Brynne Frauenhoffer

Brynne Frauenhoffer

Brynne Frauenhoffer (she/her) is a Chicago-based playwright. Past full-length productions of her work include Vape Naysh (First Floor Theater, 2020) and Bury Me (Dandelion Theatre, 2019). The Kilroys selected her play Pro-Am (developed with Sideshow Theatre) for inclusion on The List 2020. Other workshops and readings include The Young Ones (First Floor Theater), Synchronicity (Salt Lake Acting Company; also...
Brynne Frauenhoffer (she/her) is a Chicago-based playwright. Past full-length productions of her work include Vape Naysh (First Floor Theater, 2020) and Bury Me (Dandelion Theatre, 2019). The Kilroys selected her play Pro-Am (developed with Sideshow Theatre) for inclusion on The List 2020. Other workshops and readings include The Young Ones (First Floor Theater), Synchronicity (Salt Lake Acting Company; also named 2018 Semi-Finalist for the O’Neill Center’s National Playwrights Conference), Pizza Hut Heartbreaker (Commission Theatre Company), and Shitty Christians (Prop Thtr). Brynne’s short plays have been produced by Broken Nose Theatre, MadLab, American Blues Theater, Commission Theatre, and the Chicago One-Minute Play Festival.

Currently, Brynne is a member of the New Stages Residency cohort at Goodman Theatre, where she is developing the full-length play Disillusioned. She is also looking forward to the world premiere of Pro-Am with First Floor Theater in May 2024.

www.brynnefrau.com

Plays

  • PRO-AM by Brynne Frauenhoffer
    Cast: 
    8
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy
    ·
    Keyword: pornography, sex work + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy
    Keyword: pornography, sex work, camming, cam girl, internet, online
    Most careers don’t last longer than three months in Miami’s professional-amateur porn scene. But that’s about to change when rising star Chloe Kendall meets the driven trans performer Nastasia. The girls are doing it for themselves now, and for the first time, people won’t just be watching them – they’ll be paying attention.

    Pro-Am was commissioned and developed by Sideshow Theatre Company.
  • Faculty (or, The Opposite of Oleanna) by Brynne Frauenhoffer
    Cast: 
    9
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, farce + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: college, metoo + 2 more
    Genre: dark comedy, farce, political
    Keyword: college, metoo, professor-student relationships, complicity
    Spring Semester, 2018: the progressive professors at a college theatre program marooned in a Red State assemble to select a Relevant, Thought-Provoking season in the wake of #MeToo. They each feel compelled to speak to the Moment, to start the Conversation, to confront their conservative audiences with Truth--until the college newspaper publishes an expose guaranteed to bring the hashtags home.
  • Vape Naysh by Brynne Frauenhoffer
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: vaping, vape culture + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: vaping, vape culture, queer community
    CloudChaserz is your one-stop vape shop: Molly finds your ideal mod, Teague recommends the sickest e-juices, and Trace...well, they’re just always around, adding to the dope vibes. But when the nation’s Juul-crazed teens start coming down with mysterious lung diseases, the trio worries that Big Tobacco and the Feds will kill their small town’s sole vapor oasis turned makeshift queer haven.
  • Sh*tty Christians by Brynne Frauenhoffer
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: christianity, gay + 4 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: christianity, gay, gay Christian, church, queer, faith
    Three onetime BFFs join together as twenty-somethings to redesign their childhood church's website. This unexpected youth group reunion starts with vision boards and SEO optimization, but quickly old wounds and new outlooks on God disrupt their creative flow as queerness and the modern non-denominational movement collide.

    Content warning: strong language, references to homophobia and slurs,...
    Three onetime BFFs join together as twenty-somethings to redesign their childhood church's website. This unexpected youth group reunion starts with vision boards and SEO optimization, but quickly old wounds and new outlooks on God disrupt their creative flow as queerness and the modern non-denominational movement collide.

