Abraham Johnson

Abraham Johnson

Abraham Johnson writes Big Messy Queer Plays that center gray areas and strange transformations. Abe is a two-time Lambda Literary Playwriting Fellow, a Resident Playwright with El Centro Productions, and has produced/developed work with the Workshop Theater, Horizon Theater, Synchronicity Theater, Essential Theater, and OutFront Theater, among others. Finalist credits include SPACE on Ryder Farms and the...
Abraham Johnson writes Big Messy Queer Plays that center gray areas and strange transformations. Abe is a two-time Lambda Literary Playwriting Fellow, a Resident Playwright with El Centro Productions, and has produced/developed work with the Workshop Theater, Horizon Theater, Synchronicity Theater, Essential Theater, and OutFront Theater, among others. Finalist credits include SPACE on Ryder Farms and the National Young Playwrights Residency.

Abe serves on the Artistic Council for the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference (reader: 2019-current), also reading for Playwrights Realm (2021, 2022, 2023), the O'Neill Young Playwrights Festival, the Campfire Theater Festival, the Essential Theater, Georgia Theater Conference, the AMPLIFY: Black Playwrights Festival, and the EXPLODE Theater Group.

A graduate of the University of Georgia, Abe founded 6 new play festivals at the University dedicated to uplifting over 30 first-time playwrights. Abe also created the senior thesis/organization EXPLODE (inspired by the "implosion" of 13P) dedicated to producing "new plays, new ways, in 365 Days."

When not playwriting or yelling about how awful the industry can be, Abe uses all pronouns, feels most powerful in overalls, and is a beginner bird-watcher.

Plays

  • the pits by Abraham Johnson
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: education, male intimacy + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: education, male intimacy, puberty, porn, school, teaching
    the pits follows the trio of Ben and Lucas (middle schoolers) and Mr. X (a first-year-teacher) as the three of them explore the internet, their bodies, and the new SEL class at school: Educating the Heart. Ben and Lucas’ friendship twists and turns throughout 8th grade and Mr. X confronts the anxiety of public education, until all three are forced to reveal the darkness that lurks in their internet history....
    the pits follows the trio of Ben and Lucas (middle schoolers) and Mr. X (a first-year-teacher) as the three of them explore the internet, their bodies, and the new SEL class at school: Educating the Heart. Ben and Lucas’ friendship twists and turns throughout 8th grade and Mr. X confronts the anxiety of public education, until all three are forced to reveal the darkness that lurks in their internet history. Foul-mouthed, darkly intimate, and bittersweet, this is a play about existing in the modern classroom from both sides of the desk.
  • DEAD GAY BODY by Abraham Johnson
    Recommendations: 4
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 6 more
    ·
    Keyword: queer, Hate Crimes + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, farce, melodrama, parody/spoof, political, satire
    Keyword: queer, Hate Crimes, body horror, Mental Health, It Gets Better
    Everything is perfectly fine at Ronald Reagan High School! Cheerleaders and football players hold hands in hallways. Teachers smile really, really, *really* big. And sure, there's a string of mysterious gay deaths, but let's focus on the positive right now!... No? Fine.

    After a particularly public death of a particularly gay student ("Twinkie McBottoms") with a particularly...
    Everything is perfectly fine at Ronald Reagan High School! Cheerleaders and football players hold hands in hallways. Teachers smile really, really, *really* big. And sure, there's a string of mysterious gay deaths, but let's focus on the positive right now!... No? Fine.

    After a particularly public death of a particularly gay student ("Twinkie McBottoms") with a particularly public last statement ("I Hate Straight People"), Ronald Reagan High's Counselor is thrust into action, determined to create a safe space... for straight students to feel safe again. She will team up with the first gay student body president, a fragile football player, a garden-loving Principal, and even the audience to organize a "Diversity Day" that these heterosexuals will never forget. But first, we have to figure out: why are there dead gay bodies popping up all over school? And who the heck has even heard of Laramie, Wyoming?
  • WOOLF etc. by Abraham Johnson
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 3 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, experimental, parody/spoof, satire
    An old play within a new play about new plays and old plays, "WOOLF etc." follows four #multihyphenate #newplay #dedicated theater artists on their path towards trying to create something meaningful. This script dissects the threshold between the personal and performative, how to be as #marketable as Lucas Hnath, and questions how much of the canon we're willing to shred for a chance to stand on the periphary.

Recommended by Abraham Johnson

  • Everything In Between by John Mabey
    28 Apr. 2024
    “ Tender and funny and wholly captivating, I adore this masterful 10-minute script. Mabey captures the rough edges of loss with wit and charm, not to mention the sniper-to-the-heart cicada ending? Oof! Electric and brilliant and expansive. I’ll be thinking about that 5th grade science report for a while. A gorgeous two-hander certain to steal the spotlight in any 10-minute play festival. ”
  • rachel, nv by jose sebastian alberdi
    25 Apr. 2024
    “ Surgically precise in its craft, decadent in its sensuality, and fascinating in how expansive alberdi can craft a world in just four characters, this is a powerhouse of a play that captures loneliness and connection and sky-watching with truly flooring attention. Oofta. So smart and hot and wounded all at once, I'm obsessed with how theatrically inventive this play is, blending form and poetry and novelty with an expert's eye. I couldn't stop reading from the first page to the last. A twisted, lonely joy of a read that I would kill to see onstage. ”
  • Prisontown by LEE OSORIO
    22 Apr. 2024
    “ A gorgeous howl of a play-- not to mention the craft it takes to sustain the journey of this one-person show?? This script is so rich and imaginative, with dramaturgy expertly balanced between its protagonist and the immediate history that haunts them. I'm blown away at the razor-sharp process of unpeeling Georgia's history of slavery and hotspot ICE detention centers-- never didactic, deeply rooted in the humanity of The Writer and his wry, refreshing, clear-eyed experience chasing this thread across the Georgia landscape. And funny? And wrenching? Gorgeous script! ”
  • Spicy White by Quinn Xavier Hernandez
    22 Apr. 2024
    “ This play is so haunting in the loss that hums underneath the central friendship of Gabriel and Ana Teresa-- even in its lighter moments, the hunger for community and language, and the "should I root for this friendship?" tension hangs over everything. And what a meal for these actors! Gabriel and Ana Teresa are tense and open-hearted and growing up all at once, and it would be a joy to see the transformations onstage as they portray these different ages. Quinn's attention to these characters' interior worlds is flooring and nuanced-- and that last scene!!! Oof. Masterful. Produce it! ”
  • The Second Body by Lyndsey Bourne
    14 Jul. 2023
    “ This play is a singular, visceral, tense, miraculous, wonderfully strange ode to art-making and human touch in deteriorating times. The hair-pin tension of Pearl and Alice’s cast scenes are wonderfully broken up by the fascinating, ritualistic chorus of taxidermied animals. A brilliant play. A strange play. Thrilling and disconcerting in the best possible way. Love!!! ”
View all 27 recommendations