Kari Barclay

Kari Barclay is a writer, director, and educator based in Cleveland, OH. They have made work regionally and in New York at venues including Ars Nova, the San Francisco Mime Troupe Studio, Cleveland Public Theater, and MirrorBox Theater. Their original play, CAN I HOLD YOU?, was one of the first full-length pieces about asexuality performed in the U.S. and enjoyed a sold-out run in San Francisco and workshop in Brooklyn. His new play, STONEWALLIN’, won the 2021 So.Queer Playwriting Festival and was produced at Richmond Triangle Players in 2022.

Outside the rehearsal room, Kari is Assistant Professor of Theater at Oberlin College, where they teach playwriting, theater history, and intimacy directing. Their book, "Directing Desire," examines the role of consent in theater in light of the...

Kari Barclay is a writer, director, and educator based in Cleveland, OH. They have made work regionally and in New York at venues including Ars Nova, the San Francisco Mime Troupe Studio, Cleveland Public Theater, and MirrorBox Theater. Their original play, CAN I HOLD YOU?, was one of the first full-length pieces about asexuality performed in the U.S. and enjoyed a sold-out run in San Francisco and workshop in Brooklyn. His new play, STONEWALLIN’, won the 2021 So.Queer Playwriting Festival and was produced at Richmond Triangle Players in 2022.

Outside the rehearsal room, Kari is Assistant Professor of Theater at Oberlin College, where they teach playwriting, theater history, and intimacy directing. Their book, "Directing Desire," examines the role of consent in theater in light of the #MeToo movement and suggests avenues for theaters to advance equity in the rehearsal room, inspired by the emerging field of "intimacy direction." Kari received their PhD in Theater and Performance Studies from Stanford University and BA from Duke University, where they won the Samuel DuBois Cook Award for racial equity and social justice work. kari-barclay.com

Scripts

How to Live in a House on Fire

by Kari Barclay

Synopsis

HOW TO LIVE IN A HOUSE ON FIRE asks how we care for each other in moments of crisis. It builds on a quote from Tennessee Williams: "We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love."

The Chateau Homosexuel is a gay commune on the brink of collapse. It's 1970 in Berkeley, California, and as characters bicker over the future of gay liberation, Benny and Jeremy are...

HOW TO LIVE IN A HOUSE ON FIRE asks how we care for each other in moments of crisis. It builds on a quote from Tennessee Williams: "We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love."

The Chateau Homosexuel is a gay commune on the brink of collapse. It's 1970 in Berkeley, California, and as characters bicker over the future of gay liberation, Benny and Jeremy are falling in love. When they try to decide what to do with an eviction notice, suddenly something starts burning in the oven. Smoke fills the stage, and Benny and Jeremy re-enter in K95 masks. We're transported to 2020 in the same house in the midst of the California wildfires. Benny and Jeremy are married, and they're figuring out what to bring with them in preparation for an evacuation. As they sort their belongings and try to pack fifty years of queer history into a cardboard box, they're confronted with what histories to remember and what to forget.

Stonewallin'

by Kari Barclay

Synopsis

"Stonewall Jackson coughs, and out comes glitter." Stonewallin' is a queer coming-of-age story in the American South full of witchcraft, war re-enactors, and ghosts. The winner of the inaugural So.Queer Playwriting Contest, Stonewallin' explores the gap between symbolic politics and material politics in racial history and offers an account of attraction rarely seen on stage.

The witches are up to something in...

"Stonewall Jackson coughs, and out comes glitter." Stonewallin' is a queer coming-of-age story in the American South full of witchcraft, war re-enactors, and ghosts. The winner of the inaugural So.Queer Playwriting Contest, Stonewallin' explores the gap between symbolic politics and material politics in racial history and offers an account of attraction rarely seen on stage.

The witches are up to something in the small-town South. When Marsha moves from Berkeley to Virginia to reconnect with her family’s roots, she finds a barista with an astrology obsession, a Confederate monument gone missing, and the makings of a bisexual love story — if she wants it. With humanity, humor, and as many layers as a biscuit, this new play explores the families we choose, the families we don’t, and the folks making magic in a changing South.

Can I Hold You?: A New Play on Asexuality

by Kari Barclay

Synopsis

Alma is an asexual woman looking for love (minus the sex) in the hyper-sexual world of online dating. And it's not coming easy. Should she just pour her love into her asexual roommate Sammie, who wants a deep partnership but could care less for romance? Or should she take a chance on Phoebe, the sexual, saxophone-playing woman of her dreams, even though Phoebe wants sex and she doesn't? When Alma introduces...

Alma is an asexual woman looking for love (minus the sex) in the hyper-sexual world of online dating. And it's not coming easy. Should she just pour her love into her asexual roommate Sammie, who wants a deep partnership but could care less for romance? Or should she take a chance on Phoebe, the sexual, saxophone-playing woman of her dreams, even though Phoebe wants sex and she doesn't? When Alma introduces Sammie and Phoebe to each other, all her calculations go haywire in this queer comedy exploring the complexities of intimacy and attraction for folks of all orientations.