Stephen Kaplan

Stephen Kaplan

Stephen Kaplan is an award-winning playwright with productions off-broadway and in regional theaters nationally. His upcoming productions include the world premieres of Tracy Jones at Williamston Theatre, Michigan and CenterStage, Rochester, and the world premiere of Branwell (and other Brontës): An Autobiography Edited by Charlotte Brontë at Loft Ensemble, Los Angeles. Tracy Jones is currently a finalist for B...
Stephen Kaplan is an award-winning playwright with productions off-broadway and in regional theaters nationally. His upcoming productions include the world premieres of Tracy Jones at Williamston Theatre, Michigan and CenterStage, Rochester, and the world premiere of Branwell (and other Brontës): An Autobiography Edited by Charlotte Brontë at Loft Ensemble, Los Angeles. Tracy Jones is currently a finalist for B Street Theater (Sacramento, CA)’s New Comedies Festival, and was a finalist for the ScreenCraft Stage Play Contest and the Trustus Playwrights Festival. It was one of two chosen for a developmental reading at Chameleon Theatre, Minnesota. Branwell was a semi-finalist for the O’Neill. His other productions include A Real Boy, which premiered in New York at 59E59, and And Jack Came Tumbling After, which premiered at The Old Globe Theatre. He is a 2021 Individual Artist Fellowship winner in playwriting from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and his plays have also been finalists and semi-finalists for such institutions as Seven Devils, Woodward/Newman Award, PlayPenn, and FutureFest, and been published by Dramatists Play Service. He earned his BFA from NYU – Playwrights Horizons Theatre School and his MFA from Point Park University. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and serves as Northeastern Regional Representative on the DG National Council. For more information visit www.bystephenkaplan.com

Plays

  • Tracy Jones by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 33
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: loneliness, chain restaurant + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, farce
    Keyword: loneliness, chain restaurant, names, women, connection, LGBTQ, comedy, drama, sad farce
    FINALIST: ScreenCraft Stage Play Contest, B Street New Comedies Festival, Trustus Playwrights Festival; SEMI-FINALIST: Bay Area Playwrights Festival; WINNER: Southeast Texas Festival of New Plays, Chameleon Theatre New Play Festival - Tracy Jones has rented out the back "party room" of Jones Street Bar and Grill: the Place for Wings and Things, a typical chain restaurant. Tracy Jones is throwing a...
    FINALIST: ScreenCraft Stage Play Contest, B Street New Comedies Festival, Trustus Playwrights Festival; SEMI-FINALIST: Bay Area Playwrights Festival; WINNER: Southeast Texas Festival of New Plays, Chameleon Theatre New Play Festival - Tracy Jones has rented out the back "party room" of Jones Street Bar and Grill: the Place for Wings and Things, a typical chain restaurant. Tracy Jones is throwing a party to which she's invited every woman in the world who is also named Tracy Jones. Tracy Jones has been sitting for over an hour alone, nursing her Diet Coke, waiting for any other Tracy Joneses to show up. Tracy Jones' epic loneliness is about to be tested beyond anything she ever imagined.
  • Un Hombre: A Golem Story by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 10
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 7 more
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    Keyword: Jewish Judaism, bar mitzvah + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, fable/folktale, faith-based, fantasy, horror, science fiction, tragedy
    Keyword: Jewish Judaism, bar mitzvah, family, Magic Realism/supernatural/mythology, teen, mother-son, grief, death, Latinx
    A modern day golem story about a recently widowed single mother who makes a clay man who comes to life, consoles her, and serves as a Bar Mitzvah and Spanish tutor for her 12-year-old son.
  • Branwell (and the other Brontes): an autobiography edited by Charlotte Bronte by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 15
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    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: adaptation, biography + 4 more
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    Keyword: writers, History + 6 more
    Genre: adaptation, biography, docudrama/historic, drama, fantasy, period
    Keyword: writers, History, Brontë, Fantasy, ghosts, family, siblings, colleges and high schools
    SEMI-FINALIST: O’Neill - Branwell Brontë has always been desperate to keep up with his brilliant sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. On his deathbed, the sisters use the magic of worlds created when they were children to keep them all distracted from the harsh reality of not only Branwell’s impending death, but the sisters’ recent literary successes – each has had a novel published. But the family discovers...
    SEMI-FINALIST: O’Neill - Branwell Brontë has always been desperate to keep up with his brilliant sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. On his deathbed, the sisters use the magic of worlds created when they were children to keep them all distracted from the harsh reality of not only Branwell’s impending death, but the sisters’ recent literary successes – each has had a novel published. But the family discovers that the thing they love best and are best at, creating stories, is sometimes the very thing that causes the greatest destruction.

