Jessica Durdock Moreno

#StopTheShock

In no particular order, Jessica Durdock Moreno (she/any) is a Neuroqueering writer, producer, consultant, actress, director, dramaturg, and teacher. In the summer of 2023, Jessica was appointed to the position of Artistic Director of the Sherman Players; a community theater in Connecticut.

Jessica formed Pale Horse Craft, a Neurodiversity and Learning Disability centered practice, production, and performance container in 2019. Through PHC, she premiered her first full length play "To Richard!" at the Hollywood Fringe Festival that same year, where she won the Encore Producers Award, and was nominated for the Inkwell Theater Playwright’s Promise Award.

As a Neurodiversity Consultant, Jessica worked with director Chay Yew and actress Anna Zavelson on New York City Center's...

#StopTheShock

In no particular order, Jessica Durdock Moreno (she/any) is a Neuroqueering writer, producer, consultant, actress, director, dramaturg, and teacher. In the summer of 2023, Jessica was appointed to the position of Artistic Director of the Sherman Players; a community theater in Connecticut.

Jessica formed Pale Horse Craft, a Neurodiversity and Learning Disability centered practice, production, and performance container in 2019. Through PHC, she premiered her first full length play "To Richard!" at the Hollywood Fringe Festival that same year, where she won the Encore Producers Award, and was nominated for the Inkwell Theater Playwright’s Promise Award.

As a Neurodiversity Consultant, Jessica worked with director Chay Yew and actress Anna Zavelson on New York City Center's Encores! production of "The Light in the Piazza" in June of 2023. She is a member of Liz Lerman and John Borstel’s 2022-2023 Critical Response Process Certification cohort, where she is focusing her research on creating feedback and dramaturgical processes that center Neurodivergent and Learning Disabled theatermakers.

As a writer, Jessica's second full length play “Georgie D.” was developed in the Chain Theatre Playwriting Lab, where it received a full workshop production in New York in the summer of 2021. She was a finalist for the Theater Masters Take Ten 2020 Festival, and a semifinalist for the Athena Project’s 2020 Plays in Progress Series. She has developed plays with the Workshop Theater, who presented a reading of her play “New Canaan” starring Debra Jo Rupp in the fall of 2021. Her work has been presented by TEDx Asbury Park, the Full Circle Theatre Collaborative’s New Works Festival, the Boston Theater Marathon, the NYU Tisch Bespoke Play Zoom Festival, and the NYU Tisch Critical Response Process Workshop. She has published plays with Smith and Kraus, some scripts literary magazine, and Fleas on the Dog. She began her writing training at Los Angeles City College, where she won the 2019 Cinema and Television Department’s Best Screenplay Award for her television pilot “Filly.” She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 2021 where she was the recipient of the John Golden Playwriting Prize, awarded by the MFA faculty. She has developed work through the Echo Theater Company’s Los Angeles Young Playwrights program, and also with the Road Theatre’s Under Construction 3 Playwrights Group. In 2023, Jessica was named a Dramatists Guild Foundation National Fellowship semifinalist.

As a producer, Jessica has developed original plays and managed productions off-Broadway in New York, in Los Angeles, and multiple turns at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Her award-winning productions have been featured in or reviewed by The New York Times, Variety, W Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Post, Newsweek, Time-Out NY, The Village Voice, USA Today, Backstage Magazine, The Scotsman, The Edinburgh Evening News, The Stage UK, The LA-ist, and numerous other national and international publications.

As an actress, Jessica has performed lead roles off-Broadway in New York, in Los Angeles, the National Black Theater Festival, and multiple turns at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She has also appeared in several award-winning independent films, and as a bunch of different nurses on a bunch of different daytime dramas. She won the Most Unleashed Performance Award at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, the Outstanding Theatre Performance Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and was nominated for a Stage Scene LA Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Lead Actress in a Comedy. She studied Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, Suzuki and Viewpoints with SITI Company, and classical ballet and Swedish in Stockholm.​

Jessica is on staff at Long Wharf Theatre, where she works between the Executive Office, Artistic Staff, and Accessibility Team. She graduated magna cum laude with departmental honors from Columbia University, where she received a B.A. in Socio-Cultural Anthropology (focus on North American Settler Colonialism). She received her MFA from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts - Department of Dramatic Writing. Jessica grew up in New Milford, Connecticut, where she danced professionally as a teen with BLUDance Theatre and as a guest artist with Pilobolus.

Expect typos.

