Edward Einhorn

Edward Einhorn

Edward Einhorn is a playwright, director, translator, librettist, and novelist. His work has been performed in New York venues such as La MaMa, 3LD Art & Technology Center, HERE Arts Center, The New Ohio, St. Ann's Warehouse, the Walter Bruno Theater at Lincoln Center, and the Bohemian National Hall. Outside of New York, his work has been done at Peckham Asylum Chapel (London), Wigmore Hall (London),...
Edward Einhorn is a playwright, director, translator, librettist, and novelist. His work has been performed in New York venues such as La MaMa, 3LD Art & Technology Center, HERE Arts Center, The New Ohio, St. Ann's Warehouse, the Walter Bruno Theater at Lincoln Center, and the Bohemian National Hall. Outside of New York, his work has been done at Peckham Asylum Chapel (London), Wigmore Hall (London), Milton Court at the Barbican (London), Forth Worth Opera (Fort Worth, Texas), The Museum of Human Achievement (Austin, Texas) Sacred Fools (Los Angeles), and the Czech Embassy (Washington, DC). He is the Artistic Director of Untitled Theater Company No. 61: A Theater of Ideas – a New York independent theater company.

The New York Times has called his work "exquisitely ingenious", “dramatically shrewd,” and "almost unbearably funny"; Time Out has called it "challenging, thought-provoking," “mesmerizing,” and “startlingly intense”; and The Village Voice has called it “hilarious, provocative,” and "Inspired absurdist comedy". He has received a Sloan Grant, SEED Magazine’s Revolutionary Mind Award, The NY Innovative Theater Award for Best Performance Art Production of the Year, NYTheater.com’s Person of the Year Award and placement in their Indie Theater Hall of Fame, 2nd Prize from the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundations Playwriting Competition, a fellowship from American Opera Projects, and Critic’s Picks in Time Out, The Village Voice, and The New York Times. He was also a Finalist and Semi-Finalist for the O’Neill Playwriting Conference

He has a BA in Writing from Johns Hopkins and an MA in Opera Writing – Librettos from The Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

The New York Times has called his work "exquisitely ingenious", “dramatically shrewd,” and "almost unbearably funny"; Time Out has called it "challenging, thought-provoking," “mesmerizing,” and “startlingly intense”; and The Village Voice has called it “hilarious, provocative,” and "Inspired absurdist comedy". He has received a Sloan Grant, SEED Magazine’s Revolutionary Mind Award, The NY Innovative Theater Award for Best Performance Art Production of the Year, NYTheater.com’s Person of the Year Award and placement in their Indie Theater Hall of Fame, and Critic’s Picks in Time Out, The Village Voice, and The New York Times.

His work has been performed across the United States and in England, Germany, and the Czech Republic.

Plays

  • Alma Baya
    Alma and Baya are living on a hostile planet, in a living pod designed for two. A stranger from a destroyed pod, much like theirs, arrives and seeks refuge. Baya lets her in, but Alma is convinced that there are not enough resources for three, and that at least one of them will die. Slowly, they unpack the mystery of who the stranger is, at the same time as they unpack the history of how they got there.
  • The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
    Recipient of the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation's Playwriting Award, 2nd Prize

    A marriage farce in which four actors play over thirty characters, celebrating the union of perhaps the best known same sex couple of the 20th century. Picasso has brought two of his mistresses and one of his wives. Hemingway has also brought his wife but is more obsessed by his matador. Meanwhile, all involved...
    Recipient of the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation's Playwriting Award, 2nd Prize

    A marriage farce in which four actors play over thirty characters, celebrating the union of perhaps the best known same sex couple of the 20th century. Picasso has brought two of his mistresses and one of his wives. Hemingway has also brought his wife but is more obsessed by his matador. Meanwhile, all involved discuss matters of art, genius, friendship, religion, genius, sexuality, money, genius, fame, and of course love. Identities are merged and submerged. Written in a style that echoes Stein’s work, this is a comic fantasy with serious intent.

