Allison Engel

Allison Engel has been a newspaper reporter for the Des Moines Tribune, San Jose Mercury and Pacific News Service, a magazine columnist for Saveur and Renovation Style, and a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. She was the director of communications at the University of Southern California for five years, where she completed an MA in screenwriting. She is now the associate director of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at USC, and writes about arts at the university.
Earlier, living in Iowa, she was active in the Des Moines Playhouse, serving as president and head of play selection, and was a speechwriter and aide in the Office of the Governor and Lt. Governor.
She co-wrote "Food Finds: America’s Best Local Foods and the People Who Produce Them" with her twin...

Allison Engel has been a newspaper reporter for the Des Moines Tribune, San Jose Mercury and Pacific News Service, a magazine columnist for Saveur and Renovation Style, and a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. She was the director of communications at the University of Southern California for five years, where she completed an MA in screenwriting. She is now the associate director of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at USC, and writes about arts at the university.
Earlier, living in Iowa, she was active in the Des Moines Playhouse, serving as president and head of play selection, and was a speechwriter and aide in the Office of the Governor and Lt. Governor.
She co-wrote "Food Finds: America’s Best Local Foods and the People Who Produce Them" with her twin sister, Margaret Engel, and helped turn the book into a show for Food Network, where it ran for seven years.
In 2010, she and Margaret wrote the play "Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins." It had its world premiere at Philadelphia Theatre Company, with Kathleen Turner in the title role, and it broke the theatre’s all-time box office record. The play went on to break various box office records at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, the Zach Theatre in Austin, Texas, Berkeley Rep and others. The play is still being produced regularly and has had about 30 productions to date around the country. "Red Hot Patriot" was published by Samuel French.
The Engel sisters’ second play, "Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End," had its world premiere at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., in October 2015, with Broadway director David Esbjornson directing, as part of the Women's Voices Theatre Festival.

Scripts

The Vote: The Miracle Win in Just 72 Years

by Allison Engel

Cast Size

7—20

Genre

biography,

docudrama/historic,

drama,

political

This play, which can be done as a Readers' Theater or fully-staged production, intercuts the drama of election day voting irregularities in Georgia in 2018 (when Stacey Abrams was running to become the first female African American governor) with the long struggle for women to secure the right to vote. It shines new light on the suffrage movement (which passed by one vote!) and how black women, Asian women and...

This play, which can be done as a Readers' Theater or fully-staged production, intercuts the drama of election day voting irregularities in Georgia in 2018 (when Stacey Abrams was running to become the first female African American governor) with the long struggle for women to secure the right to vote. It shines new light on the suffrage movement (which passed by one vote!) and how black women, Asian women and Native American women did not receive the vote in 1920 when white women did. It introduces little known courageous women, their wacky stunts and humiliating experiences on their way to finally getting the right to vote. But, even now, the play shows, voting remains a tenuous right that requires a fight.

Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins

by Allison Engel

Cast Size

2

Genre

comedy,

docudrama/historic,

drama,

political

(Co-written with Margaret Engel; has had approximately 30 productions nationwide. World premiere was a box-office record setting production at Philadelphia Theatre Company with Kathleen Turner starring, and she reprised the role at highly successful runs at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, Berkeley Rep in Berkeley, CA and Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. The play is published by Samuel French.)
From...

(Co-written with Margaret Engel; has had approximately 30 productions nationwide. World premiere was a box-office record setting production at Philadelphia Theatre Company with Kathleen Turner starring, and she reprised the role at highly successful runs at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, Berkeley Rep in Berkeley, CA and Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. The play is published by Samuel French.)
From the Baltimore Sun review:
“The work couldn't be more timely. No matter which side of the political aisle you stand on, it would be hard to disagree with what Ivins said years before our current climate: ‘Politics today stinks ... These are some bad, ugly and angry times, and I am so freaked out. Hate has stolen the conversation.’
“The rants and reflections, not to mention all the wicked wit in between, sound fresher than ever, and they keep this ‘Red Hot Patriot’ spinning. No, make that kicking ass.”

Erma Bombeck: At Wit's End

by Allison Engel

Cast Size

1

Genre

comedy,

docudrama/historic,

drama

(Co-written with Margaret Engel; had its world premiere in October 2015 at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.)

From the writers of the smash hit "Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins" comes a look at one of our country’s most beloved voices, who captured the frustrations of her generation by asking, “If life is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing in the pits?” Discover the story behind the award...

(Co-written with Margaret Engel; had its world premiere in October 2015 at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.)

From the writers of the smash hit "Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins" comes a look at one of our country’s most beloved voices, who captured the frustrations of her generation by asking, “If life is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing in the pits?” Discover the story behind the award-winning humorist who championed women’s lives with wit that sprang from the most unexpected place of all — the truth.