Mak Shealy

Mak Shealy

MAK SHEALY (she/they) is a writer, performer, and producer based in Los Angeles and New York. Mak’s work highlights queer and non-binary experiences through the subversion of form and humor.

Mak is a member of the IAMA Emerging Writers Group, a Samuel French OOB Top-30 finalist, an Orchard Project Finalist, RAVE Theatre festival finalist, and 2021 OnWomen’s Festival MainStage Selection at...
MAK SHEALY (she/they) is a writer, performer, and producer based in Los Angeles and New York. Mak’s work highlights queer and non-binary experiences through the subversion of form and humor.

Mak is a member of the IAMA Emerging Writers Group, a Samuel French OOB Top-30 finalist, an Orchard Project Finalist, RAVE Theatre festival finalist, and 2021 OnWomen’s Festival MainStage Selection at Irondale Ensemble Theatre. Mak’s writing has been seen at The Workshop Theater, The Road Theatre, the Entertainment Community Fund, The Tank, Kervigo Ensemble Theatre, and the 24: Hour Plays Viral Monologues. They’ve created original immersive material for The Balcony Arts, The Cell Theater, and Wonder Media Network. Their feature film, Bethlehem Slutbag, was a semi-finalist in the 2022 Emerging Screenwriters Competition.

Select performance credits — Off-Broadway: The Cooping Theory 1969, Professor Brenner (HERE Arts Center), The Jersey Devil Doesn’t Exist (The Shrill Collective); TV: LOVE LIFE (HBO).

IG: @makattackssnacks
www.makwashere.org
NYU Tisch BFA.
Ring of Keys Member; Dramatist Guild Member. 

Plays

  • tit.tat.toe. by Mak Shealy
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: abortion access, family money + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, experimental, satire
    Keyword: abortion access, family money, 3 actors, roommates
    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. Access, talent, money, and trauma all collide in this fucked up roommate triad. Everyone has different limits for how far they are willing to go to get what they say they want. The question remains, is it worse out there, or in here?
  • Victorian Psychedelic Sleepover Play by Mak Shealy
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: biography, dark comedy + 8 more
    ·
    Keyword: LGBTQIA+, nonbinary lead + 2 more
    Genre: biography, dark comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, experimental, fantasy, horror, movement/physical, period, zoom
    Keyword: LGBTQIA+, nonbinary lead, ensemble cast, Victorian literature
    On the eve of a 16th birthday, four teens meet after their writing is rejected by the school newspaper 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.
  • exceptional by Mak Shealy
    Recommendations: 5
    ·
    Cast: 
    7–9
    ·
    Genre: drama, experimental + 7 more
    ·
    Keyword: LGBTQIA+, beauty pageant + 3 more
    Genre: drama, experimental, movement/physical, musical, mystery/thriller, opera, pageant, political, tragedy
    Keyword: LGBTQIA+, beauty pageant, true crime, gender identity, domestic abuse
    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?

  • unconformity by Mak Shealy
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    5–8
    ·
    Genre: adventure, drama
    ·
    Keyword: geology, LGBTQIA+ + 5 more
    Genre: adventure, drama
    Keyword: geology, LGBTQIA+, grief, loss, science, stem, deconstructed time
    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.
  • where the water takes us by Mak Shealy
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    6–7
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic + 4 more
    ·
    Keyword: aerospace, astronaut + 2 more
    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic, experimental, fantasy, movement/physical, political
    Keyword: aerospace, astronaut, climate change, female scientist
    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.
  • will there be trout fishing in limbo by Mak Shealy
    Cast: 
    6–8
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy + 3 more
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy, experimental, movement/physical, tragedy
    The play is loosely inspired by the real relationship between author, Richard Brautigan, and his daughter Ianthe before his death. In his book: The Abortion, Brautigan writes about a fictional library that houses all books that were unpublished elsewhere. This is the story of a home for misfits, fictional and otherwise.
  • GEN by Mak Shealy
    Recommendations: 4
    ·
    Cast: 
    9–12
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic + 10 more
    ·
    Keyword: Anthology, accepting death + 6 more
    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, experimental, fable/folktale, fantasy, horror, immersive, movement/physical, mystery/thriller, political, tragedy
    Keyword: Anthology, accepting death, breaking tradition, family, intergenerational conflicts, complex trauma, psychological abuse, LGBTQ
    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...
    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.
  • LACES by Mak Shealy
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: ABSURD LGBTQ, figure skating + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, experimental, horror, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: ABSURD LGBTQ, figure skating, erotic, competition
    Cait Gold has a secret and once it's revealed, it becomes apparent just how deep team ties bind.
  • if there is breakage you will find chips by Mak Shealy
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: adventure, comedy + 8 more
    ·
    Keyword: lgbtqia, lesbian couple + 2 more
    Genre: adventure, comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, fantasy, movement/physical, political, romantic comedy, zoom
    Keyword: lgbtqia, lesbian couple, bittersweet love story, happy endings for queers
    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...
    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.
  • [redacted] Mascot Play or The Gap by Mak Shealy
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    16
    ·
    Genre: adventure, dark comedy + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: black lgbt, American Southern history + 6 more
    Genre: adventure, dark comedy, drama, movement/physical, political
    Keyword: black lgbt, American Southern history, adults as teens, cheerleading, White Fragility, confessional poetry, Native American Experience, south carolina
    The Gap follows a cheerleading team in a small town in the South, newly given the opportunity to redeem themselves at State. We meet the team where they are at: chaos-junkies, loners, escapists and more all gather together to build the Varsity Squad. When the co-captain makes it her mission to get the racist school mascot removed, her peers challenge her commitment to “change.” It explores explosive southern...
    The Gap follows a cheerleading team in a small town in the South, newly given the opportunity to redeem themselves at State. We meet the team where they are at: chaos-junkies, loners, escapists and more all gather together to build the Varsity Squad. When the co-captain makes it her mission to get the racist school mascot removed, her peers challenge her commitment to “change.” It explores explosive southern teen-dom, problematic white "wokeness," and the ties that bind a group of struggling young people together.