Christian Mendonça

Christian Mendonça is a Portuguese-American playwright whose mission is to fill the stage with unexpected tenderness, both uplifting and raw. His work has been developed and read at the Dennis and Victoria Ross Foundation's Roundtable Reading Series, Art House Productions' INKubator New Play Program, Premiere Stages' New Play Festival, American Stages' Lift Every Voice New Play Festival, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, Rogue Theater Festival, and the New Jersey Play Lab. Further distinctions include: Finalist for the Goldberg Play Prize, Semifinalist for Landing Theater's New American Voices Play Festival, and a commission for Art House Productions.

Christian Mendonça is a Portuguese-American playwright whose mission is to fill the stage with unexpected tenderness, both uplifting and raw. His work has been developed and read at the Dennis and Victoria Ross Foundation's Roundtable Reading Series, Art House Productions' INKubator New Play Program, Premiere Stages' New Play Festival, American Stages' Lift Every Voice New Play Festival, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, Rogue Theater Festival, and the New Jersey Play Lab. Further distinctions include: Finalist for the Goldberg Play Prize, Semifinalist for Landing Theater's New American Voices Play Festival, and a commission for Art House Productions.

Scripts

Audio for Women

by Christian Mendonça

Cast Size
6
Genre
comedy,
drama,
radio drama

During audio workshops for community-building, a group of women convene to overcome difficult transitions in their lives. As they show up for each other and themselves, they learn what it means to inherit and carry a legacy that is greater than them and also made greater by them. But just how many judgements, OnlyFans messages, scrambled memories, and gunshots have to go off before we get there? This play...

During audio workshops for community-building, a group of women convene to overcome difficult transitions in their lives. As they show up for each other and themselves, they learn what it means to inherit and carry a legacy that is greater than them and also made greater by them. But just how many judgements, OnlyFans messages, scrambled memories, and gunshots have to go off before we get there? This play explores the burgeoning "just a girl" culture when the world asks women to be literally everything else. This play compliments "Flowers for Men" and lives in the same universe.

read more

Flowers for Men

by Christian Mendonça

3
Cast Size
6
Genre
drama

A social worker brings together a group of men in a community garden to unpack their ideas of masculinity. At each session, they must care for an assigned flower that represents a fragile relationship in their personal lives along with various other exercises that ask the men to be vulnerable. Will this group of six men make it out of this program ready to grow, or will they be hell-bent on (self-)destruction...

A social worker brings together a group of men in a community garden to unpack their ideas of masculinity. At each session, they must care for an assigned flower that represents a fragile relationship in their personal lives along with various other exercises that ask the men to be vulnerable. Will this group of six men make it out of this program ready to grow, or will they be hell-bent on (self-)destruction? This script compliments "Audio for Women" and lives in the same universe.

read more

Conventuais OR Ruminations on Faith and Pleasure in a Convent in the Middle of Nowhere @ the Center of an Empire

by Christian Mendonça

Cast Size
4
Genre
drama,
faith-based,
period

After a series of unorthodox events sets off an inquiry from the Queen's Treasury into this convent in the middle of nowhere, four nuns are pushed to their limits as they contend with difficult truths, their own pleasures and desires, and ultimately the faith they lean on in this changing world.

After a series of unorthodox events sets off an inquiry from the Queen's Treasury into this convent in the middle of nowhere, four nuns are pushed to their limits as they contend with difficult truths, their own pleasures and desires, and ultimately the faith they lean on in this changing world.

Dearest Paweł

by Christian Mendonça

Cast Size
4
Genre
docudrama/historic,
drama,
period,
political

July 1915, Bayonne, NJ. Polish immigrant workers for the Standard Oil, Tidewater Oil, and other refineries are striking for higher wages and humane workdays. Siblings Iwo and Gita, alongside their cousin Szymon, navigate the complexities of what it means to partake in this strike while their loved ones are fighting World War I back in the divided motherland. When the strikes take a violent turn, each of the...

July 1915, Bayonne, NJ. Polish immigrant workers for the Standard Oil, Tidewater Oil, and other refineries are striking for higher wages and humane workdays. Siblings Iwo and Gita, alongside their cousin Szymon, navigate the complexities of what it means to partake in this strike while their loved ones are fighting World War I back in the divided motherland. When the strikes take a violent turn, each of the three must reckon with the choices that led them there while confronting the limited options this new life has to offer. A play about capitalism's social framework and its innate and unstoppable disintegration of family dynamics and identity. Commissioned by Art House Productions through the Hudson County History Partnership Program.

read more

Ms. Hirohana

by Christian Mendonça

Cast Size
2
Genre
comedy,
science fiction

It's 2040 and everyone has a personally integrated AI companion. Verena is using her AI, Walton, to help her generate a pitch to present her organic cosmetics company to renowned venture capitalist, Ms. Hirohana, while at a dinner in a high-end restaurant. A ten-minute play about food, AI, and human connection.

It's 2040 and everyone has a personally integrated AI companion. Verena is using her AI, Walton, to help her generate a pitch to present her organic cosmetics company to renowned venture capitalist, Ms. Hirohana, while at a dinner in a high-end restaurant. A ten-minute play about food, AI, and human connection.

Filomene

by Christian Mendonça

Cast Size
3
Genre
dark comedy,
drama,
fable/folktale,
mystery/thriller

Alma comes home to a gator in her living room, only the gator might actually just be her husband, Marquis, or at the very least, may have eaten him. Alma calls Low to help her get rid of it. Only there’s something off about Low. Come to think of it, just about everything seems off about Alma. A look at grief, guilt, autonomy (both of body and dreams), and the permission we need to heal and move on.

Alma comes home to a gator in her living room, only the gator might actually just be her husband, Marquis, or at the very least, may have eaten him. Alma calls Low to help her get rid of it. Only there’s something off about Low. Come to think of it, just about everything seems off about Alma. A look at grief, guilt, autonomy (both of body and dreams), and the permission we need to heal and move on.

American Quality

by Christian Mendonça

1
Cast Size
5
Genre
drama,
tragedy

Over the course of a summer, between 11pm-4am every night, three men convene at a parking lot in Newark, NJ, initially to each other’s chagrin… then, they get to know each other. Can that little morsel of connection break through the racist socio-economic underbelly of their American Dreams, or will the Brick City grind be their undoing?

Over the course of a summer, between 11pm-4am every night, three men convene at a parking lot in Newark, NJ, initially to each other’s chagrin… then, they get to know each other. Can that little morsel of connection break through the racist socio-economic underbelly of their American Dreams, or will the Brick City grind be their undoing?