    CRITICS PICK from the New York Times
  • The Shylock and the Shakespeareans
    In ancient Venice, of sorts, a mob of white supremacists calling themselves the Shakespeareans has taken over public discourse. Jacob, a Jewish diamond merchant (called Shylock as a slur), finds himself entangled with Antonio, a member of the Shakespeareans. Meanwhile, Jacob’s daughter Jessica has fallen in love with the son of Asian immigrants and faces her own battles against prejudice. And in Belmont, a...
    In ancient Venice, of sorts, a mob of white supremacists calling themselves the Shakespeareans has taken over public discourse. Jacob, a Jewish diamond merchant (called Shylock as a slur), finds himself entangled with Antonio, a member of the Shakespeareans. Meanwhile, Jacob’s daughter Jessica has fallen in love with the son of Asian immigrants and faces her own battles against prejudice. And in Belmont, a young heiress named Portia subjects her suitors to a strange, nonsensical game. When Antonio’s business encounters hardship, he reneges on a debt with Jacob then spreads the rumor Jacob wants him dead. A trial in a kangaroo court follows. A darkly humorous retelling of The Merchant of Venice.
  • Testimonies from the Money Church
    It is the near future. Money has collapsed. A congregation of the devoted has gathered to try to restore the world's faith in money. Structured as a series of monologues, we hear from everyone from former billionaires to accountants to gamblers to formed atheists.
  • The Meeting
    Frida Vanek, niece of the famous dissident playwright Ferdinand Vanek (a character made famous by Vaclav Havel), has a meeting with Jan Stanek, her father's old friend. Frida is an American, her parents immigrated just after the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. Jan is running for political office in the modern Czech Republic and visiting the United States to fundraise. Frida has just found some...
    Frida Vanek, niece of the famous dissident playwright Ferdinand Vanek (a character made famous by Vaclav Havel), has a meeting with Jan Stanek, her father's old friend. Frida is an American, her parents immigrated just after the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. Jan is running for political office in the modern Czech Republic and visiting the United States to fundraise. Frida has just found some damning papers about Jan, however, in her mother's papers. According to the papers, Jan was once an informant to the Communist secret police. Frida confronts Jan and the question of whether to make them public.
  • The Neurology of the Soul
    A play about the nexus of neuroscience, marketing, love, and art. "A love story about an ex-artist named Amy who participates in an experimental study conducted by her husband, a cognitive neuroscientist named Stephen...Einhorn handles the depths of these kinds of [neuroscientific] dilemmas with an impressive ease. As a neuroscience writer, I can attest that this is difficult to achieve." - Stephen Macknik, Scientific American.
  • The Resistible Rise of JR Brinkley
    The true story of John Brinkley, a medical con man from Kansas who became famous for his cure for impotence: implanting the testicles of a goat into men’s scrotums. His rise from doctor to radio star to politician. Told in a Brechtian style, with country music.
  • Golem Stories
    Set in 16th century Prague, this play is a new take on the legend of the golem (a man made from clay), put in the context of other Jewish legends of the supernatural. It is both a ghost story and a love story, set in the domestic atmosphere of the Rabbi's home, while the world around is full of violence. Golem Stories features historical figures Rabbi Loew, an important scholar of Jewish law and the...
    Set in 16th century Prague, this play is a new take on the legend of the golem (a man made from clay), put in the context of other Jewish legends of the supernatural. It is both a ghost story and a love story, set in the domestic atmosphere of the Rabbi's home, while the world around is full of violence. Golem Stories features historical figures Rabbi Loew, an important scholar of Jewish law and the Kabbalah, and King Rudolf II, the highly unusual King of Bohemia best known for his obsessions with alchemy. It focuses even more on the women of Rabbi Loew's household-his wife and two daughters. In the center of it all, of course, is the golem, who is not the lumbering monster everyone, including the Rabbi, expects him to be.
  • Doctors Jane and Alexander
    Winner of a Sloan Grant from Ensemble Studio Theater for plays on a scientific topic. An exploration of the lives Alexander S. Wiener, the co-discoverer of the Rh factor in blood, and his daughter Jane (the playwright's mother), a psychologist. An examination of ambition and achievement in art and science, and how our expectations for ourselves are formed by the accomplishments of our parents and grandparents.
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
    An adaptation of Philip K. Dick's sci fi classic about androids and a bounty hunter, Rick Deckard, who loves them/loves to kill them. The book inspired the film Blade Runner, but this adaptation returns to the original novel's ideas about a post-apocalyptic world seeking resurrection through the rediscovery of empathy. The play incorporate video to blur the lines between humanity and technology,...
    An adaptation of Philip K. Dick's sci fi classic about androids and a bounty hunter, Rick Deckard, who loves them/loves to kill them. The book inspired the film Blade Runner, but this adaptation returns to the original novel's ideas about a post-apocalyptic world seeking resurrection through the rediscovery of empathy. The play incorporate video to blur the lines between humanity and technology, finding the soul within the machine.
  • The Living Methuselah
    The oldest living man survives every disaster is human history, with the help of his wife Serach, the oldest living woman. But when a doctor tells him he will only live until the end of the play, will this be his final curtain?
  • Lysistrata
    A modern adaptation of Aristophanes' philosophical comedy, focusing on three elements of the human condition that have not changed in nearly 2500 years: war, sex, and, most of all, laughter.
  • The Iron Heel
    An adaptation of Jack London's 1908 novel, the first-ever dystopia, written as a socialist propaganda piece. It tell the story of Avis and Ernest Everhard, two leader of an envisioned socialistrevolution in the 1920's, when the oligarchy has taken on a totalitarian edge (The Iron Heel). Praised by Leon Trotsky and George Orwell. Set as a "reenactment drama", being told 600 years in the...
    An adaptation of Jack London's 1908 novel, the first-ever dystopia, written as a socialist propaganda piece. It tell the story of Avis and Ernest Everhard, two leader of an envisioned socialistrevolution in the 1920's, when the oligarchy has taken on a totalitarian edge (The Iron Heel). Praised by Leon Trotsky and George Orwell. Set as a "reenactment drama", being told 600 years in the future, in a world that has become a socialist utopia. Using folksongs from the early 20th century throughout, some with altered lyrics.
  • The Money Atheist
    A testimony at the Money Church, in a world where some people have stopped believing in money.
  • Strangers
    A man and a woman are in what seems to be a waiting room. Is it a doctor's waiting room? If so, what's wrong? An examination of Korsakov's Syndrome.
  • Linguish
    Linguish posits a disease which causes aphasia, the neurological disorder that takes away one's ability to use language. Four relative strangers are among the first to be affected, and are thrown together in quarantine. As the disease affects them, they are forced to try to find new ways to communicate.
  • Iphigenia in Aulis
    This new adaptation reexamines Euripides’ play about democracy versus ochlocracy (mob rule) and the role of religion in popular uprisings. Supporting materials at iphigeniainaulis.com
  • The Lathe of Heaven
    An original, authorized stage adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s sci-fi classic about a man whose dreams change reality. The play examines the human need for certainty and understanding in contrast with Taoist ideas of uncertainty and unknowing, and intersperses verses from the Tao Te Ching as operatic art songs.
  • Rudolf II
    n 1600, Rudolf II, the bisexual and bipolar Holy Roman Emperor, is obsessed with alchemy and astronomy; as well as his longtime mistress and his newest lover and valet, a converted Jew. His enthusiasms establish Prague as a center of artistic, scientific, and sexual investigation. As he notes with pride, “I have something more than soldiers. I have knowledge.” However, his underfunded army, combined with his...
    n 1600, Rudolf II, the bisexual and bipolar Holy Roman Emperor, is obsessed with alchemy and astronomy; as well as his longtime mistress and his newest lover and valet, a converted Jew. His enthusiasms establish Prague as a center of artistic, scientific, and sexual investigation. As he notes with pride, “I have something more than soldiers. I have knowledge.” However, his underfunded army, combined with his constant mood swings and paranoia, threatens to destroy everything he’s tried to build. "The kind of audacious, ambitious, commercialism-be-damned play that makes indie theater so special and worthwhile." NYTheatre

