Malena Pennycook

Malena Pennycook

Malena Pennycook (she/they) is a writer, performer and current MFA Playwriting candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. Their plays include: HOW SHOULD A CONVERSATION BE? (Playwrights Realm Scratchpad; Playwrights Center) DIVING BOARD (O'Neill Finalist), TWO APPRENTICES (Kennedy Center KCACTF: Latinx Award & Rosa Parks Awards), BELOW (Take Ten Theatre Masters, Sam French), 9/10 BEDS (Kennedy...
Malena Pennycook (she/they) is a writer, performer and current MFA Playwriting candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. Their plays include: HOW SHOULD A CONVERSATION BE? (Playwrights Realm Scratchpad; Playwrights Center) DIVING BOARD (O'Neill Finalist), TWO APPRENTICES (Kennedy Center KCACTF: Latinx Award & Rosa Parks Awards), BELOW (Take Ten Theatre Masters, Sam French), 9/10 BEDS (Kennedy Center KCACTF: Musical Theater 2nd Pl, Paula Vogel Distinguished Achievement), and their solo show AM I BUSY YET? (Cosmic Cherry Arts Fest; Oregon Fringe). As a performer, they have developed work at at The Public's Under the Radar, The Flea Theatre, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, The Brick and more. Malena is a '23-'24 Playwrights Center Core Apprentice and a '23-'24 Playwrights Realm Scatchpad writer. She has been in residence with The New Harmony Project and is a recipient of the Richie Jackson Artistic Fellowship. Proud member of SAG-AFTRA, The Dramatist Guild, EMC & Ring of Keys. BFA NYU Tisch Experimental Theatre Wing.

Plays

  • Diving Board by Malena Pennycook
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    6–10
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: ghosts, diving
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, experimental, movement/physical
    Keyword: ghosts, diving
    At the top of the 10 meter diving board, 17 year old Annie sees the face of a man ripple across the water and, subsequently, in everything she does. Joanna thinks its God. Tiernan's too busy trying to win states to pay attention. An athletic new play about the terror of young womanhood & the ways we cope with the thing in the shadows.
  • Two Apprentices by Malena Pennycook
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: docudrama/historic, tragedy
    ·
    Keyword: Latino
    Genre: docudrama/historic, tragedy
    Keyword: Latino
    Las Malvinas, Argentina 1982. Two brothers, Mac and Ike, are trapped between two wars. The island's cannon fire is making Mac explode from the inside out and Ike doesn't want them to be the next Argentino's to disappear. At least there are penguins. Loosely inspired by Oedipus Rex, Two Apprentices is a dark fairy tale about brotherhood, imperialism and the slipperiness of hope.
  • Below by Malena Pennycook
    Cast: 
    2–3
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy
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    Keyword: environmental
    Genre: dark comedy
    Keyword: environmental
    After losing her home to a California wildfire, Anara joins her cousin for a shocking marine expedition. A surrealist short that interrogates the sense we'll make, if any, of the end.
  • Am I Busy Yet? by Malena Pennycook
    Cast: 
    1
    ·
    Genre: comedy, immersive
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    Keyword: solo show, audience participation + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, immersive
    Keyword: solo show, audience participation, physical comedy
    Am I Busy Yet? is a solo immersive show that follows follows Gus, the unmoored younger sister of athleisure icon Ty Haney, as she crosses things off a gargantuan to-do list with the audience's help. Beginning with a guided meditation and ending with a full tilt birthday bash, Gus and the audience confront the pressures of modern industry head on to reconsider their sense of pleasure.
  • WEAVER UNDER by Malena Pennycook
    Cast: 
    8–20
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: wrestling, marriage + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, experimental, movement/physical
    Keyword: wrestling, marriage, women, physical, comedy, girls trip
    Four friends convene for Clytemnestra’s Bachelorette party in NOLA. When Jerzy, a local entertainer, offers a one thousand dollar reward to anyone who can beat Cassandra in a fight, the women find themselves undressing for an underground wrestling match. In the ring, Cly rages against the idea of heterosexual commitment within patriarchy. And Jerzy may be losing his marbles. With a surrealist approach to...
    Four friends convene for Clytemnestra’s Bachelorette party in NOLA. When Jerzy, a local entertainer, offers a one thousand dollar reward to anyone who can beat Cassandra in a fight, the women find themselves undressing for an underground wrestling match. In the ring, Cly rages against the idea of heterosexual commitment within patriarchy. And Jerzy may be losing his marbles. With a surrealist approach to language, Weaver Under takes a high-octane, embodied look at the legacies women wrestle with in the face of marriage.