J.C. Pankratz

Lucia, Jelly, Ginger, and Quinn are four mismatched teens enrolled together in a new-age
wilderness therapy program. Living in the wild proves to be tough, but their ridiculous,
out-of-touch counselors are tougher, and the ground beneath their feet won’t stop
cracking open. As supernatural forces make a devastating appearance, the quartet must
band together and reckon with monsters—manmade and otherwise. This deeply chaotic,
funny, evocative play explores truth, trans identity, and the defiant power of imagination.

It’s the last show of the year, and seniors Angel and Francesca find themselves doublecast as Eddie Polish in the emotionally-charged 1940’s American classic The Trolley Problem at their historically all-women’s college. In three rehearsal sessions, Angel and Francesca scuffle and collaborate in equal measure to emulate their hero, a golden age era actor known as Il Montalbano. What begins as toying with the trappings of masculinity turns into swagger competitions and debates on the very nature of acting in this physically charged romp.

After a perilous production of The Nutcracker, Julee stops dancing, stops eating—and lays an egg. Life barges into her studio apartment nest in the form of her worried best friend and her obsessive memories of rehearsal, both of which refuse to leave her in peace. Julee keeps building her nest, hatching day inches closer and closer, and everyone must reckon with what it means to break through into a new life.

Reuben is a trans man continuing his attempts to conceive a child after the death of his husband. In processing his grief and hope, Reuben turns his insemination endeavors into moments of self-recognition by donning different costumes and persona for each try. (Juliet, Zeus, and St. Francis all make appearances.) Instead of a funerary parade, this one-person play seeks the purpose of life for the living, for the dead, and for the not-yet-arrived.

Gloria returns home after her sister is caught cremating their mother, the prophet of the local small-town doomsday cult, in the backyard of their Wyoming farmhouse. Gloria must sift through the mess, reconnect with her sister, and figure out just where the rest of the family went. 2015 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference Finalist.

God demands a portrait. God wants something nice. Jamie wants something real.

An unmotivated intern and a silk moth figure out the finer points of life and death while on a lunch break.

A mother meets with her son to discuss end-of-life arrangements, and reveals her plans have much to do with her pet turkey vulture.

Nina returns to her old town of Altoona, Iowa after her mother dies and leaves Nina her childhood home. One night, she wakes to a fire in the backyard that won’t go out: a burning bush of biblical proportions. As Altoona slowly learns of this phenomenon, townspeople shack up on Nina’s property, waiting for the next sign from God. Nina, growing more and more claustrophobic, must face her own issues left long dormant in this little town.

Set in an alternate history where the ’69 lunar landing fails, “Joyless Eye” follows ex-VA nurse Myra Ann Combs as she tends a lingering obsession with the moon and struggles with homelessness, unemployment, PTSD, and a girlfriend who is quickly losing her patience. Help comes in the form of the spirit of comet astronomer Caroline Herschel, who appears in Myra Ann’s motel room with simple, inspired purpose: to build a telescope. But the more time and energy Myra Ann spends pursuing the moon, the harder her memories pull her back into the past, loosening her grip on reality and causing her to confront, at the end of all things, why she must continue to build.