Noelle Viñas

Noelle Viñas

Noelle Viñas is a playwright, TV writer, and educator from Springfield, Virginia and Montevideo, Uruguay. Her play DERECHO (2019 John Gassner Playwriting Award, 2020 Himan Brown Award) was workshopped as part of the 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Recent productions include FEEL THE SPIRIT (Shotgun Players, Colt Coeur), ZOOM INTERVENTION for Weston Playhouse (NY Times Critic's Pick), and the book for...
Noelle Viñas is a playwright, TV writer, and educator from Springfield, Virginia and Montevideo, Uruguay. Her play DERECHO (2019 John Gassner Playwriting Award, 2020 Himan Brown Award) was workshopped as part of the 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Recent productions include FEEL THE SPIRIT (Shotgun Players, Colt Coeur), ZOOM INTERVENTION for Weston Playhouse (NY Times Critic's Pick), and the book for THE LONG HORIZON, a space musical for Imagination Stage. She was previously part of Playwrights Foundation's four-year Resident Playwrights Initiative (2017-2020), a 2019 Artist-in-Residence at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, a Colt Coeur Resident Artist, and a 2020-2021 Civilians R&D Group member. Most recently, she was a 2021 Tofte Lake Center NEAP Resident, received the 2021 Jeffry Melnick New Playwright Award at Primary Stages, and is a member of the 2022 Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm. Viñas resides between Brooklyn and Los Angeles where she is writing on the show MRS. DAVIS. BA, Emerson College; MFA, Brooklyn College.

Plays

  • El Cóndor Mágico by Noelle Viñas
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    5–7
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    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller + 1 more
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    Keyword: family, mystery + 5 more
    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller, political
    Keyword: family, mystery, absurdist, magical realism, autobiography, Uruguay, U.S. politics
    2022 Eugene O'Neill Finalist. 2020-2021 Civilians R&D Group: developed with director Galia Backal.

    Nieta is a high school teacher less than a year into grieving her father. It's 2017, and it's possible an authoritarian president was elected in the United States. But instead of dealing with grief or the state of the U.S., she's been having these WEIRD dreams. Dreams that...
    2022 Eugene O'Neill Finalist. 2020-2021 Civilians R&D Group: developed with director Galia Backal.

    Nieta is a high school teacher less than a year into grieving her father. It's 2017, and it's possible an authoritarian president was elected in the United States. But instead of dealing with grief or the state of the U.S., she's been having these WEIRD dreams. Dreams that tell her that her Uruguayan family is trying to hide something. And maybe that something is a whole dictatorship and their role in it? Anyway, she's on the surrealist case with birds, trapdoors, and ghosts because she's gonna get to the bottom of it, especially since a good mystery is ALWAYS a good way to avoid dealing with her feelings. What could go wrong?
  • DERECHO by Noelle Viñas
    Recommendations: 10
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    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: drama, political
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    Keyword: Latinx, women of color + 4 more
    Genre: drama, political
    Keyword: Latinx, women of color, Politics, Virginia, family, poetry
    2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Winner, The John Gassner Playwriting Award. Honorable Mention for the 2019 Jane Chambers Award.

    Hoping to join the wave of women of color elected for public office, Eugenia Silva fights to bring an old friend onto her primary campaign in the Virginia General Assembly. As a storm brews, tensions between her ambitions and her sister Mercedes begin overshadowing...
    2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Winner, The John Gassner Playwriting Award. Honorable Mention for the 2019 Jane Chambers Award.

    Hoping to join the wave of women of color elected for public office, Eugenia Silva fights to bring an old friend onto her primary campaign in the Virginia General Assembly. As a storm brews, tensions between her ambitions and her sister Mercedes begin overshadowing the need to reconnect with her roots and family. As the past manifests and interrupts the present, the sisters must confront how traditional Latino values conflict with an American definition of success that is always changing. How can they swim back to each other when fragmented identity threatens to tear them apart?
  • Pastures Green by Noelle Viñas
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    5–6
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    Genre: experimental, romantic comedy
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    Keyword: queer, church + 5 more
    Genre: experimental, romantic comedy
    Keyword: queer, church, evangelical, Lesbian, quantum, brujeria, magical realism
    WORK IN PROGRESS, SEEKING DEVELOPMENT: Mariela grows up afraid to reveal her true feelings about women, fearing rejection from her community and iglesia. Meanwhile, Addie plummets towards her white picket fence future with creeping regrets of unexplored experiences. Their worlds collide when they both seek out advice from the same bruje, opening up a quantum possibility in which a shared ache bridges two worlds.
  • Feel The Spirit by Noelle Viñas
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    5–7
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    Genre: drama, faith-based + 1 more
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    Keyword: church, zoom + 3 more
    Genre: drama, faith-based, zoom
    Keyword: church, zoom, Latina lesbian character, Politics, COVID
    [Commissioned for Zoom by Shotgun Players - Produced by Shotgun Plays in April 2021 and by Colt Coeur in New York in June 2021]

    Gabriela is a young, queer pastor attempting to navigate her new congregation’s shift to online worship due to COVID-19. As seasons change outside and the flat timeline of quarantine continues, the church fights to maintain a practice that rotates around fellowship and...
    [Commissioned for Zoom by Shotgun Players - Produced by Shotgun Plays in April 2021 and by Colt Coeur in New York in June 2021]

