Ryan Stevens

A queer, body-horror soaked spin on the Frankenstein formula.

The Doctor has created their ideal body. The Creature has been thrust into life. They hear the voices of the lives they've lived, the bodies that make their shape. Doctor and Creature, creator and creation, are horrified and fascinated by each other. Their experiments must continue.

CW: Gender dysphoria, violence, blood, drug use, self-harm, on-stage surgery.

In the far future, guns (and all metal) are a thing of the past...mostly. A courier rides across the country to hunt a rumor of the last gun in the world, and finds worlds of chaos, memory, and history along the way. A Wild Western/vaudeville/post-post-apocalypse about trauma, survival, storytelling, and the pain of change.

When Kitt, whose job is to dig up corpses, finds Audrey’s corpse and Audrey sits up and starts talking, the two form a strange connection. Audrey wants to embrace life now that she has been given a second chance, even as her body continues to decay. Kitt, her whole worldview shaken by this new presence, finds herself drawn to her undead new friend and the promise of new understanding. At the same time, Audrey’s mother Avery works to cope with the loss of her daughter, and the nagging suspicion that she might not actually be gone. A play about love, identity, the soul beyond the body, and how we live when our selves are decaying.

14th Century Ireland. Durrow Abbey. Amid rehearsal for the annual Passion Play, Father Brennan, the priest in charge of the project, and the performer for Judas, is murdered and crucified. What follows is a heavily personal investigation into the tortured souls in this Abbey, and the nature of evil and faith.

CW: Violence, religious trauma, physical and mental torture.

An Engineer successfully designs the world’s first operational, large-scale, humanoid mech, naming it a Gossamer (GOSMR — Greater Outer Self-Manual Reach). She hopes they will change the world. She hopes they’ll revolutionize industry and how we interact with building things and the very concept of the self, machines, and existence. But for others, this breakthrough is a chance to make huge money and sell armored titans to the highest bidder.
To some, the Engineer’s Gossamers are terrifying. A Technician is looking to create not just new machines, bur new people. An Astronaut is hired to take the Gossamers to the stars. But the same powers-that-be that love the Gossamers are not as welcoming to this technology that can’t be turned into profit.
As the Engineer’s earnest joy turns to hubris, and the Gossamers get more varied and specialized, the Engineer must reckon with the world she has helped to create. A story about ego, the burden of dreams, and why giant robots are just so damn cool to us.

"...an epic poetic feminist science-fiction allegory..." -- Chicago Reader

"In a play about 400-ton robots, the kaiju fights in “I Build Giants” are between ideas, not machines." -- New City Stage

Six women wrestlers are scrapping for a spot at the top of the card. Sunset Lee's willing to do anything to succeed, even selling her soul to the bosses. Women's Champion Artemis needs time off, badly. Hot new thing Rachel "Victory" Vance is tired of being disrespected, and old veteran Painkiller can't keep the peace forever. When management learns of plans for a potential wrestlers' union, the locker room becomes a locked room mystery, as egos and fists collide.

TL;DR - it's Glengarry Glen Ross with women wrestlers.

A modern adaptation of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla.'

Laura Potter is a 23-year old burnout, living at home after she dropped out of college and toiling away on her dad's farm with no friends, no future, and no desire to do much of anything. But the mysterious new bartender stirs something in Laura, though she can't decide if this stranger is a kindred spirit or a terrible threat. Who is Cami, and why does Laura seem to remember meeting her 16 years ago?
(it's because she's a vampire, we give it away pretty quickly, it's fine)

CW: violence, blood, mental illness, dissociation, abuse, mention of sexual assault

John D. Rockefeller, America's Patron Saint of Greed, gets the spotlight as five flexible players depict the corporate mogul's entire life, from rags to riches to total inhumanity toward his fellow man. A little bit vaudeville, a pinch of burlesque, and a whole lot of costume changes ensue as five intrepid players unspool the messy life of John Rockefeller and the advent of the type of business men that "built" America.

An impossible murder in Columbia, SC -- a state senator getting his face chewed off-- sets preacher-turned private eye Olivia 'Liv' Lovejoy and her ghost sidekick into a world of political intrigue, dirty rotten socialists, and the agents of the Lord God almighty.

A sprawling, angry, anime-inspired southern noir about the soul of a country and people who don't want to be better.

