Adrian Einspanier

Adrian Einspanier’s plays include Lunch Bunch (PlayCo and Clubbed Thumb; New York Times and Time Out Critic’s Picks; licensed by Concord Theatricals; in development for TV with Film Nation), House Plant (New York Theatre Workshop’s Next Door; ‘highbrow / brilliant’ in New York Magazine’s Approval Matrix; Lambda Literary Award Finalist), I LOVE SEAN (Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow), The Convent of Pleasure (Cherry Lane’s Mentor Project), MADONNA col BAMBINO created with composer Deepali Gupta and director Caitlin Sullivan (Ars Nova’s ANT Fest and the New Ohio’s Ice Factory, curated by New Georges), Doctor De Soto and Other Stories by William Steig conceived by Miranda Haymon and co-written with Miranda Haymon and Seonjae Kim with music by Ellen Winter (TheaterWorksUSA commission), I...

Adrian Einspanier’s plays include Lunch Bunch (PlayCo and Clubbed Thumb; New York Times and Time Out Critic’s Picks; licensed by Concord Theatricals; in development for TV with Film Nation), House Plant (New York Theatre Workshop’s Next Door; ‘highbrow / brilliant’ in New York Magazine’s Approval Matrix; Lambda Literary Award Finalist), I LOVE SEAN (Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow), The Convent of Pleasure (Cherry Lane’s Mentor Project), MADONNA col BAMBINO created with composer Deepali Gupta and director Caitlin Sullivan (Ars Nova’s ANT Fest and the New Ohio’s Ice Factory, curated by New Georges), Doctor De Soto and Other Stories by William Steig conceived by Miranda Haymon and co-written with Miranda Haymon and Seonjae Kim with music by Ellen Winter (TheaterWorksUSA commission), I forgot to tell you (The Brooklyn Rail, June 2021 Issue), and DEBT (co-written with reid tang, developed with Pride Plays, New York Stage and Film, and Breaking the Binary Theatre).

Their work has also been developed or presented by Ars Nova’s Play Group, Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers’ Group, the New Georges Jam (former co-leader),  Williamstown Theatre Festival’s Directing Studio, and A24. They have been a resident at Millay Arts, the Hambidge Center, Sewanee Writers’ Conference (Walter E. Dakin Fellow), Cape Cod Theatre Project (Noel Coward Foundation Writer in Residence), Mercury Store, Erik Ehn’s annual Texas Silent Writing Retreat, and Catwalk Art Residency.

A recipient of the 2023 Lotos Foundation Prize and a member of SPACE on Ryder Farm’s 2024 Working Farm, Adrian teaches at NYU Tisch and the National Theater Institute and is working on a new play commission for Darren Aronofsky‘s Protozoa Pictures and LAMF’s Theater Fund.

Scripts

Lunch Bunch

by Adrian Einspanier

Synopsis

Dragon Fruit! Black Beluga Lentils! Perfectly Soft-Boiled Eggs! Amidst the distinct fear/feeling that: the world is, always has been, always will be (???) going to shit! Seven public defenders seek meaning, belonging, some semblance of order VIA their lunches.

Recent:
PlayCo and Clubbed Thumb directed by Tara Ahmadinejad (2023, originally Scheduled March & April 2020)
Clubbed Thumb's Winterworks and...

Dragon Fruit! Black Beluga Lentils! Perfectly Soft-Boiled Eggs! Amidst the distinct fear/feeling that: the world is, always has been, always will be (???) going to shit! Seven public defenders seek meaning, belonging, some semblance of order VIA their lunches.

