Excruciating loneliness sends Peter on a downward spiral into the arms of a handsome stranger with a strange request: to transport a cadaver across the Canadian border. Against all his better instincts, Peter agrees. And must then fight for his life when he discovers the terrible truth about what they hid in the corpse.
    ...
    Peter, a gay, small-town Minnesotan, is abandoned by his long-term boyfriend. Excruciating loneliness sends Peter on a downward spiral into the arms of a handsome stranger with a strange request: to transport a cadaver across the Canadian border. Against all his better instincts, Peter agrees. And must then fight for his life when he discovers the terrible truth about what they hid in the corpse.

    Can be performed as a one-person show or by 2 actors.
  • Mice by Schaeffer Nelson
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: horror, mystery/thriller
    ·
    Keyword: cannibalism, christianity + 3 more
    Genre: horror, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: cannibalism, christianity, women, midwest, pastor
    Ayushi and Grace have just met. Both are from the Midwest. Both are pastor’s wives. Both are locked inside the basement pantry of a cannibal in a mouse costume. And today, food isn’t the only thing on his mind. If Ayushi and Grace are to survive, they must win a series of escalating mind games with their captor. They must discern what it means to become a good “little mouse.”

    Some Reviews:...
    Ayushi and Grace have just met. Both are from the Midwest. Both are pastor’s wives. Both are locked inside the basement pantry of a cannibal in a mouse costume. And today, food isn’t the only thing on his mind. If Ayushi and Grace are to survive, they must win a series of escalating mind games with their captor. They must discern what it means to become a good “little mouse.”

    Some Reviews:

    “Nelson is… an intriguing new voice — one who may not be easy to listen to but who should be heard…Nelson’s bizarre plot results in suspenseful moments that are genuinely unsettling.”- The Los Angeles Times

    “This taut 70-minute psychological thriller is no joke… Nelson profoundly hints in Mice at the powerful hold of religious adherence and identity…a high-suspense game of life and death.”- LAist

    “Mice holds you in a state of suspense from start to finish...” - Discover Hollywood Magazine

    “Blithely violates taboos and sensibilities, unsettling us on a visceral level…” –Theatre Ghost

    75 minutes, no intermission.
  • Kings of Israel by Schaeffer Nelson
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy + 5 more
    ·
    Keyword: Bible, gay + 4 more
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy, drama, fable/folktale, faith-based, melodrama, tragedy
    Keyword: Bible, gay, homosexuality, queer, lust, irreverent
    Irreverently comedic and increasingly tense, Kings of Israel retells the complex and dangerous relationship between King Saul and David, the first two kings of Biblical Israel. Over the course of a series of bedroom conversations, David questions where his loyalty to God ends and his relationship with King Saul begins-- and bloody choices draw near.

    Some Reviews/Acclaim...

    Editor...
    Irreverently comedic and increasingly tense, Kings of Israel retells the complex and dangerous relationship between King Saul and David, the first two kings of Biblical Israel. Over the course of a series of bedroom conversations, David questions where his loyalty to God ends and his relationship with King Saul begins-- and bloody choices draw near.

    Some Reviews/Acclaim...

    Editor's Pick, Best Productions of the Season, 2013-14- KC Metropolis

    Best Production, Kansas City Fringe Festival 2014- Lee Hartman, KC Metropolis

    "I was tickled by this provocative humanization of the Biblical legend, and find myself thinking more about it the morning after..." - KC Stage

    "A TERRIFIC SHOW...This was not the version I learned in Sunday School...I would go back again!" - Best-selling novelist B.G. Thomas


    55 minutes, no intermission.
  • Box 7 by Schaeffer Nelson
    Cast: 
    4–5
    ·
    Genre: drama, faith-based + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: taxes, IRS + 7 more
    Genre: drama, faith-based, horror
    Keyword: taxes, IRS, Lesbian, vigilante, pastor, pedophilia, 1990s, NAMBLA, violence
    Zachary Carol, a "pedophile rights activist", needs to get his taxes filed. Soon. As a vigilante closes in on him, Zachary must subject himself to the scrutiny of several tax professionals. Based on the 1990's infiltration of the gay rights movement by wicked men.

    80 minutes, no intermission.

    - Workshop reading, Launchpad, Ensemble Studio Theatre LA, 2017
  • OUTSpoken KC: Love and Marriage by Schaeffer Nelson
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: Kansas City, Gay and LGBTQ + 1 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, docudrama/historic, period, political
    Keyword: Kansas City, Gay and LGBTQ, American 20th century history
    A constellation of true romances from Kansas City’s LGBTQ communities. A gay immigrant who sought asylum in Brookside. A Parkville trans woman’s stunningly awkward first date. The racial politics of Kansas City’s separatist lesbian Womantown in the 90’s. With research and creative consulting by Cherae Clark.

    Running Time: 60 Minutes, No intermission. 2-6 actors.
  • Sixth Grade As It Was by Schaeffer Nelson
    Cast: 
    9
    ·
    Genre: drama, faith-based + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: education, evangelical + 3 more
    Genre: drama, faith-based, horror, young audiences
    Keyword: education, evangelical, white people, 19th century America, American Midwest
    The year 2000. A Classical Christian school in the Midwest. A 6th Grade class. A beloved teacher. And a strange, new curriculum that beckons the children to an old evil. Based on something that happened. More than once.

    Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission. 9 actors.