    Though set in the past, Branwell (and the other Brontës): an autobiography edited by Charlotte Brontë is about how, throughout time, we tell and use stories and fantasy to deal with our realities. It explores the pain and necessity of creation when encountering grief and loss.
  • Community by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 6
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: Race, color blind + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, farce, political
    Keyword: Race, color blind, political correctness, PC, racism, community
    FINALIST: Seven Devils; Road Less Traveled National Residency, SEMI-FINALIST: Premiere Stages, March Forth Productions, SELECTION: Caleb Reese Festival of New Plays and Musicals - Christopher Marshall has just been cast as George in Mt. Laurel Community Players' production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He invites Zach, the young, Black actor who's been cast as Nick, over for a drink to give...
    FINALIST: Seven Devils; Road Less Traveled National Residency, SEMI-FINALIST: Premiere Stages, March Forth Productions, SELECTION: Caleb Reese Festival of New Plays and Musicals - Christopher Marshall has just been cast as George in Mt. Laurel Community Players' production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He invites Zach, the young, Black actor who's been cast as Nick, over for a drink to give him some actorly advice - and possibly to kill him. Whatever works. When the production's Martha and Honey show up uninvited, they find themselves caught in this play about a play (within a play?) tackling deadly issues like race and, perhaps even more dauntingly, community theatre. This ferocious comedy asks questions about how we view stories about race and the not-just-color blindness that many have when trying to talk about it.

