Charlie Thurston

Charlie Thurston's plays Lifted, A and B, Empire, A Demonstration by Patient Edward, Radical (Co-written by Deborah Salem Smith), and The History Room have been developed or produced at the Huntington Theater, Local Theater Company, Trinity Rep, Brown University, Cornell College, and Creede Repertory Theater. Creede Repertory's production of The History Room was nominated for a Henry Award for best new play. He was the 2012 recipient of the Trinity Repertory Company’s David Wickham Memorial Playwriting Prize. He holds an MFA in Acting from Brown University/Trinity Rep where he studied playwriting under Erik Ehn and Deborah Salem Smith. Originally from Kansas, he is currently a resident company member at the Tony Award-winning Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI.

Charlie Thurston's plays Lifted, A and B, Empire, A Demonstration by Patient Edward, Radical (Co-written by Deborah Salem Smith), and The History Room have been developed or produced at the Huntington Theater, Local Theater Company, Trinity Rep, Brown University, Cornell College, and Creede Repertory Theater. Creede Repertory's production of The History Room was nominated for a Henry Award for best new play. He was the 2012 recipient of the Trinity Repertory Company’s David Wickham Memorial Playwriting Prize. He holds an MFA in Acting from Brown University/Trinity Rep where he studied playwriting under Erik Ehn and Deborah Salem Smith. Originally from Kansas, he is currently a resident company member at the Tony Award-winning Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI.

Scripts

Lifted

by Charlie Thurston

Synopsis

A modern meditation on the Icarus tale, “Lifted” is part gritty family drama, part imaginative theatrical fantasia. Set in a fictional world not too far off from our own, birds return from extinction and carry off a young man. Is it an act of salvation or a declaration of war? His family and community (both local and global) search for meaning in his disappearance.

A modern meditation on the Icarus tale, “Lifted” is part gritty family drama, part imaginative theatrical fantasia. Set in a fictional world not too far off from our own, birds return from extinction and carry off a young man. Is it an act of salvation or a declaration of war? His family and community (both local and global) search for meaning in his disappearance.

The History Room

by Charlie Thurston

Synopsis

We should always keep our promises, right? In this dark, fantastical comedy Steve made a promise to kill his best friend Helen, if she descends into dementia like her mother. Now, 20 years later he must choose, navigating the many faces of Helen's illness, her stubborn caregiver husband, her estranged daughter, and the ghost of his own son, who is hell-bent on Steve doing the bloody deed. With breathtaking...

We should always keep our promises, right? In this dark, fantastical comedy Steve made a promise to kill his best friend Helen, if she descends into dementia like her mother. Now, 20 years later he must choose, navigating the many faces of Helen's illness, her stubborn caregiver husband, her estranged daughter, and the ghost of his own son, who is hell-bent on Steve doing the bloody deed. With breathtaking moments of magical realism, The History Room explores honor, loss, dying with dignity, the integrity of memory, and who should decide how it ends.