Mak Shealy

Mak Shealy (they|she) is a writer and performer originally from a field in South Carolina and now based in Los Angeles & New York. Mak's plays are nerdy, muscular, darkly comic stories usually centered on rural life, queer relationships and the thin line between life and afterlife. Mak loves a good dose of niche TikTok drama as much as they are obsessed with turn of the century literature and obscure, ambitious science experiments.

Select Plays include: It Was A Sound (Echoes Finalist 2024/25) Victorian Psychedelic Sleepover Play (Barr Hill Finalist, O’Neill Semi-Finalist, DG Fellows Semi-Finalist, Seven Devil’s Semi-Finalist 2023/24), exceptional (Bay Area Playwrights Festival Semi-Finalist 2023, The Workshop Theater 2022/23), if there is breakage you will find chips (Irondale MainStage...

Mak Shealy (they|she) is a writer and performer originally from a field in South Carolina and now based in Los Angeles & New York. Mak's plays are nerdy, muscular, darkly comic stories usually centered on rural life, queer relationships and the thin line between life and afterlife. Mak loves a good dose of niche TikTok drama as much as they are obsessed with turn of the century literature and obscure, ambitious science experiments.

Select Plays include: It Was A Sound (Echoes Finalist 2024/25) Victorian Psychedelic Sleepover Play (Barr Hill Finalist, O’Neill Semi-Finalist, DG Fellows Semi-Finalist, Seven Devil’s Semi-Finalist 2023/24), exceptional (Bay Area Playwrights Festival Semi-Finalist 2023, The Workshop Theater 2022/23), if there is breakage you will find chips (Irondale MainStage Production 2021), The Gap (Orchard Project Finalist 2022, The Tank 2021). They are an alum of IAMA’s Emerging Playwright Cohort, EST/LA’s Ignite Project #6, Under Construction 3, 24 Hour Plays and the Samuel French OOB Festival.

Mak has guest lectured at Union College, The Entertainment Fund, and Echo Theatre. BFA: New York University.

Scripts

CANOPY

by Mak Shealy

Synopsis

In the wake of a devastating hurricane, a blood donation supplier fails to deliver life-saving units, resulting in the preventable death of a physician’s mother. This failure incites a heated legal debate about the culpability of nonprofits in rural areas and our own responsibility to care for our neighbors by regularly donating blood.

In the wake of a devastating hurricane, a blood donation supplier fails to deliver life-saving units, resulting in the preventable death of a physician’s mother. This failure incites a heated legal debate about the culpability of nonprofits in rural areas and our own responsibility to care for our neighbors by regularly donating blood.

It Was A Sound

by Mak Shealy

Synopsis

Lily and Brian are siblings. They're owls, they're people, and they're very different from each other.

Everyone in this play is a survivor.

Lily and Brian are siblings. They're owls, they're people, and they're very different from each other.

Everyone in this play is a survivor.

Victorian Psychedelic Sleepover Play

by Mak Shealy

Synopsis

On the eve of a 16th birthday, four teens meet after their writing is rejected by the school lit mag to create a Literary Zine of their own. Seeking editorial guidance, they conjure the ghosts of writers past and find themselves possessed by the spirit, chaos and conflict of the Victorian Era radicals they have long admired.

On the eve of a 16th birthday, four teens meet after their writing is rejected by the school lit mag to create a Literary Zine of their own. Seeking editorial guidance, they conjure the ghosts of writers past and find themselves possessed by the spirit, chaos and conflict of the Victorian Era radicals they have long admired.

unconformity

by Mak Shealy

Synopsis

Geology grad students, Christine, Cyril and Ari are bound by a shared love of trying to decipher the secrets of the ancient earth. After a tragic accident fractures their dynamic forever, each is forced to grapple with legacy, grief and unanswerable questions. At the center of it all, curiosity and fear battle it out. Much like the Great Unconformity itself, leaps of imagination are required to fill in the gaps.

Geology grad students, Christine, Cyril and Ari are bound by a shared love of trying to decipher the secrets of the ancient earth. After a tragic accident fractures their dynamic forever, each is forced to grapple with legacy, grief and unanswerable questions. At the center of it all, curiosity and fear battle it out. Much like the Great Unconformity itself, leaps of imagination are required to fill in the gaps.

exceptional

by Mak Shealy

Synopsis

JAY and ADDIE fell in love backstage at a beauty pageant. Now ADDIE is missing, and with college money and real escape on the line, JAY can’t afford not to compete. Flashes of nightmare and memory punctuate the sharp twists of the Miss Nebraska’s Outstanding Teen competition, which is already full of pointed stares and secrets to unbury as each contestant fights to hold onto a legacy of their own. What happens...