IG: @PaleHorseCraft
www.JessicaDurdockMoreno.com
www.PaleHorseCraft.com
#PaleHorseCraft

Scripts

"To Richard!"

by Jessica Durdock Moreno

Synopsis

PRODUCTION - Hollywood Fringe Festival, 2019
WON - Encore Producers Award
NOMINATED - Inkwell Theater Playwright’s Promise Award

“Wonderful...A piece of theatre crafted to highlight the abilities of two actors is always going to win out, in my book….It was a lovely time spent in the theatre.”- THE THEATRE TIMES.

Carol, an older, atheist, white lady, and Andrew, a younger, Catholic, Latino man, fatefully cross...

PRODUCTION - Hollywood Fringe Festival, 2019
WON - Encore Producers Award
NOMINATED - Inkwell Theater Playwright’s Promise Award

“Wonderful...A piece of theatre crafted to highlight the abilities of two actors is always going to win out, in my book….It was a lovely time spent in the theatre.”- THE THEATRE TIMES.

Carol, an older, atheist, white lady, and Andrew, a younger, Catholic, Latino man, fatefully cross paths deep in the woods of Connecticut one crisp autumn afternoon. Carol carries a monogrammed L.L. Bean canvas tote bag. And Andrew…wait, shouldn’t his name be Andrés? After sufficiently freaking each other out, this comedy of errors quickly devolves into a soul-baring, truth-revealing tête-à-tête that both magnifies and transcends Carol’s and Andrew’s differences, proving that sometimes polar opposites have more in common than meets the eye.

"Georgie D."

by Jessica Durdock Moreno

Synopsis

PRODUCTION - Chain Theatre, 2021
SEMI-FINALIST - Athena Project’s 2020 Plays in Progress Series
READING - Chain Theatre Playwriting Lab, 2021
PARTICIPANT - Workshop Theater Fall Playwriting Intensive, 2020

"The family saga in this play was relatable and heartfelt all the way through. The audience was taken on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, ranging from anger to disgust, to forgiveness and acceptance. It...

PRODUCTION - Chain Theatre, 2021
SEMI-FINALIST - Athena Project’s 2020 Plays in Progress Series
READING - Chain Theatre Playwriting Lab, 2021
PARTICIPANT - Workshop Theater Fall Playwriting Intensive, 2020

"The family saga in this play was relatable and heartfelt all the way through. The audience was taken on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, ranging from anger to disgust, to forgiveness and acceptance. It also showed us the true meaning of togetherness and the power of saying, "I love you."" - BROADWAY WORLD

“Georgie D.” is a loving tribute to the fictional Dudka family; working class folks from Pennsylvania coal country whose familial bond has been crumbling like a lump of anthracite since June 6th, 1944. Now 2011, Margaret Dudka, forty and forever going nowhere fast, reunites with her damaged-goods brother Thomas at their estranged father’s deathbed to “pull the plug,” sell the house, and settle the old man’s affairs as quickly as possible. Their efforts are complicated, however, when the chaos that has been slowly and silently tearing their family apart for generations is stirred up by their mutual longing to remember the love that might have been there all along. Georgie D. is not just Margaret and Thomas’s dad; he is the possibility on the other side of what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget in the name of family, loyalty, duty, forgiveness, and love.

"New Canaan"

by Jessica Durdock Moreno

Synopsis

READING - Workshop Theater Lab, featuring Debra Jo Rupp, 2021
READING - Workshop Theater In-House Reading, 2021
PARTICIPANT - Workshop Theater Winter Playwriting Intensive, 2021

Bette, 70, a classy lady from Connecticut, will do whatever it takes to throw herself the fabulous birthday dinner party she’s earned and deserves--because no one else will. But when her daughter Mary, 40 and still living at home...

READING - Workshop Theater Lab, featuring Debra Jo Rupp, 2021
READING - Workshop Theater In-House Reading, 2021
PARTICIPANT - Workshop Theater Winter Playwriting Intensive, 2021

Bette, 70, a classy lady from Connecticut, will do whatever it takes to throw herself the fabulous birthday dinner party she’s earned and deserves--because no one else will. But when her daughter Mary, 40 and still living at home, attempts to sabotage Bette's efforts, the two women must decide between saving or destroying each other while battling out their lifelong mother-daughter crisis. Will they discover the root of and resolution to their epic love-hate relationship--or they will just do it all over again tomorrow?

"Funeral"

by Jessica Durdock Moreno

Synopsis

PARTICIPANT - Full Circle Theatre Collaborative’s New Works Festival, 2021
PARTICIPANT - Boston Theater Marathon, 2021
PARTICIPANT - NYU Tisch Critical Response Process Workshop, 2020
PARTICIPANT - NYU Tisch Bespoke Play Zoom Festival, 2020

PUBLISHED - Issue 4: “Outbreak,” some scripts literary magazine, 2021
PUBLISHED - Boston Theatre Marathon XXIII Anthology, Smith and Kraus Publishers, 2021

Under the...

