Erin Malone Turner

in The Comet & UFO Crew group text, a club member claims to have seen a spacecraft pass overhead - for real this time! so begins a week-long stakeout. the rules are as follows: no phones, sleep in shifts, don’t get distracted by stakeout partners, & keep those eyes on the sky—obviously. HELLO, EARTHLINGS! explores whether true belief is possible without proof, running from vs running towards, & what they’ll do if something does or doesn’t come for them.

In a tiny, unnamed town in the American South, things are increasingly bizarre. The townspeople trade for food & supplies. There’s an apothecary instead of a pharmacy. And most of the folks have moved away. Why? Because the sky is falling. Literally. Ceramic cats, tubes of lipstick, golf balls, and more. There’s very little notice for “material rainstorms” & it never rains the same thing twice. Five years in and the news cycles are past it, but the people left in the thick of it never will be. Meet Halo, Callaway, Ivan, & Rhys as they navigate the nearly-impossible while trying not to get crushed, crush someone else, or crush too hard and end up falling in love. this play explores the cost of leaving home & the cost of refusing to, long-simmering love, coming of age on a doomed planet, all the ways we lose each other, & the price we could very well pay for every man-made thing we thought we needed.

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.

in a post-apocalyptic world, two aliens manage to save a couple hundred humans. but when a futuristic genome mapping experiment reveals the horrors of slavery and its ramifications lasting centuries later, they wonder if they made the right choice. commissioned by Bishop Arts Theatre Center as a response to the anthology "The 1619 Project" which was developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, this play illuminates what our bloodlines can never erase and explores whether humanity is composed of more good than bad - are we worth saving in the end?

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.

in a futuristic world post-"second race war", a bill is soon to be signed into law that decrees for all marriages to be interracial in an attempt to combat racism. four participants who signed on to be housed/studied in a facility as well as paired with a future spouse navigate what these new ideas about race and idealism mean for both the past and future. written under a commission from Bishop Arts Theatre Center in response to Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s novel “How to be an Antiracist”, this play wonders if an antiracist American society is truly possible, and whether exaggerated attempts at integration could do more harm than good.

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?

Four 20-somethings cross paths during the off-season at Cloud Nine State Park, where things are getting stranger each day. Wesley and Amos are inextricably connected twins, even after the worst happens. Finn’s contentment that they fought to create is threatened. Lark is conducting research for her thesis when confronted by a part of her past she never expected to see again. And there’s a big storm brewing. A ghost story with lots of Louisiana comfort food, this speculative fiction play explores Black familial ties and the connection between nature and people, and asks questions about faith and the ways we hold ourselves back from what we truly want.

(2nd draft - open to feedback and workshop/reading/production opportunities!)

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.

a close-up on the lives of Faye - an artist - and Nico - an athlete - as they float towards and away from each other over two decades. this linear drama explores the tightrope of chasing dreams, coping with grief, the intimacy of friendship, loneliness, and the idea that home can be a person as well as a place. how do you let go of what you're helplessly tied to?

THIRD DRAFT: open to feedback, workshop opportunities, and production opportunities!

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!

A surrealist, speculative-fiction drama that explores a family in crisis, virtual reality, coping with grief, communication barriers, moving on from the past, and all the ways people attempt to escape from their problems - in Ollie’s case, to an alternate universe of sorts. This offbeat, poignant play is an adventure of movement, technology, and Sign Language - as well as a journey through space and time.

NEW DRAFT - open to feedback, workshop, and 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.

TEN MINUTE: Two roommates—Ahdi and Jay—get into a heated argument, as per usual.

TEN-MINUTE: Free-spirited Isa tries to convince her older homebody sister Mabel to join her for a night on the town. It also happens to be New Year's Eve, 1999. Will Mabel have fun with her sister, who just wants to find someone to kiss when the clock strikes midnight, or will she give into the conspiracy and stay home with her cat and her books?