Jessica Owens

Jessica Owens

Jessica Owens is a New York based Playwright, Dramaturg, Producer and Theatre Administrator. Writing includes The Valkyries (O'Neill Semifinalist) (The Tank, Dixon Place), Shedding Load (Eugene O'Neill Semifinalist), I LOVE NEW YORK: a found text american dream(Dixon Place, The Tank) Dramaturgy includes: Farragut North (5th Floor Theatre), The Glass Menagerie (Pigeonholed Theatre), I Once Found Myself...
Jessica Owens is a New York based Playwright, Dramaturg, Producer and Theatre Administrator. Writing includes The Valkyries (O'Neill Semifinalist) (The Tank, Dixon Place), Shedding Load (Eugene O'Neill Semifinalist), I LOVE NEW YORK: a found text american dream(Dixon Place, The Tank) Dramaturgy includes: Farragut North (5th Floor Theatre), The Glass Menagerie (Pigeonholed Theatre), I Once Found Myself in an Isolation Chamber (The Tank), The Pitchforks (The Loading Dock, The Drama League), Macbeth (Columbia Stages), Northern Lights (ATHE Development Workshop), Ascent, and MAY: A New Musical Fable. Jessica has worked at institutions such as The Broadway League, Roundabout Theatre Company, The Public Theater, and Creative Artists Agency. She is a Script Reader for Roundabout, The Public, Dramatists Guild Fellowship, Jewish Plays Project, and various other playwrighting competitions. Co-Founder of The Varsity Theatre Company and Initiative for Millennial Theatre Artists. She holds a BA from Vanderbilt University and an MA from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts & Birkbeck College.

Plays

  • The Valkyries by Jessica Owens
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: adventure, comedy + 6 more
    ·
    Keyword: religious cults, Cults + 5 more
    Genre: adventure, comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, fantasy, horror, tragedy
    Keyword: religious cults, Cults, feminism, dark comedy, trauma, sexual trauma, abuse of women (not depicted)
    The tenuous strands of connection between three women in an all-female doomsday cult start to unravel—revealing how women deal with trauma, what lengths they are willing to go to, what traumas they’re willing to inflict on others, and what portion of their own autonomy they are willing to give up, to feel they’ve regained some semblance of power.
  • Shedding Load by Jessica Owens
    Cast: 
    7–9
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 3 more
    ·
    Keyword: gentrification, generational divide + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, political
    Keyword: gentrification, generational divide, Generational trauma, Brooklyn, 20th century urban America
    This dark comedy starts on the night of the 1977 New York City blackout when a family who has been in Bushwick, Brooklyn for generations watches its store, and its livelihood, burn to the ground in the resulting riots. The play follows the life of Bushwick, the apartment, and the family that occupies both through the generations up through the present day, littered with flashbacks that reveal better times,...
    This dark comedy starts on the night of the 1977 New York City blackout when a family who has been in Bushwick, Brooklyn for generations watches its store, and its livelihood, burn to the ground in the resulting riots. The play follows the life of Bushwick, the apartment, and the family that occupies both through the generations up through the present day, littered with flashbacks that reveal better times, worse times and hint at long kept family secrets. Exploring the effects of shifting economics, politics and social relations across age race and gender, Shedding Load explores what life is like in neighborhoods where major traumatic events occur before and after.
  • I LOVE NEW YORK: a found text american dream by Jessica Owens
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: biography, comedy + 6 more
    Genre: biography, comedy, docudrama/historic, experimental, movement/physical, musical, political, young audiences
    I Love New York explores modern anxiety and the quest for external validation by juxtaposing material from TripAdvisor.com and Ellis Island immigrant interviews. Laughs are followed by questions: Am I that revealing online? Is my anxiety that high? Is the fact that Ive forgotten the question and am questioning my anxiety proof I have anxiety? I Love New York gives Americans from all over the country and...
    I Love New York explores modern anxiety and the quest for external validation by juxtaposing material from TripAdvisor.com and Ellis Island immigrant interviews. Laughs are followed by questions: Am I that revealing online? Is my anxiety that high? Is the fact that Ive forgotten the question and am questioning my anxiety proof I have anxiety? I Love New York gives Americans from all over the country and immigrants from all around the world the opportunity to tell you what The American Dream looks like for them.

    CO-WRITTEN by Will Bonfiglio