PARTICIPANT - Full Circle Theatre Collaborative’s New Works Festival, 2021
PARTICIPANT - Boston Theater Marathon, 2021
PARTICIPANT - NYU Tisch Critical Response Process Workshop, 2020
PARTICIPANT - NYU Tisch Bespoke Play Zoom Festival, 2020

PUBLISHED - Issue 4: “Outbreak,” some scripts literary magazine, 2021
PUBLISHED - Boston Theatre Marathon XXIII Anthology, Smith and Kraus Publishers, 2021

Under the increasing physical and mental weight of pandemic isolation, Brian tries to muster enthusiasm for his best friend Tyler's Zoom wedding. But as technology fails the whole family on this momentous day, the lightness of celebration quickly transforms into heavy grieving as the wedding begins to feel more like a funeral.

"You Still There?"

by Jessica Durdock Moreno

Synopsis

PARTICIPANT - TEDx Asbury Park "JOY 2022" Event (In-Person), 2022
PARTICIPANT - TEDx Asbury Park "1 Act, 1 Idea" Play Reading Series (Virtual), 2021

When two ancient, lifelong best friends ride out the twilight of their lives side-by-side in nursing home beds, they discover that, more than their husbands, more than their dreams coming true, and more than prayers and forgiveness, they simply need each other to...

PARTICIPANT - TEDx Asbury Park "JOY 2022" Event (In-Person), 2022
PARTICIPANT - TEDx Asbury Park "1 Act, 1 Idea" Play Reading Series (Virtual), 2021

When two ancient, lifelong best friends ride out the twilight of their lives side-by-side in nursing home beds, they discover that, more than their husbands, more than their dreams coming true, and more than prayers and forgiveness, they simply need each other to get themselves through the greatest challenge, the greatest mystery, and the greatest moment of their lives. But don’t feel bad for these brassy broads! Their potty mouths and sassy sarcasm keep their spirits high as the bond of their friendship strengthens and grows right up to the end!

"ars moriendi"

by Jessica Durdock Moreno

Synopsis

READING - The Road Theatre Under Construction 3 Playwrights Group, the Tank NYC, 2023

PARTICIPANT - Boston Theater Marathon, 2022 (Excerpt)

In development. Full-length, dramedy.

READING - The Road Theatre Under Construction 3 Playwrights Group, the Tank NYC, 2023

PARTICIPANT - Boston Theater Marathon, 2022 (Excerpt)

In development. Full-length, dramedy.

"Balcony Scene"

by Jessica Durdock Moreno

Synopsis

PUBLISHED - Fleas on the Dog, Issue #11. April, 2022.

Minutes before midnight on the eve of his 18th birthday, Benji hastens under the glow of a full moon to his 15 year old girlfriend Cassie’s house to profess his love for her before the clock ticks them both towards the reality of statutory rape. Riffing on “Romeo and Juliet,” and amplifying the legal and emotional complications surrounding Romeo and Juliet...

PUBLISHED - Fleas on the Dog, Issue #11. April, 2022.

Minutes before midnight on the eve of his 18th birthday, Benji hastens under the glow of a full moon to his 15 year old girlfriend Cassie’s house to profess his love for her before the clock ticks them both towards the reality of statutory rape. Riffing on “Romeo and Juliet,” and amplifying the legal and emotional complications surrounding Romeo and Juliet Laws, “Balcony Scene” answers no questions when it comes to the scope of what it means to be young, in love, and burdened by "norms."

"Shooting Stars"

by Jessica Durdock Moreno

Synopsis

FINALIST - Theater Masters Take Ten 2020 Festival
PARTICIPANT - Full Circle Theatre Collaborative’s New Works Festival, 2021
PARTICIPANT - NYU Tisch Bespoke Play Zoom Festival, 2020

When fifteen-year-old Nicki loses her older brother in a tragic accident, she struggles to come to terms with her own existence in the face of his death. As she tries to reconcile where people go when they die, Nicki discovers an...

FINALIST - Theater Masters Take Ten 2020 Festival
PARTICIPANT - Full Circle Theatre Collaborative’s New Works Festival, 2021
PARTICIPANT - NYU Tisch Bespoke Play Zoom Festival, 2020

When fifteen-year-old Nicki loses her older brother in a tragic accident, she struggles to come to terms with her own existence in the face of his death. As she tries to reconcile where people go when they die, Nicki discovers an unusual and organic connection with her brother’s best friend, Samuel, which provides a spark of hope and the impetus for growth when Samuel truly sees and hears her.