Megan Tabaque

Megan Tabaque

Megan Tabaque is a writer, director, and actor of mixed Filipina-Canadian descent who grew up in the dirtbag stripmalls of Florida’s Gulf Coast. She’s written for theater, fiction, and the immersive, weirdo-giants at Meow Wolf.

Megan writes to create new mythologies, using pop cultural tropes as accessible entry points for absurd, hot button issues. A decorated playwright, Megan’s play Britney...
Megan Tabaque is a writer, director, and actor of mixed Filipina-Canadian descent who grew up in the dirtbag stripmalls of Florida’s Gulf Coast. She’s written for theater, fiction, and the immersive, weirdo-giants at Meow Wolf.

Megan writes to create new mythologies, using pop cultural tropes as accessible entry points for absurd, hot button issues. A decorated playwright, Megan’s play Britney Approximately (an adaptation of Medea remixed with the Britney Spears conservatorship) played to sold-out audiences in Atlanta as part of Theater Emory’s 2023 season. Only Reason (co-written with Kimberly Belflower) was named Best New Play by Austin’s Critic Circle and follows six obsessed teen girl fans when their favorite boy band crashes their tour bus.

Her work has been called “suburban punk poetry,” and “like I don’t know I’m going to be thinking about a big deal thing, and then suddenly, I am, but like, I’m like laughing and then I’m crying and like, I don’t mind, you know?”

Among her other plays are Cycle Play (a two woman thriller that takes place in a Soul Cycle), Marry Me, Bruno Mars (a socio-comic caper about a QAnon believer on a rescue mission) and Batman Returns Returns (an indie-holiday-musical adaptation of Tim Burton’s 90s classic) which she created with installation artist Terror Pigeon at Austin’s Museum of Human Achievement (MOHA).

Upcoming projects include a commission from Inner City Arts youth programs in Los Angeles, the world premiere of her play Decapitations with Salvage Vanguard Theater in Austin, and writing and directing MOHA’s 2023 Christmas Spectacular Edward Normalhands.

Her work has been developed, commissioned, and produced by the Alliance Theater, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Tofte Lake Center, the Workshop Theater, Paper Chairs, Vanderbilt University, and Egg & Spoon Theatre Collective, among others. She is a James A. Michener Fellow, Kundiman Fiction Fellow, Sewanee Writers' Conference Scholar, Seattle Public Theater Emerald Prize finalist, Playwrights' Realm Scratchpad Series semi-finalist, and a 2021 Four Seasons Residency nominee.

She’s taught creative writing at Bennington College, Emory University, UT Austin and at non-profit programs for youth across the U.S. including Rude Mech’s Off Center Teens, the New South Young Playwrights Conference, and the Austin Bat Cave.

Megan has an MFA in Playwriting and Fiction from the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, TX. She currently resides in Los Angeles where she assists award winning screenwriter, Sheila Callaghan and lives with her husband,playwright Drew Paryzer, and their cat Rylance.

Plays

  • Marry Me, Bruno Mars
    A massage parlor worker slash Bruno Mars fan becomes an unwitting damsel in distress when a vigilante conspiracy theorist and his son set out on a Pizza Gate-esque rescue mission.
  • Britney Approximately: A Pop Greek Tragedy
    Britney Approximately is a new play with original pop music about motherhood, isolation, and power. Pushed through a glitter-pink meat grinder, it mixes Eurpides’ Medea with a loose retelling of the Britney Spears conservatorship court battle. One part bombastic and violent Greek Tragedy and one hundred parts tragic-pop-diva-revenge-song, this plays asks: What does our treatment of celebrity say about us?
  • Cycle Play
    When two strangers meet in an urban boutique cycling studio their budding friendship ramps up into a smoothie-ridden rampage of revenge. The cult like language of the club and their intense connection reverberates beyond the studio walls. Cycle Play asks us “Is toxic femininity like, a thing?" and "How combustible are those fast-female-friendships we’ve all been swept up in?" A comedic thriller...
    When two strangers meet in an urban boutique cycling studio their budding friendship ramps up into a smoothie-ridden rampage of revenge. The cult like language of the club and their intense connection reverberates beyond the studio walls. Cycle Play asks us “Is toxic femininity like, a thing?" and "How combustible are those fast-female-friendships we’ve all been swept up in?" A comedic thriller for two actors and one wig.
  • Decapitations
    When a local dog goes missing the week of Halloween, the Santos family become the targets of a homeowners association dispute while also having to mourn the death of their matriarch an ocean away. Surreal, funny, and haunting, Decapitations is a story about a multi-racial Filipino-American family in the form of a ghost story.
  • Galactic Orphans
    With no parents, not enough Doritos, and a little too much vodka in their Sprite, Ri and Ted reunite a year after graduating high school for an all night gaming marathon. But, Ted's little sister, Cory, won't let guys' night happen without a fight. In twenty-four hours, Ri, Cory, and Ted work together to save the war torn gamer galaxy but will they save each other?
  • Only Reason
    Six online friends find their inner strength when their favorite boy band, Only Reason, experiences a near fatal bus crash. Co-written with Kimberly Belflower.
  • The Vegetarian and Her Dead Daddy
    Annie has roped her younger brother Denny into helping perform a dramatic poem at the local Burger King, but nobody shows up. Annie throws herself into the scummy dumpster and Denny has to literally talk her out of it.
  • And Then I Was In the Shark's Mouth
    A woman contemplates her own mortality at the bottom of the ocean after being bitten in two by a shark.
  • Little Blue Boxes
    Siblings Lex and Shea host a zoom memorial for their late mother, just after the death of her favorite game show celebrity, Alex Trebek.
  • Save Me, Sonja Henie
    An olympic hopeful bleeds out on the ice after a deadly collision with her mortal enemy, Stacey. As her soul leaves her body, early skating legends Ulrich Salchow and Sonja Henie glide through her reality.
  • The Francophiles
    Camille is the most inept server at Red Lobster in Celebration, Florida until she decides to leave the cheddar biscuits behind her to pursue her dream job at Disney World. A mysterious French stranger steals Camille's heart away, and also, subsequently her kidney. The Francophiles is a global adventure about a lost kidney and a lost girl. ​​
  • Lightning Bulb Eggs
    Chale recounts the story of her entire life inside the strike of a single lightning bolt. A play with sounds.