Kate Cortesi

Kate Cortesi

KATE CORTESI is a Brooklyn- and Boston-based playwright from Washington D.C. Plays: LOVE (Marin Theatre Company directed by Mike Donahue, Sky Cooper New American Play Prize winner, two-time Kilroys List, Ojai Playwrights Conference, South Coast Rep New Scripts, WP Theater/Colt Coeur Parity Fest), IS EDWARD SNOWDEN SINGLE? (The Jungle Theater directed by Christina Baldwin, Single Carrot Theater, The Pool/New...
KATE CORTESI is a Brooklyn- and Boston-based playwright from Washington D.C. Plays: LOVE (Marin Theatre Company directed by Mike Donahue, Sky Cooper New American Play Prize winner, two-time Kilroys List, Ojai Playwrights Conference, South Coast Rep New Scripts, WP Theater/Colt Coeur Parity Fest), IS EDWARD SNOWDEN SINGLE? (The Jungle Theater directed by Christina Baldwin, Single Carrot Theater, The Pool/New Ohio directed by Kate Bergstrom, Dorset Theatre Festival, Platform Presents New Play Award finalist), GREAT KILLS (Princess Grace Award winner, Premiere Stages New Play Festival), ONE MORE LESS (NYFA Award winner, Relentless Award finalist, Playwrights Horizons New Works Lab directed by Robert O'Hara), A Patron of the Arts (Cherry Lane Mentor Project, KIT Italia, South Coast Rep New Scripts), and CITIZENS UNITED, a short comedy for young performers about the Supreme Court ruling. Cortesi's work has been seen across the country and internationally, including in translation, and is published by Samual French. Commissions: Playwrights Horizons, South Coast Rep, Keen Theatre Company. Awards/honors: New Dramatists, Huntington Playwriting Fellowship, NYFA Fellowship, Princess Grace Award, Sky Cooper New American Play Prize, Columbia University's Karen Brownstein Award, and three time Kilroy’s List. Cortesi has taught writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Riker’s Island and lots of places in between. She's written lots of scripts for film and TV as well. For more, please visit Katecortesi.com

Plays

  • LOVE by Kate Cortesi
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: Sex, power + 6 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, political
    Keyword: Sex, power, feminist, masculinity, complications, boss, metoo, funny
    Five former employees. One great love.
    Thorny, uncomfortable, funny and surprising (and...sexy?), LOVE asks what accountability looks like when an abuser of power is one of our favorite men of all time and dares us to get to the other side of accountability and hashtags together.
  • Is Edward Snowden Single? by Kate Cortesi
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: comedy
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    Keyword: Edward Snowden, comedy + 3 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: Edward Snowden, comedy, integrity, beauty, puppetry
    Much like the US government, two BFFS find themselves in a crisis of integrity, whatever the hell THAT means.
    Two actresses and an adorable amorous puppet play all twenty roles in this whirlwind play about pretty lies and ugly truths.
  • A Patron of the Arts by Kate Cortesi
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
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    Keyword: Northern California, trailer + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: Northern California, trailer, Drugs, Art and Artists, Painting, high school, masculinity, success, failure
    When a high school drug dealer does a drop off at a new address, he is unexpectedly reunited with the father of his childhood best friend. The recently laid off father is holed up to re-start the arts career of his youth; this young entrepreneur really wants to help. And so, these two come to an unusual mercantile arrangement...
  • ONE MORE LESS by Kate Cortesi
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: dark comedy, political + 1 more
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    Keyword: police brutality, Race + 1 more
    Genre: dark comedy, political, tragedy
    Keyword: police brutality, Race, super soakers
    Mother is mean. Little Brother is shy. Big Sister is cocky. And the guy in the police uniform doesn't know what the hell he's doing in this play. ONE MORE LESS uses everything from Super Soakers to Ferris Bueller to delve deep into our American psyche formed and deformed by police brutality.
  • Great Kills by Kate Cortesi
    Cast: 
    5–7
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
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    Keyword: college admissions, essay + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: college admissions, essay, Italian American, Staten Island, achievement, mother, daughters, lying, integrity, teenagers
    A high school achiever’s college application reveals a family secret and sends her Staten Island family into a tailspin. Is this ambitious young woman traumatized by violence, as her essay claims, or by a culture of achievement that has trained her to market herself at any cost?
  • "I love parties" by Kate Cortesi
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    1
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    Genre: comedy
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    Keyword: older women, younger men + 3 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: older women, younger men, weddings, seduction, monologue
    An 8-minute monologue from "Auntie Patty," a character written for Emily Kuroda and first performed as part of The Homebound Project in 2021.