Content Warning: Violence, Language, Alcohol Use, Religious Trauma, Body Horror

The night before she made history and shot into the future, Laika the soviet space dog was brought home by one of her scientist handlers. With no one knowing what history has in store, two Russian teens and the first animal in space share an innocent night together.

A small American town welcomes police to help calm it down. The police keep coming. They don't stop coming, and they also don't leave. A story about a US city under occupation from itself.

CW: Police Brutality, violence, gun violence, physical trauma, blood, explicit language.

Casey drives her father to the Grand Canyon. A ten-minute play about saying goodbye, memory, and backseat driving.

Gershwin, a prize-winning bull, goes one-on-one with the hottest pro bull rider today, AJ Hawkins. Gershwin's renowned for his fury, already has a body count, and given the right amount of stress he just might snap again. In ten minutes (and eight seconds), these two champions clash and leave forever changed.

Romeo and Juliet are dead. Rosaline, left in the margins of the story we know, isn't. And now she has to reckon with her grief and her sense of powerlessness in the face of what's just happened. Along with her friends and other people who were close to the dead, Rosaline has to unpack how she’s been pushed out of her own experience and find a way to keep living one day at a time. How can we hold each other up when we're also drowning? A story about grief, youth, hope, and the people tragedies leave behind.

CW: Grief, suicide, death, religion, mental illness

Ten years ago, Jenny Coates killed seven men and ended up on death row. Today, Sophie Parker, a southern preacher, has decided to save her soul. A southern-fried meditation on the nature of evil, the dangers of the world, and why one might want to kill seven men.

Rebecca Blue is on the verge of gaining the N.E.W. Wrestling Women's Championship. The only person in her way: her mentor, Kira Lance. Rebecca's worked hard to escape the shadow of her wrestler father, Beloved Blue, and stake her claim as the face of the next generation. But the old generation hasn't let go yet.

A quiet meditation on music and memory, as can be found in any youtube comments section.

Leah and Penny's lifelong friendship is set on fast-forward as they move from adolescence into adulthood in around 10 minutes.

Louis is in high school. That's tough. He's gay. That's tough. He's got a crush on a boy. That's tough. That boy is the human body of Satan. That's...that's really tough.

FULL-LENGTH: When a sudden apocalyptic winter storm isolates a high school gym class from the rest of the world, a small group of teens of different identities and social classes find themselves trapped and fending for themselves. But cut off from their society, the children are susceptible to deep paranoia, strange passions, and perhaps darker forces beyond their understanding.

Pulling from Lord of the Flies, John Carpenter's The Thing, and the hyperviolence of Sarah Kane, House of the Mammoth is a story about youth ripped from its context, gendered violence, how we define ourselves in context of our bodies, and whether connection is even possible in the shadow of the collapse of an insidious society.

Thomas Gainsborough, English Landscape and Portrait painter.
Grace Dalrymple Elliott, Scottish-born French Socialite and survivor of the French Revolution.
When Gainsborough paints a portrait of Grace, they begin a torrid, decade-spanning connection that stretches through both their lives and beyond history.

The world is ending, there are ghosts everywhere, there is a dinosaur in the neighborhood, and there are mushrooms sprouting in our car.

A modern spin on Alice in Wonderland--Alice is graduating high school tomorrow, at stands at a crossroads in her life. When a chance encounter with a toy from her childhood sends her spiraling, she finds herself in a bold, scary, ridiculous new world, and it looks a lot like adulthood.

The cast and crew of Electric City Theatre try to stage a performance of Hamlet. Messina, the overblown director, focuses too much on impressing an emissary from the prestigious Northcomb theatre and forgets to post the cast list. When it is finally posted, Weldon, cast as Horatio, conspires with young Olive, who was cast as Ophelia’s understudy, to levy themselves to higher parts. Edisto, the assistant director, and Charlotte, the assistant stage manager, are in love but vow to wait until after the play to act on their desires. Weldon tells Olive to demand more for herself from Messina, hoping to piggyback onto her boldness, but she gets herself removed from acting, and instead assistants the mischievous set designers Walder and Stratdorf.
Orsonio, the method actor playing Hamlet, fakes his death (at an unknowing Olive’s hand) in an attempt to further his process, leading Weldon to be cast as Hamlet and Orsonio, in disguise, playing Horatio. Messina presents his work to Northcomb, who, after getting word from Weldon of Messina’s foolishness, has him fired. Walder and Stratdorf try to repair the relationship between Lorraine and her modern-minded sister, Valencia, and together the four learn of Weldon’s trickery and conspire to assault him and make him confess. In the climax, on opening night, everyone converges on Weldon, forcing him to reveal his deception and accept his punishment as Edisto and Charlotte unite, Lorraine and Valencia, make amends, Stratdorf and Walder profess their love, and Olive learns her worth as an actor.

