Emily Elyse Everett

Emily Elyse Everett

Emily is a writer and actor living in New York. In her work, she is interested in the mysterious, bizarre, dark, magical, and absurd. With deep tenderness and sharp wit, she explores the complexity of human morality, womanhood, and the psychological unraveling of the contemporary world.

Emily was awarded Synecdoche Works' 2022 Frank Moffett Mosier Fellowship for Works in Heightened Language...
Emily is a writer and actor living in New York. In her work, she is interested in the mysterious, bizarre, dark, magical, and absurd. With deep tenderness and sharp wit, she explores the complexity of human morality, womanhood, and the psychological unraveling of the contemporary world.

Emily was awarded Synecdoche Works' 2022 Frank Moffett Mosier Fellowship for Works in Heightened Language and the $3000 winning prize for her play "Strange and Splendid". She was a Semifinalist for the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival and a Winner of the Players Club of Swarthmore New Play Festival for her play "Serenity", and was selected for the 2023 Valdez Theater Conference for her play "Tryhard". Her writing has been produced and developed in NYC and across the US, including with Macha Theatre Works, Broad Views on Broadway, and the Horizon Theater, where she was named one of three finalists for the Dramatists Guild Young Playwrights Award. Emily is currently under commission to write a new serialized mystery podcast.

As an actor, Emily most recently played Becca in Nightdrive's tour of The Grown-ups, reprising the role from the sold-out NYC run, which extended three times. Time Out New York called it “the coolest new play you probably can’t see” and included it on their list of the top 10 shows of 2021.

Emily has also worked with The Public Theater, Ars Nova, Taylor Mac, Sweet Tea Shakespeare, and on self-produced projects. In a previous life, Emily was almost a medical student.

Originally from Portland, Oregon, Emily has a BA from Brown University and is a Playwriting MFA candidate at Columbia University.

Plays

  • New England Summer Storms by Emily Elyse Everett
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    8
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    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: gender, class + 8 more
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy, drama, tragedy
    Keyword: gender, class, greed, Ambition, unlikable women, marriage, friend groups, capitalism, American identity, nostalgia
    2 hrs with intermission. Hazel Green, now Hazel Tarlow, marries her rich classmate from college—and all of their friends think they know why she did it. A story of obsession, ambition, addiction, and greed, of choosing between what you want and what you need, and of what it takes to have power in America. Loose retelling of Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler". ​
  • Tryhard by Emily Elyse Everett
    Recommendations: 12
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: dark comedy
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    Keyword: death, cancer + 7 more
    Genre: dark comedy
    Keyword: death, cancer, breakup, adult orphan, female friendship, small cast, communication problems, toxic relationships, therapy language
    90 minutes with optional intermission. A woman desperate to do good in the wake of grief returns to her Pacific Northwest town to visit her childhood friend, who has been struck by unexpected tragedy.
  • Serenity by Emily Elyse Everett
    Recommendations: 4
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama
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    Keyword: sexuality, faith + 8 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: sexuality, faith, Adolescence, female friendship, anxiety, Catholicism, high school, christianity, queer, Lesbian
    90 minutes. Four students at Sacred Heart Academy for Girls tangle themselves in their fears, obsessions, identities, and faiths as they battle for a place on the coveted Sacred Heart Church Counsel. 
  • Strange and Splendid by Emily Elyse Everett
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    6–50
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    Genre: experimental, fable/folktale + 2 more
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    Keyword: mythology, romance + 4 more
    Genre: experimental, fable/folktale, movement/physical, verse
    Keyword: mythology, romance, adaptation of The Odyssey, large cast, dance, Greek chorus
    75-90 minutes. A girl and a boy fall in love. The gods get jealous and steal the boy away. The girl journeys to get him back. Largely in verse.
  • -1, 0, 1 by Emily Elyse Everett
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: dark comedy
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    Keyword: absurd, LGBTQ + 2 more
    Genre: dark comedy
    Keyword: absurd, LGBTQ, masculinity, queer
    10 minutes. How different is the version of you just one reality over from this one? A perfectly normal teenage boy is visited by a slightly different perfectly normal teenage boy, from one reality over. They're both visited by a slightly different slightly different perfectly normal teenage boy from one reality over in the other direction.
  • We're In Prison by Emily Elyse Everett
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy, experimental + 1 more
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    Keyword: comedy, absurdist + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, experimental, movement/physical
    Keyword: comedy, absurdist, metatheatrical, Audience Interaction, experimental
    10 minutes. A prisoner knows that he's performing in front of an audience, but can't figure out why he can only say what's been written down in the script. A guard knows that there's a script, but doesn't see the audience in front of him. Huh??
  • War Story by Emily Elyse Everett
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: drama, movement/physical + 1 more
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    Keyword: war, soldier + 3 more
    Genre: drama, movement/physical, political
    Keyword: war, soldier, tyranny, violence, colonialism
    15 minutes. A series of short vignettes weave together a complex criticism of war and war culture, bringing in the perspective of children, parents, soldiers, and dictators. Features interludes of interpretive movement.
  • Sappington! [or] The Lamentations and Tribulations of Butlerhood by Emily Elyse Everett
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    7–12
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    Genre: comedy, farce + 1 more
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    Keyword: Farce, Downton Abbey + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, farce, period
    Keyword: Farce, Downton Abbey, large cast, college, high school, middle school, British, Shakespeare, Spanish
    45-60 minutes. Barnabus Sappington used to be a butler, and Barnabus Sappington is in therapy. His therapist, Dr. Robinson, isn't very good at his job, but is very good at interrupting his client's stories. We piece together Sappington's past and meet the many previous families he worked for, including a murderous 8 year old, a group of retired Broadway actresses, and an expat from Spain escaping the law.
  • Midnight by Emily Elyse Everett
    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: drama, immersive + 1 more
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    Keyword: rural America, southern gothic + 6 more
    Genre: drama, immersive, musical
    Keyword: rural America, southern gothic, Evangelical Christianity, abortion rights, abortion, folk musicals, audience participation, immersive
    75-90 minutes. Part folk musical, part ritual performed by actor-musicians. A baby in a struggling rural community has just died, and the parishioners of the church gather to celebrate, judge, and unravel her life.