Katie Bender

Katie Bender

Katie Bender is a playwright, performer and theater maker. Her plays include Still, Now, The Fault, One Night Only and The Survivors/ Los Sobrevivientes. She is founding member of Underbelly-a theatre collaborative that stages immersive journey plays in forgotten spaces, with whom she created Slip River, Church of the Passionate Cat and an immersive adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, which was commissioned...
Katie Bender is a playwright, performer and theater maker. Her plays include Still, Now, The Fault, One Night Only and The Survivors/ Los Sobrevivientes. She is founding member of Underbelly-a theatre collaborative that stages immersive journey plays in forgotten spaces, with whom she created Slip River, Church of the Passionate Cat and an immersive adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, which was commissioned through ZACH. Her work has been developed or produced with Heart and Dagger Productions, Ensemble Studio Theater, LaunchPad,The New Harmony Project, Kitchen Dog, Orchard Project, The Hangar, Icicle Creek Festival, New Victory LabWorks program and Fusebox Festival. Winner of the 2013 Best New Comedy from Austin Critics Table Awards and on the Kilroys in 2015 she was a finalist for the Shakespeare’s Sister Fellowship. Katie received her M.F.A. from The University of Texas and was a 2016/2017 Jerome Fellow at The Playwrights’ Center and Travel and Study Grant recipient through the Jerome Foundation. She is currently the playwright-in-residence at The Susanna Dickinson Museum in Austin, Texas.

Plays

  • SURVIVORS, AN ALAMO PLAY by Katie Bender
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    7–8
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    Genre: adventure, biography + 4 more
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    Keyword: Mexico, Texas + 6 more
    Genre: adventure, biography, docudrama/historic, drama, period, political
    Keyword: Mexico, Texas, Immigrants, History, pioneers, women, battle, survivor
    The Survivors/Los Sobrevivientes is based on the historically documented group of women, children and enslaved people who survived the battle of the Alamo. It’s an epic historical drama told by a diverse ensemble of people who didn’t make it into the history books. It’s an intimately drawn look at the surprising alliances necessary to survive the shifting and mercurial rule of Mexico’s fledgling democracy.
  • The Fault by Katie Bender
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
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    Keyword: family, Inheritance + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: family, Inheritance, Sisters, drug addiction, california, opioid addiction, poetry
    Star is fourteen, charming, precocious and quickly developing a drug habit she can’t control. Jane, her older sister, just wants to go to UCLA. Angie, the eldest, kicked out months ago is heading home. Three sisters, living on the edge of a small town in Northern California, growing up in an itinerant family, uprooted by natural disasters and poverty, struggle with their obligations to each other and their...
    Star is fourteen, charming, precocious and quickly developing a drug habit she can’t control. Jane, her older sister, just wants to go to UCLA. Angie, the eldest, kicked out months ago is heading home. Three sisters, living on the edge of a small town in Northern California, growing up in an itinerant family, uprooted by natural disasters and poverty, struggle with their obligations to each other and their disparate ambitions to get out.

    The Fault is an unflinching heartfelt look at families living off the edge of the American dream. The cast is small (5) with four of the roles being strong funny women who won’t give up on their dreams, or each other.
  • Still, Now by Katie Bender
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    7–9
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: women, body + 5 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: women, body, cancer, health, dance, Butoh, death
    After witnessing the fall of the twin towers, Annie heads to Japan to study Butoh, looking for a dance form that expresses the destruction she can’t comprehend.  Ten years later, Annie is diagnosed with stage four cancer and returns to Butoh to prepare for her final dance. Still Now confronts us with the accelerated motion of a woman learning and losing her body, accompanied by the doctors, teachers, friends...
    After witnessing the fall of the twin towers, Annie heads to Japan to study Butoh, looking for a dance form that expresses the destruction she can’t comprehend.  Ten years later, Annie is diagnosed with stage four cancer and returns to Butoh to prepare for her final dance. Still Now confronts us with the accelerated motion of a woman learning and losing her body, accompanied by the doctors, teachers, friends and lovers that become her partners in movement, to ask the question: what can our bodies teach us that our minds cannot fathom?
  • One Night Only by Katie Bender
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: biography, docudrama/historic + 2 more
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    Keyword: Houdini, Magician + 6 more
    Genre: biography, docudrama/historic, drama, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: Houdini, Magician, magic, Ambition, family, vaudeville, escape artist, escape
    One Night Only imagines the iconic escape artist, Harry Houdini’s last performance. It is a two-hander magic show about ambition and the shared hunger, between performer and audience, for moments of the impossible.