    Set completely in Rudolf’s bedroom, the increasingly reclusive Emperor confines himself in a suffocating atmosphere filled with court intrigue. Rudolf’s court was literally the stuff of legend, providing the basis for Goethe’s Faust and the original Golem. The play features several historical figures, including astronomer Tycho Brahe; Elizabeth Jane Weston, Latin poetess and daughter of the original Faust (Edward Kelley); and the spirit of Libuše, the prophetess who founded Prague.
  • The Velvet Oratorio
    An original opera/theater piece commemorating the 25th anniversary of The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. The Velvet Oratorio mixes history, opera, and farce in its evocative retelling of the Velvet Revolution, as seen through the eyes of Václav Havel's signature character, Ferdinand Vaněk.

    The piece is organized as a series of alternating scenes and choruses, the chorus representing...
    An original opera/theater piece commemorating the 25th anniversary of The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. The Velvet Oratorio mixes history, opera, and farce in its evocative retelling of the Velvet Revolution, as seen through the eyes of Václav Havel's signature character, Ferdinand Vaněk.

    The piece is organized as a series of alternating scenes and choruses, the chorus representing the crowds in Prague during the events spanning November 17 1989 to January 1, 1990. The text for the oratorio is based partly upon recently released U.S. State Department documents and corresponding Czechoslovakian / Soviet documents and interviews with journalists, diplomats, and ordinary people who were in the streets of Prague during the revolution.