welcome to The Rain or Shine Bookshop, a Black-owned bookstore/cafe in southern Louisiana run by the no-nonsense Jac since the late 60s. Charm and Ellison are the longtime friends (may as well be siblings) who still work there. Charm is a late-20s undergrad student who loves reading at night & Ellison is a major James Baldwin fan who loves dancing at night. both are looking for love, but one may need to leave home to find it. Peanut is a neighborhood youth and amateur birdwatcher who, like, really loves comics. Ivy is the new goth girl from the Midwest who always says exactly what she means. oh, and the bookstore only has a couple of months to find a new location or close its doors forever. this play is about that first real queer relationship, how the past can shape the present, knowing when to fight & when to fold, and the 90s era death of indie bookstores. this play is absolutely about Change but it’s also about Existence. this play could be about you and me.

This play was developed under commission by Soul Repertory Theatre Company through a 2022 TACA (The Arts Community Alliance) New Works grant.

trudging through life at The Right Path Academy is a group of silly, intense, thoughtful, difficult high school seniors. they gather every day - bonding over their senior projects, a game called Most Fucked Up, homemade zines, & junk food galore. during their last semester at the run-down boarding school, things get stranger than ever. nightmares plague the unspoken leader of the group, shadowy figures come and go, skeletons tumble out of their closets, and one of the teens goes missing. will they graduate with more troubles than they started with? are two of them falling in love over shared cigarettes & literature? what’s with the mold? this Southern gothic / coming-of-age play explores how we are responsible for each other, the messiness of growing up, & learning how to accept what we’ve never truly had.

This play was developed under commission from Bishop Arts Theatre Company as part of their inaugural First Move Playwrights Lab - an eight-month-long playwriting incubation & development program for DFW-based playwrights.

It’s summertime in 1980s southern Louisiana when a group of ardent camp counselors discover alternate dimensions within the campground’s forest. Campers start disappearing, strange sounds hold sleep at bay, and there is a creature in the woods waiting for its next victim. What happens when problems arise that even the best head counselor can’t solve? This play uses science fiction and New Orleans-based Black history to explore emerging into adulthood, enjoying romance amidst a crushing loss, and how sorrow can take root into terrains as well as hearts. How can we keep sight of what we owe each other?

Meet Thaddeus and Malik — Black boys. Best friends. From different backgrounds. Right before graduating high school, they are separated by a single bullet, and they both find themselves hopelessly lost. This non-linear drama explores Blackness tied to success, loss, the intimacy of friendship, and considers an afterlife for Black people - specifically those whose lives are cut short. When Thaddeus finds himself “on this bridge between starshine and clay” how will he find the will to go beyond and leave behind everything he thought mattered? And when Malik feels that he has nothing left to lose, how will he find the strength to hold tight to his own life?

Juniper & Maxine - total opposites, minus their outer space obsession, yet they’re two peas in a pod. This coming-of-age play showcases nearly two decades in their lives as the two navigate girlhood, expectations, academia vs art, anxiety about the future, belonging, and the messiness of adolescence.

SECOND DRAFT: open to feedback, workshop and/or production opportunities!

An engaged couple, Ava and Rhett, get into an argument about pizza toppings that dissolves into a huge problem that will change their relationship as they know it.