    Content warning: strong language, references to homophobia and slurs, religious themes, sexual references
  • Pizza Hut Heartbreaker by Brynne Frauenhoffer
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    8
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, romantic comedy
    As a teenager, Pizza Hut was the only place that felt like home to Dakota. When the Hut hires Zoe, a straight-A suburban Christian virgin with Ivy League dreams, Dakota doesn’t think she'll like the bougie newbie much. But after a few shifts, Zoe proves her worth and endears herself to Dakota, who falls for her. Too bad her fellow cook Nick feels the same way.

    Amidst the romantic shenanigans...
    As a teenager, Pizza Hut was the only place that felt like home to Dakota. When the Hut hires Zoe, a straight-A suburban Christian virgin with Ivy League dreams, Dakota doesn’t think she'll like the bougie newbie much. But after a few shifts, Zoe proves her worth and endears herself to Dakota, who falls for her. Too bad her fellow cook Nick feels the same way.

    Amidst the romantic shenanigans, the crew wonders: will General Manager Liz ever leave the back office and, um, do her job? Is Assistant Manager Jaylynn ever going to acknowledge her obvious baby bump? Will driver Billy finally end his infinite engagement, marry his fiance, and move out of her parents’ garage?

    Pizza Hut Heartbreaker is the story of co-workers, who become friends, who function a lot like family, exploring along the way how we end up in the lives we may or may not have chosen--and who gets to decide how much those lives mean.
  • Bury Me by Brynne Frauenhoffer
    Recommendations: 3
    ·
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: drama, political
    Genre: drama, political
    Michelle and Josh didn't mean to get pregnant. Five months along, they return to Josh's rural hometown to visit his fiercely loving yet overworked mother, ailing stepfather, and outspoken teenage sibling. Upon their arrival in Pacific, Missouri, a fateful fender-bender brings new and old truths into the light and forces each of them to evaluate their beliefs about parenthood, in God, and in the plans...
    Michelle and Josh didn't mean to get pregnant. Five months along, they return to Josh's rural hometown to visit his fiercely loving yet overworked mother, ailing stepfather, and outspoken teenage sibling. Upon their arrival in Pacific, Missouri, a fateful fender-bender brings new and old truths into the light and forces each of them to evaluate their beliefs about parenthood, in God, and in the plans that they've made for their lives.
  • Synchronicity by Brynne Frauenhoffer
    Recommendations: 5
    ·
    Cast: 
    6–7
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 2 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, mystery/thriller, young audiences
    On a dangerous rural highway, two teenage girls wreck their cars exactly two years apart. Sarah was driving sober in broad daylight, Mal was driving drunk at 3 a.m.—but it’s only Mal who survives. When Mal encounters Sarah’s ghost at the crash site, she’s forced to consider why she’s still alive and looks for ways to help her new ghost friend. Meanwhile, Mal’s mom, feeling guilty at the injustice of her...
    On a dangerous rural highway, two teenage girls wreck their cars exactly two years apart. Sarah was driving sober in broad daylight, Mal was driving drunk at 3 a.m.—but it’s only Mal who survives. When Mal encounters Sarah’s ghost at the crash site, she’s forced to consider why she’s still alive and looks for ways to help her new ghost friend. Meanwhile, Mal’s mom, feeling guilty at the injustice of her daughter’s survival, befriends Sarah’s grieving mother. Through these unusual, fraught friendships, the four women search for purpose behind their unfair fates.
  • Upload by Brynne Frauenhoffer
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: science, singularity + 4 more
    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama, tragedy
    Keyword: science, singularity, transhumanism, simulation, start-ups, news
    Based on this article about a real start-up aiming to pave the way for mind-uploading:

    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610456/a-startup-is-pitching-a-mind-uploading-service-that-is-100-percent-fatal/
  • Tonight by Brynne Frauenhoffer
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: drama, political
    Genre: drama, political
    At a shitty little diner in rural Missouri, three female employees react--in their own ways--to the incoming results of the 2016 presidential election.
  • Polly and Cass by Brynne Frauenhoffer
    Recommendations: 3
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, science fiction
    ·
    Keyword: mythology, technology
    Genre: adaptation, science fiction
    Keyword: mythology, technology
    In an interrogation room, in the near future, a scientist confronts her former test subject, who has since gone rogue. A slightly sci-fi retelling of a Greek myth.