    Gabriela is a young, queer pastor attempting to navigate her new congregation’s shift to online worship due to COVID-19. As seasons change outside and the flat timeline of quarantine continues, the church fights to maintain a practice that rotates around fellowship and community across generations and cultures when they can’t hug, cook, or sing together.
  • Zoom Intevention by Noelle Viñas
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    1
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: addiction, motherhood + 3 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: addiction, motherhood, chemotherapy, pandemic, zoom
    Short play commissioned by Weston Playhouse Theatre Company and directed by Estefanía Fadul. Ursula (originally played by Liza Colón-Zayas) struggles against technology and her own anger to communicate a message of love and support to her son. Jesse Greene called this play "the evening's standout" of 14 other monologues and "beautifully structured and as long as it needs to be" in The New York Times.
  • PENGUIN PLAY by Noelle Viñas
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    6–9
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    Genre: fantasy
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    Keyword: climate crisis, sisterhood + 2 more
    Genre: fantasy
    Keyword: climate crisis, sisterhood, theater, terminal illness
    Valentina is the only caretaker for her terminally-ill younger sister, Sofia, who hopes to also be part of a renowned climate change theater troupe Valentina works for. When a penguin god is invited into both the hospital room and the artistic process, both sisters must confront what it means to let go of the things that tie us to this earth and fly in a new form.
  • breakroom by Noelle Viñas
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    7–9
    ·
    Genre: adventure, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: family, absurdism + 3 more
    Genre: adventure, dark comedy, experimental, fantasy
    Keyword: family, absurdism, generations, women, actor-musicians
    WORK-IN-PROGRESS, SEEKING DEVELOPMENT (and a brilliant scenic design team): Mary and Brina are two sisters who live nomadically and care for each other due to Brina's self-destructive tendencies. When they start a "break room" business in a non-existent Nevada, old wounds begin to bleed, broken objects come alive to wreak havoc in the town, and young Amelia (the child of one of them and a...
    WORK-IN-PROGRESS, SEEKING DEVELOPMENT (and a brilliant scenic design team): Mary and Brina are two sisters who live nomadically and care for each other due to Brina's self-destructive tendencies. When they start a "break room" business in a non-existent Nevada, old wounds begin to bleed, broken objects come alive to wreak havoc in the town, and young Amelia (the child of one of them and a violinist) begins a journey towards healing what her family could not. Originally developed as part of the Inkwell's Wellspring Initiative in 2015, it requires further development and collaboration to be ready for staging.
  • La profesora by Noelle Viñas
    Cast: 
    1
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    Genre: docudrama/historic, political
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    Keyword: education, US foreign policy + 3 more
    Genre: docudrama/historic, political
    Keyword: education, US foreign policy, Uruguay, Nibia Sabalsagaray, Immigrants
    Tachi, a Uruguayan-educator in the US, must confront her boss about getting fired for a lesson on the Uruguayan communist Nibia Sabalsagaray and discovers some painful truths along the way.

    One-Act solo show commissioned by TheatreFirst in Berkeley, CA. Produced in Feb 2018, but still in development for translation into Spanish and possible extension into full length.
  • Apocalypse, Please by Noelle Viñas
    Cast: 
    7–9
    ·
    Genre: adventure, dark comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: Camelot, computers + 4 more
    Genre: adventure, dark comedy, experimental, fantasy, science fiction
    Keyword: Camelot, computers, cell phones, dysfunction, technical design, Projections
    Remy, a programmer who encrypts a cellular radiation protection service called SafeShell at MIT, finds herself the subject of international and mythological attention when implicated in radiation corruption that kills 2/3 of the United States. Her own sense of guilt and delusion corrupt reality, along with space and time - or maybe it's just Excalibur. This play was re-written and co-produced with Kevin...
    Remy, a programmer who encrypts a cellular radiation protection service called SafeShell at MIT, finds herself the subject of international and mythological attention when implicated in radiation corruption that kills 2/3 of the United States. Her own sense of guilt and delusion corrupt reality, along with space and time - or maybe it's just Excalibur. This play was re-written and co-produced with Kevin Vincenti for a world premiere at PianoFight in San Francisco in March 2017. Further inquiries should contact the playwright.
  • nevermind by Noelle Viñas
    Cast: 
    5–7
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy
    ·
    Keyword: Relationships, drinking + 4 more
    Genre: dark comedy
    Keyword: Relationships, drinking, college, millennials, storm, Virginia
    Morgan writes poems with lowercase letters about growing up below the Mason-Dixon line (which always looks different when you come back from your college up north). Morgan talks shit about the southeastern university her dysfunctional sometimes-boyfriend goes to, despite visiting for the excessive drinking culture. But what happens when Morgan stops observing and realizes she might accidentally have written...
    Morgan writes poems with lowercase letters about growing up below the Mason-Dixon line (which always looks different when you come back from your college up north). Morgan talks shit about the southeastern university her dysfunctional sometimes-boyfriend goes to, despite visiting for the excessive drinking culture. But what happens when Morgan stops observing and realizes she might accidentally have written herself into a corner with her faux-Southern narrative?