Zoe Lasden-Lyman

Zoë's plays walk the razor's edge between frightening realism and dark, lyrical surrealism. She writes about off-key caregiving relationships, myths, monsters, and the outer limits of empathy.

Zoë hopes her plays will radically expand how far people are willing to adventure into each other's worlds, not only in theater but in life. Zoe is a 2020 National Playwrights Conference Finalist and a Leah Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Writers Finalist. She is a current member of Hunter College's epic MFA Playwriting class of 2022.

Zoë's plays walk the razor's edge between frightening realism and dark, lyrical surrealism. She writes about off-key caregiving relationships, myths, monsters, and the outer limits of empathy.

Zoë hopes her plays will radically expand how far people are willing to adventure into each other's worlds, not only in theater but in life. Zoe is a 2020 National Playwrights Conference Finalist and a Leah Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Writers Finalist. She is a current member of Hunter College's epic MFA Playwriting class of 2022.

Scripts

Grendel's Mother

by Zoe Lasden-Lyman

1
Cast Size
5—6
Genre
dark comedy,
drama,
horror,
immersive,
mystery/thriller

She helps all the humans and animals in her building. Then why won't she answer this strange, new knocking at her apartment door? A bizarre thriller about the world right now... and about cats.

She helps all the humans and animals in her building. Then why won't she answer this strange, new knocking at her apartment door? A bizarre thriller about the world right now... and about cats.

Bunyip

by Zoe Lasden-Lyman

4
Cast Size
4
Genre
drama,
horror,
science fiction

A mother invites her dead son’s best friend to her isolated Adirondack lake camp to give him an unusual gift: a party boat. Yet as a landscape of real and imagined horror unfurls, we see that is only the beginning of what she wants. Bunyip is a play about the claustrophobia of unbridled empathy, and the horrors we invent to distance ourselves from those in acute pain. The play asks: what happens when another’s...

A mother invites her dead son’s best friend to her isolated Adirondack lake camp to give him an unusual gift: a party boat. Yet as a landscape of real and imagined horror unfurls, we see that is only the beginning of what she wants. Bunyip is a play about the claustrophobia of unbridled empathy, and the horrors we invent to distance ourselves from those in acute pain. The play asks: what happens when another’s suffering is too much to bear? What happens when we bear it anyway?

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