Trish Cole

Trish Cole

Trish Cole is a playwright whose work explores the intersect of social construct, gender, identity, resistance, and resiliency. Her stage plays have been produced in New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Asheville, and regionally in Maryland. Trish is a Samuel French finalist, a Bakeless Literary Prize finalist, and is the recipient of numerous script awards, including two MCTF Excellence in Original...
Trish Cole is a playwright whose work explores the intersect of social construct, gender, identity, resistance, and resiliency. Her stage plays have been produced in New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Asheville, and regionally in Maryland. Trish is a Samuel French finalist, a Bakeless Literary Prize finalist, and is the recipient of numerous script awards, including two MCTF Excellence in Original Script awards. Trish earned her M.A. in Sociocultural Feminist Criticism from the University of Northern Colorado and lives in Southern Maryland where she works as a public high-school librarian.

Plays

  • American Dream
    Five high school cheerleaders attempt to navigate purity and hyper-sexualization as Adam and Eve revisit the Origin Story and Joan of Arc battles not only the English, but gender roles and rape culture as well. Just when the intersect of these stories become nearly unbearable, Bubbe, an intergalactic prophet and, of course, grandma, traverses time and space to weave the stories together, revealing the...
    Five high school cheerleaders attempt to navigate purity and hyper-sexualization as Adam and Eve revisit the Origin Story and Joan of Arc battles not only the English, but gender roles and rape culture as well. Just when the intersect of these stories become nearly unbearable, Bubbe, an intergalactic prophet and, of course, grandma, traverses time and space to weave the stories together, revealing the connections among generations and generations of women, including the women in her own family who left Odessa to come to America in hopes of finding their own Garden of Paradise.
  • Paradise
    One-act (from scenes from "American Dream"). A mother and daughter have "the talk;" an assimilated American Jew recalls the event that started her family's generational trauma; and Adam and Eve go on a first date. Somehow, they are all connected.
  • Field Guide to the North American Osprey
    On a March morning, while haunted by their own catastrophic nest failure, Kari and Mark wait for the migratory return of the osprey to Horseshoe Bend on the St. Mary's River for the nesting season.

    A bed on casters allows for stage migration to mirror tonal chapters and field guide chapters, informed by the environmental crisis in the 1960s when the North American osprey nearly went extinct...
    On a March morning, while haunted by their own catastrophic nest failure, Kari and Mark wait for the migratory return of the osprey to Horseshoe Bend on the St. Mary's River for the nesting season.

    A bed on casters allows for stage migration to mirror tonal chapters and field guide chapters, informed by the environmental crisis in the 1960s when the North American osprey nearly went extinct.

    MCTF Outstanding Original Script. Sam French Off Off Broadway Festival participant.

    If looking to explore this work with lesbian couple characters, please inquire about my work "Migration Route."
  • woman: revised
    Four dictionary definitions attempt to literally find their meaning and their place in the dictionary, as Woman herself struggles to hold onto her identity in a changing world filled with revision. In examining their relationships to the word "woman," the definitions demonstrate that gender definition and self-definition are a living and fluid process.
  • Life on Mars
    A lesbian fugitive spends her final ten minutes on Earth waiting in shackles to board the last penal transport to Mars.
  • Who's Afraid of a Hot Tin Roof
    Four actors playing Martha, George, Brick, and Maggie take the stage simultaneously at the start of two different plays. As the actors vie for control of the stage and the limelight, they each begin to reveal themselves--not as their characters, but as vulnerable human beings.

    Original material is re-purposed from Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and Edward Albee's...
    Four actors playing Martha, George, Brick, and Maggie take the stage simultaneously at the start of two different plays. As the actors vie for control of the stage and the limelight, they each begin to reveal themselves--not as their characters, but as vulnerable human beings.

    Original material is re-purposed from Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?."
  • Butterfly
    Lyrical one-act. A mother in prison seeks refuge in an imaginary wildflower field filled with self-defined beauty when pushed to confront the chilling memories of her relationship with her transgender child.