Mike Bencivenga

Mike Bencivenga

Mike Bencivenga has written, directed, produced and acted in one acts and full length plays as well as improv comedy and sketch comedy in New York, Chicago, Boston and LA. His full-length plays include SINGLE BULLET THEORY, COUPLETS, BILLY & RAY, SUMMER ON FIRE, BAD HEARTS, MINUET ON THIRD, WASTED DAYS, COMPROMISED and TALK OF THE TOWN. In 2013 BILLY & RAY won the prestigious W. Keith Hedrick Award. It...
Mike Bencivenga has written, directed, produced and acted in one acts and full length plays as well as improv comedy and sketch comedy in New York, Chicago, Boston and LA. His full-length plays include SINGLE BULLET THEORY, COUPLETS, BILLY & RAY, SUMMER ON FIRE, BAD HEARTS, MINUET ON THIRD, WASTED DAYS, COMPROMISED and TALK OF THE TOWN. In 2013 BILLY & RAY won the prestigious W. Keith Hedrick Award. It was produced that year at The Falcon Theater under the direction of the legendary Garry Marshall. The show moved to The Vineyard Theater in 2014, also directed by Garry Marshall, where it enjoyed an extended sold-out run. In 2014 Mike's political comedy, SUMMER ON FIRE, won the Christopher Wolk prize for excellence in playwriting and was produced at the Scorpion Theater that same year. His drama, COMPROMISED, was a runner-up for the O'Neill prize and won the top prize from Playwrights-First in 2020. Most recently Mike's comedy, TALK OF THE TOWN (based on James Thurber's hilarious memoir 'The Years with Ross') was named best play at both the 2022 Austin Film Festival and the 2023 ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition. Mike has also written and directed two feature films, LOSERS IN LOVE and HAPPY HOUR, both of which won festival honors and had theatrical releases. For his work as an editor/producer at WABC-TV in New York, Mike has won three Emmy Awards and the Edward R. Murrow Prize for excellence.

Plays

  • TALK OF THE TOWN by Mike Bencivenga
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    6–12
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    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 4 more
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    Keyword: comedy, literary + 5 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, docudrama/historic, farce, period, romantic comedy
    Keyword: comedy, literary, period, historical, biographical, James Thurber, The New Yorker
    TALK OF THE TOWN is a comedy adapted from James Thurber's classic memoir 'The Years With Ross.' It tells the story of the birth of The New Yorker magazine in the 1920's and paints a portrait of its eccentric creator and editor, Harold Ross. It also chronicles the rise of James Thurber from the small time Ohio newspaperman he was, to the world famous humorist and cartoonist he became. Most of...
    TALK OF THE TOWN is a comedy adapted from James Thurber's classic memoir 'The Years With Ross.' It tells the story of the birth of The New Yorker magazine in the 1920's and paints a portrait of its eccentric creator and editor, Harold Ross. It also chronicles the rise of James Thurber from the small time Ohio newspaperman he was, to the world famous humorist and cartoonist he became. Most of all 'TALK' is a loving tribute to the importance of laughter, especially during dark and troubling times.