Recent:
PlayCo and Clubbed Thumb directed by Tara Ahmadinejad (2023, originally Scheduled March & April 2020)
Clubbed Thumb's Winterworks and Summerworks directed by Tara Ahmadinejad (2019)

New York Times Critic's Pick: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/theater/lunch-bunch-review.html
Time Out Critic's Pick: https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/lunch-bunch
New Yorker Capsule Review: https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/theatre/lunch-bunch-04-1…

I forgot to tell you

by Adrian Einspanier

Synopsis

Are we all just wandering around saying the same shit to different people?
On the perpetual prowl, so to say, for someone to narrate our lives to?

https://brooklynrail.org/2021/06/theater/I-Forgot-to-Tell-You

Are we all just wandering around saying the same shit to different people?
On the perpetual prowl, so to say, for someone to narrate our lives to?

https://brooklynrail.org/2021/06/theater/I-Forgot-to-Tell-You

House Plant

by Adrian Einspanier

Synopsis

!? WELL THEN WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR !? LET’S POP THAT SUCKER IN

When his girlfriend moves on, her best friend moves in. Rivals turned roommates unearth common ground in rejection, rootlessness, and retreat. A play about making do, making rent, and making “Art”—while climbing an (imaginary?) mountain.

Recent: New York Theatre Workshop's Next Door directed by Jaki Bradley, produced by Madeleine Foster Bersin...

!? WELL THEN WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR !? LET’S POP THAT SUCKER IN

When his girlfriend moves on, her best friend moves in. Rivals turned roommates unearth common ground in rejection, rootlessness, and retreat. A play about making do, making rent, and making “Art”—while climbing an (imaginary?) mountain.

Recent: New York Theatre Workshop's Next Door directed by Jaki Bradley, produced by Madeleine Foster Bersin

"Highbrow / Brilliant" in New York Magazine's Approval Matrix: https://nymag.com/article/2020/02/the-approval-matrix-week-of-february-…

I LOVE SEAN

by Adrian Einspanier

Synopsis

Three to three hundred women in pursuit of high ground between dreams, reality, and reality TV. (This is what happens when you write a play after transcribing an entire season of ABC's The Bachelor.)

Recent: The Playwrights Realm's INK'D Festival of New Plays directed by Jenny Koons
(https://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/news/keelay-gipson-s…)

Three to three hundred women in pursuit of high ground between dreams, reality, and reality TV. (This is what happens when you write a play after transcribing an entire season of ABC's The Bachelor.)

Recent: The Playwrights Realm's INK'D Festival of New Plays directed by Jenny Koons
(https://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/news/keelay-gipson-s…)

MADONNA col BAMBINO

by Adrian Einspanier

Synopsis

Merry (with an E) is Christine's surrogate mother. Mary (with an A) is Christine's biological mother. Kristine (with a K) is Christine's biological mother's surrogate daughter. Martha is Christine's friend. Martha is having a baby. She can’t decide on a name. A "play" about family (in many forms) with no yelling.

Created with composer Deepali Gupta and director Caitlin Sullivan

Interview with Julia May Jonas...

Merry (with an E) is Christine's surrogate mother. Mary (with an A) is Christine's biological mother. Kristine (with a K) is Christine's biological mother's surrogate daughter. Martha is Christine's friend. Martha is having a baby. She can’t decide on a name. A "play" about family (in many forms) with no yelling.

Created with composer Deepali Gupta and director Caitlin Sullivan

Interview with Julia May Jonas: https://www.culturebot.org/2018/07/28379/5-questions-with-the-creative-…
Response by Agnes Borinksy: https://www.culturebot.org/2018/08/28464/past-internetting-on-madonna-c…

The Convent of Pleasure

by Adrian Einspanier

Synopsis

Margaret and Katherine are moving? Going back to the earth? Going off the grid? Starting a lesbian sex den (L.S.D. for short)? Or maybe just camping...? Ambitions of meadowy feminist utopias plagued by 17th century men, mortality, and ants.

Margaret and Katherine are moving? Going back to the earth? Going off the grid? Starting a lesbian sex den (L.S.D. for short)? Or maybe just camping...? Ambitions of meadowy feminist utopias plagued by 17th century men, mortality, and ants.