This play has been accepted for publication by Stagescripts Ltd. All inquiries must go to David Waters at david@stagescripts.com

A ruined heir to a toilet paper fortune sits on their throne and laments the rebuilding world following the end of a worldwide quarantine.

John D. Rockefeller, America's Patron Saint of Greed, gets the spotlight as five flexible players depict the corporate mogul's entire life, from rags to riches to total inhumanity toward his fellow man, all in fifteen scandalous minutes.

Julie Guest, a native of the small town of Sheol, South Carolina, returns home after her florists’ shop in Charleston failed. Returning home to work at her mother’s bait shop, she finds that her hermetic neighbor, Ogden Flass, the enigmatic Bee-Man whose house is full of bees is the focus of a lot of local parties. The Crighton County Council has decided to fund a full profile on the town for its upcoming tricentennial, and busybody councilwoman is determined to get Ogden’s family heirlooms and history as part of the project. Soon Julie finds herself submerged in local politics and generational mysteries, and desperately in need of solid ground as she risks sinking into her own past. A play about small towns, depression, failure, and making a place into a home.

1964, in a lonesome town on the Texas/Mexico Border. A stranger blows into town, a black woman with no name, but a huge confederate sword and a mission for revenge on the sheriff that killed her family. At the same time, a luchador plots to bring real life crime and carnage into her character's story, with bloody results. A musical tour of the shadow of the Old West, and the heritage of violence that forms the foundation of our country.

When Catherine needs to get away from the city, she and her boyfriend take a vacation in an old forest cabin that belonged to her dead aunt. What a follows is a metaphysical journey of the soul as Catherine and Ben reckon with the holes in their hearts and distance between any human being and someone they want to hold close.

The play opens on comedian June ‘Bug’ Barlowe finishing her set at a comedy night at the In Good Spirits Comedy Bar. Nasim Nassar, a Pakistani-american music critic, and her unemployed musician boyfriend Tyler Hansen discuss Nasim’s work ethic and make a bet that Tyler can work a full 8 hours a day for a week, and that Nasim can leave her work at work for a week, with the tee-totaling Nasim drinking if she loses and Tyler going to an Islamic Church Service if he loses.
Bug, and her fellow comedian Kevin Harpe, discuss their thankless lives and Kevin’s self-esteem problems/alcoholism. Bug admits she’s looking to leave In Good Spirits and has a gig elsewhere.
Rusty Chilton, the bar owner, enters with his nearly-21 daughter Nita, home from college for holidays. He, Nita, and the bartender Yvonne discuss Nita’s money troubles and Rusty’s vague prejudices before closing up for the night.
The next week, during a vicious downpour, Rusty goes out into the storm looking for a no-show Bug during her set. Nita and Yvonne meet Tyler and Nasim (who lost the bet) and get entangled in their argument which Bug and Kevin soon join. Kevin, drunk and depressed, lashes out against everyone, insulting every person at the bar. Bug and Nasim exchange words when Nasim insults blind people, who Bug teaches. Finally, Tyler and Nasim break up and Tyler drives out in the storm drunk. Kevin tries to leave too, and only Nasim tries to stop him. They both exit and offstage Kevin runs her over. Bug, Nita, and Yvonne stay inside, waiting for the storm to clear.

After a dramatic altercation between two middle-school softball players, the head coach and the mothers of the combatants confront each other to find out who’s at fault, who’s going to pay for it, and who makes the rules in a small town.

Written for the Aquarius piece in 'Retrograde,' a series of Astrological-themed plays conceived by Anna Fox.

Three big money hotshots decide to set their sights on turning a profit in hell, and summon satan for a chance at the job opportunity of their (after)lives. What follows is a gonzo satire of politics, capitalism, religion, and everything else you don't like talking about at family gatherings.

In the 1950's, in a small Texas town still clinging to bygone wild-west sensibilities, the outlaw Billie Baxter and US Marshal Roberta Weiss lock themselves into a battle of wills, a contest of wits, and also professional wrestling. Federal agents, gangsters, ghosts, and cannibals all get drawn into the conflict in this story about life, legends, and finding that special someone (you want to shoot in a duel).