    * Semi-Finalist - Premiere Stages Play Festival
  • A Real Boy by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 12
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    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: dark comedy, experimental + 1 more
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    Keyword: puppets, diversity + 5 more
    Genre: dark comedy, experimental, satire
    Keyword: puppets, diversity, children, absurdism, LGBTQ, education, parenthood
    PRODUCTIONS: 59E59, Last Act Theater, This Is Water Theatre; SEMI-FINALIST: PlayPenn, Ashland New Play Festival, Dayton Playhouse FutureFest and MTWorks’ Newborn Festival.
    Mary Ann and Peter Myers, both puppets, differ on how to best raise their kindergarten-bound human son, Max. When Max starts growing strings his human kindergarten teacher, Miss Terry, decides to take over as his parent to ensure he...
    PRODUCTIONS: 59E59, Last Act Theater, This Is Water Theatre; SEMI-FINALIST: PlayPenn, Ashland New Play Festival, Dayton Playhouse FutureFest and MTWorks’ Newborn Festival.
    Mary Ann and Peter Myers, both puppets, differ on how to best raise their kindergarten-bound human son, Max. When Max starts growing strings his human kindergarten teacher, Miss Terry, decides to take over as his parent to ensure he stays a real boy, igniting the Myers’ own sets of parenting beliefs and what is really best for Max.
  • Exquisite Potential by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: religion, judaism + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, faith-based
    Keyword: religion, judaism, family, Messiah, Jewish
    PRODUCTIONS: Jewish Repertory Theatre, Theatre Ariel, Dezart Performs, Project Rushmore; WINNER: NJ Playwrights Contest, Across the Generations New Jewish Play Festival, FINALIST: Woodward/Newman Award, SEMI-FINALIST: Seven Devils.
    All parents think their children are great. Alan Zuckerman just happens to think his 3-year-old son, David, is the Messiah. Thirty years ago, Alan and his wife, Laura,...
    PRODUCTIONS: Jewish Repertory Theatre, Theatre Ariel, Dezart Performs, Project Rushmore; WINNER: NJ Playwrights Contest, Across the Generations New Jewish Play Festival, FINALIST: Woodward/Newman Award, SEMI-FINALIST: Seven Devils.
    All parents think their children are great. Alan Zuckerman just happens to think his 3-year-old son, David, is the Messiah. Thirty years ago, Alan and his wife, Laura, visit their rabbi to verify David’s possible divine nature. Thirty years later, everyone older and wiser, it appears that Dad might have been onto something.
  • una casa/a home by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: comedy, drama
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    Keyword: magical realism, judaism + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: magical realism, judaism, Spanish, ghosts, family, San Diego, History
    FINALIST: Landing Theatre’s New American Voices Reading Series, Route 66 Theatre’s New Play Development Program, Rorschach's Magic in Rough Spaces
    The Schwartz Family were Russian Jews who lived in a house in Barrio Logan in San Diego, CA in 1940. The Flores family moved from Mexico and lived in the same house in 1960. In 2014, D.J. Schwartz knocks on the door to meet the house’s current...
    FINALIST: Landing Theatre’s New American Voices Reading Series, Route 66 Theatre’s New Play Development Program, Rorschach's Magic in Rough Spaces
    The Schwartz Family were Russian Jews who lived in a house in Barrio Logan in San Diego, CA in 1940. The Flores family moved from Mexico and lived in the same house in 1960. In 2014, D.J. Schwartz knocks on the door to meet the house’s current inhabitants. He discovers that no one has really left the house…Ever.
  • The John Wilkes Booth High School for the Performing Arts Presents: The Most Inclusive, Least Offensive Play Ever: An After School Special by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    8
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    Genre: comedy, satire
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    Keyword: high school, trigger warning + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, satire
    Keyword: high school, trigger warning, political correctness, comedy
    When the parents of The John Wilkes Booth High School for the Performing Arts threaten to remove the theatre program because they realize that all theatre is offensive, the scrappy students of JWB and their drama teacher race to save their beloved department by producing the most inclusive and least offensive play ever.
  • Rosaline Wrecked It All by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    14–30
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    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: high school, Shakespeare + 5 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, drama, tragedy, young audiences
    Keyword: high school, Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, suicide, bullying, Classic, large cast
    If only Rosaline had gone to the party, Romeo and Juliet would never have met and all would be OK in Verona. In this modern-day sequel to Romeo and Juliet, Rosaline is blamed for everything that went down and fights to clear her name and place the blame where she feels it belongs - anywhere but on her.

