Daria Miyeko Marinelli

Daria Miyeko Marinelli (they/she) is a playwright, screenwriter, and climate activist who tells stories about renegades, belonging, and new frontiers. Their plays include Beautiful Blessed Child, Ravenous, We are Samurai, cropt, this is what i chose no i’m not sorry and yes if you’d ask i’d do it again…, and Untameable.

Daria's original pilot is about eco-defenders who take down oil pumpjacks in the California West to get a more progressive candidate elected (The Black List’s NRDC Climate Storytelling Fellowship Finalist & The Sloan x Sundance Episodic Lab Finalist) and has developed an Ivy League x CIA TV Series with Hill District Media.

Daria’s theatrical work has been performed at La Jolla Playhouse’s WOW Festival, Atlantic Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, HERE Arts Center...

Daria Miyeko Marinelli (they/she) is a playwright, screenwriter, and climate activist who tells stories about renegades, belonging, and new frontiers. Their plays include Beautiful Blessed Child, Ravenous, We are Samurai, cropt, this is what i chose no i’m not sorry and yes if you’d ask i’d do it again…, and Untameable.

Daria's original pilot is about eco-defenders who take down oil pumpjacks in the California West to get a more progressive candidate elected (The Black List’s NRDC Climate Storytelling Fellowship Finalist & The Sloan x Sundance Episodic Lab Finalist) and has developed an Ivy League x CIA TV Series with Hill District Media.

Daria’s theatrical work has been performed at La Jolla Playhouse’s WOW Festival, Atlantic Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, HERE Arts Center, Rites and Reasons Theatre, The VORTEX, and EST-LA, among others. Mx. Marinelli has developed work with Cirque du Soleil, Roundabout Theatre Company, The Playwright’s Realm, Fault Line Theatre, The New Group, Seven Devils Playwriting Conference, IAMA, and The Kennedy Center (MFA Playwrights Workshop and TYA/USA’s New Visions New Voices). They have been an artist-in-residence at SPACE on Ryder Farm, twice at The New Harmony Project, Barn Arts Collective, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Stillwright.

Playwriting accolades include being a winner of The Ollie Award from The Bret Adams & Paul Reisch Foundation, a Kilroy’s List writer, and a showcased writer at the Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists. They have been a three-time Finalist and a three-time Semi-Finalist for The O’Neill National Playwrights Conference; a Bay Area Playwrights Festival Finalist and two-time Semi-Finalist; a Finalist for the Playwrights’ Center Core Writer, the Leah Ryan Award, the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, and Theater Mu’s New Eyes Festival, a Semi-Finalist for the Princess Grace Award, and a New York Innovative Theatre Award Nominee. Daria also serves on the Board of Directors for The New Harmony Project and Fault Line Theatre.

Mx. Marinelli holds a BA with Honors from Brown University and an MFA in Playwriting from University of Texas at Austin. While based in LA, Daria is forever a New Yorker at heart.

Scripts

cropt

by Daria Miyeko Marinelli

Synopsis

Moving from the fig orchards of United Farm Workers to the brunch tables of Instagram It Girls to the data server farms of Instagram itself, CROPT is a connective triptych that investigates the systematic violence inherent in the millennial bourgeois life that some of us have grown into/aspire towards to ask what is the price of that perfect brunch photo.

Moving from the fig orchards of United Farm Workers to the brunch tables of Instagram It Girls to the data server farms of Instagram itself, CROPT is a connective triptych that investigates the systematic violence inherent in the millennial bourgeois life that some of us have grown into/aspire towards to ask what is the price of that perfect brunch photo.

Beautiful Blessed Child

by Daria Miyeko Marinelli

Synopsis

I thought you checked your car-fluids / I did ?
Professionally ? / No.
Mm.

Aimiko has never taken a road trip with t/her Mom. Sharon has never seen nor heard of any sort of mother-daughterchild road trip. And so, our brave pioneers take to the road, driving West, 10 miles per hour above the speed limit, with tales of cannibals (The Donner Party), crane wives (The Decemberists), and samurai children (the...

I thought you checked your car-fluids / I did ?
Professionally ? / No.
Mm.

Aimiko has never taken a road trip with t/her Mom. Sharon has never seen nor heard of any sort of mother-daughterchild road trip. And so, our brave pioneers take to the road, driving West, 10 miles per hour above the speed limit, with tales of cannibals (The Donner Party), crane wives (The Decemberists), and samurai children (the mythic family lore) buzzing over the airwaves, offering avenues of survival, all of which are only moderately helpful when Aimiko’s car radiator suddenly goes dead.

This is their story.

This is Not What I Expected When I Imagined a Republic

by Daria Miyeko Marinelli

Synopsis

This is Not What I Expected When I Imagined a Republic is a historical triptych following the development of our nation from courageous nomads to cash-strapped IKEA millennials.

Part dance-theatre, part card game, and part good old kitchen drama, This is Not What I Expected When I Imagined a Republic challenges the Usonian* mythologies of what it means to be a republic(an), how that's changed over time, and...

This is Not What I Expected When I Imagined a Republic is a historical triptych following the development of our nation from courageous nomads to cash-strapped IKEA millennials.

Part dance-theatre, part card game, and part good old kitchen drama, This is Not What I Expected When I Imagined a Republic challenges the Usonian* mythologies of what it means to be a republic(an), how that's changed over time, and what to do when you discover your supposedly future life partner has just voted Republican. And you are not “a Republican.”