JAY and ADDIE fell in love backstage at a beauty pageant. Now ADDIE is missing, and with college money and real escape on the line, JAY can’t afford not to compete. Flashes of nightmare and memory punctuate the sharp twists of the Miss Nebraska’s Outstanding Teen competition, which is already full of pointed stares and secrets to unbury as each contestant fights to hold onto a legacy of their own. What happens behind the blank white teeth that seem to shine through it all, no matter what? Do queer kids ever get to be just 17?

where the water takes us

by Mak Shealy

Synopsis

Sabine and Tansy are childhood friends on a mission. As they navigate their way back into each other’s lives, their worlds collide with that of Dr. Rachel Mattingly (quite literally) after a crash landing of the vessel that she had a hand in building happens in her backyard. They all must decide what secrets are public domain, and which ones should remain buried for someone in the future to find.

Sabine and Tansy are childhood friends on a mission. As they navigate their way back into each other’s lives, their worlds collide with that of Dr. Rachel Mattingly (quite literally) after a crash landing of the vessel that she had a hand in building happens in her backyard. They all must decide what secrets are public domain, and which ones should remain buried for someone in the future to find.

GEN

by Mak Shealy

Synopsis

Synopsis:
GEN ​is a play that follows the lineage through the women+ of a family on ​St. Helena Island in South Carolina.​ Years swirl around everyone who enters this house as they navigate embedded fears, white fragility, the performance of “southern” women+hood and the ignorance with which we often follow our ancestors into the dark. This is a play about family (chosen or blood), about the ties that bind, and...

Synopsis:
GEN ​is a play that follows the lineage through the women+ of a family on ​St. Helena Island in South Carolina.​ Years swirl around everyone who enters this house as they navigate embedded fears, white fragility, the performance of “southern” women+hood and the ignorance with which we often follow our ancestors into the dark. This is a play about family (chosen or blood), about the ties that bind, and what lengths we will go to in order to keep them intact -- or precisely what it takes to sever them for good.

On the genre:
Horror is a necessary mirror. This play should be as terrifying as real life. I loved the quote I read recently while scrolling through Dread Central: “Horror finds those deep, primal fears that fester inside us and brings them to the surface, where we can face them, examine them, and ultimately release them.”

On the soundscape:
Please play with altering frequencies, particularly if this is set in an immersive space. Run the gamut between the 3 generations when choosing pre & post-show music.

if there is breakage you will find chips

by Mak Shealy

Synopsis

HAELEY is fresh out of a breakup and ANYA is desperate for a career break. The moment their worlds intersect, life begins to cascade and spread out into a permanent connection. As they navigate the very edges of love and understanding, they grow together and against each other, colliding with the world around them. A meditation on the way we crash into each other's lives if there is breakage you will find chips...

HAELEY is fresh out of a breakup and ANYA is desperate for a career break. The moment their worlds intersect, life begins to cascade and spread out into a permanent connection. As they navigate the very edges of love and understanding, they grow together and against each other, colliding with the world around them. A meditation on the way we crash into each other's lives if there is breakage you will find chips is a play where days and weeks flip into months and years, tracing the cumulative micro and macro bits that stick in our memory, even if it's just a flash of a cross street in Brooklyn where hand-me-down furniture and a broken mirror sit after life takes the owners onto their next chapter.

LACES

by Mak Shealy

Synopsis

Cait Gold has a secret and once it's revealed, it becomes apparent just how deep team ties bind.

Cait Gold has a secret and once it's revealed, it becomes apparent just how deep team ties bind.

tit.tat.toe.

by Mak Shealy

Synopsis

Charlie, Tippie, and Suz are roommates in New York. Charlie and Tippie are in a vicious cycle of jealousy and misunderstanding. Suz is a reluctant peacemaker. Everyone has something someone else wants but is it worse out there, or in here?

Charlie, Tippie, and Suz are roommates in New York. Charlie and Tippie are in a vicious cycle of jealousy and misunderstanding. Suz is a reluctant peacemaker. Everyone has something someone else wants but is it worse out there, or in here?