    I have the permission and blessing off the Thurber estate to do this adaptation.
  • COMPROMISED by Mike Bencivenga
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: Post-911, Living Newspaper + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, tragedy
    Keyword: Post-911, Living Newspaper, playwright
    In COMPROMISED a celebrated journalist and his wife invite a young couple to their home to help them recover their missing car. The encounter reveals unpleasant, hidden truths that threaten to destroy both relationships. While covering the 911 attack, New York Times reporter Brian Mulcahy was exposed to the toxic smoke that has caused his breathing, 16 years later, to become compromised. The young playwright,...
    In COMPROMISED a celebrated journalist and his wife invite a young couple to their home to help them recover their missing car. The encounter reveals unpleasant, hidden truths that threaten to destroy both relationships. While covering the 911 attack, New York Times reporter Brian Mulcahy was exposed to the toxic smoke that has caused his breathing, 16 years later, to become compromised. The young playwright, Alan Clay Parker, is fascinated by Brian's life and situation and learns something tragic that Brian's wife has kept from him. Alan puts both of their stories into a play, which turns into a big success bound for Broadway. The problem is he never got either of their permissions. When Mulcahy hears about it he demands that the play be stopped or his wife's dark past will be revealed. The play deals with the ongoing health struggles of the first responders and journalists after 911. And how we can be crippled by the bad choices we make and the secrets we're forced to keep.
  • BAD HEARTS by Mike Bencivenga
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama
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    Keyword: family, family tragedy + 1 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: family, family tragedy, inspirational
    On a fall day in 1975, Margaret ‘Mags’ Esposito unexpectedly comes home from college to her suburban Long Island home. She returns hoping to find love and acceptance in the war zone of a family she was raised in. Her younger brother, Eddie, who appears to be winning his life long battle with stuttering, joyfully greets her. But Mags’ return and her new found confidence rubs her mother, Joyce, the wrong way....
    On a fall day in 1975, Margaret ‘Mags’ Esposito unexpectedly comes home from college to her suburban Long Island home. She returns hoping to find love and acceptance in the war zone of a family she was raised in. Her younger brother, Eddie, who appears to be winning his life long battle with stuttering, joyfully greets her. But Mags’ return and her new found confidence rubs her mother, Joyce, the wrong way. Joyce sees is in Mags all that she wants and will never become. The weight of being married to a man she no longer loves and a life spent raising children she was never sure she wanted has made her bitter, hard and hateful. Mags’ father, Tony, is equally depressed having grown up convinced he’ll die, as all the men in his family have, of a heart attack at age 50. Mags tries to shake them out of it but learns that bringing hope to a broken soul is like bringing a match to a gas pump. Something is bound to explode. ‘Bad Hearts’ is about the fragility of dreams and the toxicity of despair. And about the treacherous and tragic place some of us call home.
  • WASTED DAYS by Mike Bencivenga
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic + 5 more
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    Keyword: Race, American politics + 2 more
    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, melodrama, political, tragedy, young audiences
    Keyword: Race, American politics, Drugs, the 1980s
    WASTED DAYS tells the story of four post-college friends as they make difficult life choices during three consecutive years during the early 1980’s. We meet Joe, Branden, Areum and Darryl on the December night John Lennon was shot. We next see the four a few months later on the day Ronald Reagan was shot. We last see them a full year later, the day John Belushi died of a drug overdose. WASTED DAYS shows how the...
    WASTED DAYS tells the story of four post-college friends as they make difficult life choices during three consecutive years during the early 1980’s. We meet Joe, Branden, Areum and Darryl on the December night John Lennon was shot. We next see the four a few months later on the day Ronald Reagan was shot. We last see them a full year later, the day John Belushi died of a drug overdose. WASTED DAYS shows how the events happening around us can color the character of who we are and what we do. How the catastrophic events of the eighties all but killed off the idealistic beliefs of equality and tolerance we saw growing in the seventies.
  • MINUET ON THIRD by Mike Bencivenga
    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: comedy, fable/folktale + 2 more
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    Keyword: Fantasy, multi-generational + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, fable/folktale, romantic comedy, satire
    Keyword: Fantasy, multi-generational, Capra-esque
    For over 50 years Abigail Peechly has lived in her colonial home from the 1700s located in the midst of modern day, midtown Manhattan. She shares the house with her great-great granddaughter, Toni, as they fight off attempts to be driven out by a greedy real estate tycoon, Morris Schotz. To pay her taxes and legal fees she rents out a room to a young lawyer from Alabama, Charlie Babcock, who is so charmed by...
    For over 50 years Abigail Peechly has lived in her colonial home from the 1700s located in the midst of modern day, midtown Manhattan. She shares the house with her great-great granddaughter, Toni, as they fight off attempts to be driven out by a greedy real estate tycoon, Morris Schotz. To pay her taxes and legal fees she rents out a room to a young lawyer from Alabama, Charlie Babcock, who is so charmed by Abigail and Toni that he joins the struggle to help save their home. In doing so he stumbles onto the fact that Abigail is the sole living relative to Peter Minuit and is, therefore, the legal owner of the entire island of Manhattan. What Abby does with her new found power is something straight out of a Frank Capra movie. She creates new rules of conduct for the citizenry in the hope of restoring manners to Manhattan. This enforced behavior transforms some, like Toni, and infuriates others, like her hip-hop boyfriend A.R. In the end MINUET ON THIRD is about the loss of civility in the modern world and how there is nothing 'old fashioned' about respect and kindness toward each other.
  • SUMMER ON FIRE by Mike Bencivenga
    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: comedy, farce + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, farce, political, satire
    Due to a scheduling snafu an ultra-right wing commentator for FOX News must
    share his Fire Island rental home with a decidedly left wing young singer and her
    lesbian girlfriend. The clash of politics and personalities make for a lively Labor
    Day weekend in the summer of 2008. SUMMER ON FIRE is a comedy about
    sexual misconduct, political turmoil, burgeoning fame, elusive justice and...
    Due to a scheduling snafu an ultra-right wing commentator for FOX News must
    share his Fire Island rental home with a decidedly left wing young singer and her
    lesbian girlfriend. The clash of politics and personalities make for a lively Labor
    Day weekend in the summer of 2008. SUMMER ON FIRE is a comedy about
    sexual misconduct, political turmoil, burgeoning fame, elusive justice and long
    lasting love. In these turbulent, politically polarizing times I wrote the play as a
    nod to Norman Lear and George Bernard Shaw both of who believed that the
    best way to get people to accept and consider differing points of view was by
    making people laugh at them.