*Usonian: Of, and or related to The United States. Because American refers to the whole continent, like, literally.

Ravenous

by Daria Miyeko Marinelli

Synopsis

You don't understand how hungry I am / Trust me I do

Adri’s come home for her gun and Cian just wants to be left alone. And both of them know that without a gun they surely will die. Set in Post-World War II Italy, Ravenous examines what it means to be hungry and what we will do to become satisfied.

You don't understand how hungry I am / Trust me I do

Adri’s come home for her gun and Cian just wants to be left alone. And both of them know that without a gun they surely will die. Set in Post-World War II Italy, Ravenous examines what it means to be hungry and what we will do to become satisfied.

A Departure

by Daria Miyeko Marinelli

Synopsis

They say you are leaving / Yes

Do you even know what love is? / No but I know what it is not

Ume has fallen in love, again. This time, with a woman. In Japan. And what about her family in The States? Who is the woman she has become and who is the woman she thought she would be? Taking place on the eve of World War Two in both The United States and Japan, A Departure follows Ume as she negotiates her duties as...

They say you are leaving / Yes

Do you even know what love is? / No but I know what it is not

Ume has fallen in love, again. This time, with a woman. In Japan. And what about her family in The States? Who is the woman she has become and who is the woman she thought she would be? Taking place on the eve of World War Two in both The United States and Japan, A Departure follows Ume as she negotiates her duties as daughter, mother, and lover as she decides between loyalty or love in the great war of her heart.

this is what i chose and no i'm not sorry and yes if you'd ask i'd do it again

by Daria Miyeko Marinelli

Synopsis

Even after William’s death, high school life has trudged on. But when Sara & Aimée start planning “Alive Together” to honor William, his sibling Vivian finally takes a stand and ask-demands Sara to cancel the event.

But should Vivian get to decide, given that William and Sara were “a thing, like romantically” and The Band has been planning their debut for the event? And did anyone think to ask Brett and Aüge...

Even after William’s death, high school life has trudged on. But when Sara & Aimée start planning “Alive Together” to honor William, his sibling Vivian finally takes a stand and ask-demands Sara to cancel the event.

But should Vivian get to decide, given that William and Sara were “a thing, like romantically” and The Band has been planning their debut for the event? And did anyone think to ask Brett and Aüge who really knew Will, but have been cutting class all year? And what’s going on between Brett and Aüge anyway?

With three moments of decision and eight play tracks, this is what i chose and no i'm not sorry and yes if you'd ask i'd do it again is a birufcating modular play that explores who has ownership over a tragedy, when to stand by your friends, and what it is to try and make sense of a loss when you still have to show up and survive school every single day.

We Are Samurai

by Daria Miyeko Marinelli

Synopsis

After Josephine returns home to find her cats brutally murdered for a crime she committed in a past life, she enlists her boyfriend to help her avenge her cats’ deaths. What follows is a series of small, violent acts that are mundane and yet deeply tragic in their cyclical nature. Rooted in both contemporary suburbia and the historical traditions of Japanese Theatre, We Are Samurai uses cats, iPhones, and...

After Josephine returns home to find her cats brutally murdered for a crime she committed in a past life, she enlists her boyfriend to help her avenge her cats’ deaths. What follows is a series of small, violent acts that are mundane and yet deeply tragic in their cyclical nature. Rooted in both contemporary suburbia and the historical traditions of Japanese Theatre, We Are Samurai uses cats, iPhones, and simultaneous action to explore age-old questions of agency and entitlement.

We Are Samurai is an immersive suburban revenge tragedy about four twenty-somethings engaging in petty acts of violence in an effort to absolve a millennia-old offense. As the piece unfolds simultaneously across four different playing spaces, it is up to the audience to choose what to witness.

893 | Ya-ku-za

by Daria Miyeko Marinelli

Synopsis

The way to make a person make a decision is to convince everyone around them / Maybe that's what I'm doing / I said win, Aya, not kill

Set over the course of a business lunch in a unknown Japanese restaurant somewhere in the United States, 893 | Ya-ku-za follows Aya's bid to become the first female member of the infamous Japanese crime syndicate. Exploring themes of ambition, power, and loyalty, 893 | Ya-ku-za...

The way to make a person make a decision is to convince everyone around them / Maybe that's what I'm doing / I said win, Aya, not kill

Set over the course of a business lunch in a unknown Japanese restaurant somewhere in the United States, 893 | Ya-ku-za follows Aya's bid to become the first female member of the infamous Japanese crime syndicate. Exploring themes of ambition, power, and loyalty, 893 | Ya-ku-za asks what it means to be first and what we're willing to do to get there.

Untameable

by Daria Miyeko Marinelli

Synopsis

There are things more important than love / Name them / Diamonds

Pitting diamond heist against museum intrigue, Untameable follows the story of two young women, one trying to steal a jewel and the other trying to keep it safe. The work is an immersive romp between a criminal den and a modern museum; the audience navigates their own experience and much like the characters themselves, must decide between love and...

There are things more important than love / Name them / Diamonds

Pitting diamond heist against museum intrigue, Untameable follows the story of two young women, one trying to steal a jewel and the other trying to keep it safe. The work is an immersive romp between a criminal den and a modern museum; the audience navigates their own experience and much like the characters themselves, must decide between love and diamonds, honesty or victory. Untameable is an investigation into what we will do to achieve our magnum opus and what gets lost in the winning.