    Available as both a full-length and one-act competition version.
  • The Seventh Son by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    14–40
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    Genre: comedy, fable/folktale + 4 more
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    Keyword: fairy tale, large cast + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, fable/folktale, fantasy, parody/spoof, romantic comedy, young audiences
    Keyword: fairy tale, large cast, high school, LGBTQ
    SEMI-FINALIST: Ronald M Ruble New Play Festival
    A Curse. A Kingdom without laughter. A Princess who likes to run. And a Prince who likes to read as well as may like other princes. In this fractured fairy tale for all ages, no one is happy in the Kingdom of Eastphalia and only the seventh son of the seventh son can make things right. But will he come in time? Play is available in two versions for 14 actors or for 22+.
  • For Unto Us by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy, faith-based + 1 more
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    Keyword: children, christmas + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, faith-based, holiday
    Keyword: children, christmas, hanukkah, Jewish, christianity, LGBTQ, family, holiday
    Mary and Joseph are a pair of 5-year-olds playing with a doll. But before they can start, they’ll need to debate gender stereotypes, the relative merits of Christmas versus Hanukkah, the nature of God, and what it means to have two dads.
  • Right Field of Dreams by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 19
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: comedy, fantasy
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    Keyword: LGBTQ, baseball + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, fantasy
    Keyword: LGBTQ, baseball, historical women, Little League, musicals, gay youth, parents and children
    10-year-old Tim would much rather be watching "Damn Yankees" than playing right field in his Little League game. A visit from an unexpected guest helps Tim reveal his true feelings to his coach.
  • Death Defying by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 12
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy, drama
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    Keyword: circus, women's history + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: circus, women's history, heaven, death
    Zazel and Airabella, two circus aerialists from different eras, find themselves trapped in a waiting room as they await their fate which depends on someone knowing their real names.
  • Oh, Happy We by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: two-hander, death + 3 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: two-hander, death, mortality, simple set, Ten-Minute Play
    An allegorical drama in which Evelyn, an elderly woman, meets up with David, a young man, at a deserted bus stop on a rainy night. The play deals with issues of mortality, the will to live, and companionship.
  • The Last Night by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 6
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: drama, holiday
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    Keyword: mother, daughters + 7 more
    Genre: drama, holiday
    Keyword: mother, daughters, grief, hanukkah, Jewish, judaism, family, ghosts, holiday
    On the last night of Hanukkah, a young woman must decide whether to finally open a special gift from her mother.
  • Tim Eless, Private Eye by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy, mystery/thriller + 2 more
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    Keyword: film noir, 1940s + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, mystery/thriller, parody/spoof, period
    Keyword: film noir, 1940s, private investigator, mystery
    Tim is a private eye with short-term memory. Laura is the leggy femme fatale that comes to him with a mysterious case. If only Tim can remember why she's there. And what she wants. And why she's there.
  • In Mrs. Baker's Room by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 8
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller
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    Keyword: teachers, thriller + 3 more
    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: teachers, thriller, ghosts, children, school
    Jacob Ritter teaches fifth grade. When Mrs. Baker, his fifth grade teacher, arrives unexpectedly at his classroom, she is stunned to see that it is an exact replica of hers, down to the ditto machine he purchased on E-bay to do his handouts. He has modeled everything he does and teaches on what he recalls from Mrs. Baker. Everything. The only thing missing from his perfect classroom is Mrs. Baker herself.
  • Helen Keller Visits Martha Graham's Dance Studio by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 6
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: biography, comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: Helen Keller, Martha Graham + 5 more
    Genre: biography, comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, period
    Keyword: Helen Keller, Martha Graham, Art and Artists, dance, Deaf, blindness, historical figures
    Two giants face off over the nature of art. Included in Smith & Krause's 105 FIVE-MINUTE PLAYS.
  • Telephone by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: comedy, drama + 3 more
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    Keyword: Young actors, technology + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, fantasy, mystery/thriller, science fiction
    Keyword: Young actors, technology, Covid-19, friendship, future
    A crossed telephone line links two friends to versions of their past and future selves and reveals how crucial human connection is, especially in our current times.
  • And Jack Came Tumbling After by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    2–3
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    Genre: comedy
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    Keyword: nursery rhyme, noir + 3 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: nursery rhyme, noir, feminism, murder, comedy
    Jack is Jill's naive paramour who lets himself be talked into a murder scheme that causes him to come tumbling after her. The nursery rhyme will never be quite the same.
  • Happy Meal by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy
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    Keyword: McDonalds, LGBTQ+ + 3 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: McDonalds, LGBTQ+, parent, gender, Happy Meal
    A parent confronts a McDonalds cashier about the gender appropriateness of a Happy Meal.
  • Father's Day by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy, drama
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    Keyword: LGBTQ+, parents + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: LGBTQ+, parents, pride, grocery store
    A new father surprises a grocery store cashier.
  • Drill by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 9
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    Cast: 
    3–10
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: school shooting, gun control + 1 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: school shooting, gun control, enough
    A one-minute play addressing the sad nonchalance of active shooter drills in schools.
  • Pride by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy, drama
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    Keyword: LGBTQ+, pride + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: LGBTQ+, pride, gay, Lesbian
    Two friends argue about the meaning of Gay Pride.
  • The Choice by Stephen Kaplan
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy, drama
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    Keyword: Transgender, father + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: Transgender, father, LGBTQ+
    (1 minute) A father buys a dress for his son.