Paul Hufker

Paul Hufker

Paul has been an AEA actor, playwright and director in NYC for over 13 years. He is a proud graduate of Brooklyn College’s MFA playwriting program, under Mac Wellman and Erin Courtney.

Most recently, Paul became a resident playwright with the 29th St. Writing Collective, in NYC

In the spring of 2020 (just before COVID) Paul had his play Birthday in the Bronx premiere at The Tank...
Paul has been an AEA actor, playwright and director in NYC for over 13 years. He is a proud graduate of Brooklyn College’s MFA playwriting program, under Mac Wellman and Erin Courtney.

Most recently, Paul became a resident playwright with the 29th St. Writing Collective, in NYC

In the spring of 2020 (just before COVID) Paul had his play Birthday in the Bronx premiere at The Tank Theatre (NYC.)

Paul also recently worked with fashion designer and political activist Carla Fernandez, writing her London fashion show/protest piece, which debuted in London in 2018.

Also in 2018, Paul worked with world-renowned visual artist Pedro Reyes, writing his Noam Chomsky-Inspired puppet play Manufacturing Mischief, which premiered in NYC and internationally, and was directed by Meghan Finn.

In the fall of 2017, Paul wrote the script for Pedro Reyes’ massive art installation in Brooklyn entitled Doomocracy, also directed by Meghan Finn.

He is a 2018 Eugene O’Neill Prize Semi-Finalist, a 2016 Great Plains Theatre Conference invited playwright, a 2015 and 2016 Himan Brown Award winner (through Brooklyn College), a 2016 O’Neill Conference semi-finalist, a 2016 American Theatre in Higher Education Excellence in Playwriting Award finalist, a 2015 Jerome Fellowship finalist, a 2014 Princess Grace Award semi-finalist, and a 2011 O’Neill Conference semi-finalist. His plays have been produced in NYC, throughout the US, and in Toronto, Canada, as well as at MIT, the Museo Jumex in Mexico City and the Serpentine Gallery in London. He is currently a full-time Teaching Instructor at Rutgers University, in their Writing Program, and a proud graduate of Webster University where he received his BFA in theatrical performance.

Plays

  • Missouri (or My People Call it Maize) by Paul Hufker
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    6–11
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 4 more
    ·
    Keyword: Race, racism + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, satire, tragedy
    Keyword: Race, racism, white privilege, Architecture, reality tv, midwest, climate change, environment, family, black lives matter
    Missouri, a suburb near Ferguson. Paul SR and Diane are a happy, white couple, living a happy white life. Suddenly, they decide to demolish their existing, modest, ranch-style home, and in the same plot, build their ultra-modern, eco-dream home. Ballsy, in this small town. But their 12 year-old son, Paul is extremely happy about this progressive leap into the future. The adults agree that, hey, it’s the right...
    Missouri, a suburb near Ferguson. Paul SR and Diane are a happy, white couple, living a happy white life. Suddenly, they decide to demolish their existing, modest, ranch-style home, and in the same plot, build their ultra-modern, eco-dream home. Ballsy, in this small town. But their 12 year-old son, Paul is extremely happy about this progressive leap into the future. The adults agree that, hey, it’s the right time – the economy is stronger and the neighborhood isn’t quite so…ethnic…as before. They wonder if they should hang around, stay close to home. Should they cancel their summer, all-Missouri vacation plans during the construction? Nah, nothing bad happens to white people, so off they go! But the rains keep coming. There’s a virus spreading. Protests are forming. The site is flooding. Not even the black or Mexican workers will continue to build. Protests are getting closer. So is the virus. Somebody’s dad is sick? The architect died? What will happen to Paul SR and Diane’s all-white dream home and their all-white future? What will happen to their only son?
  • Birthday in the Bronx by Paul Hufker
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: drama, experimental + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: Race, racism + 8 more
    Genre: drama, experimental, tragedy
    Keyword: Race, racism, The Bronx, white privilege, sports, private school, high school, women sports, latina, Latinx
    Rocky is a Latina from the Bronx. She’s hella good at field hockey. Good enough to leave 8th grade in the Bronx and go to a fancy white people high school where presidents are made. She attends. But why was she asked? Her ethnicity? Her talent? (that great leveler) Her intelligence?
    The white girls on the team seem dirty. Seem angry. Angrier with every goal she scores. They have it in for her. What will...
    Rocky is a Latina from the Bronx. She’s hella good at field hockey. Good enough to leave 8th grade in the Bronx and go to a fancy white people high school where presidents are made. She attends. But why was she asked? Her ethnicity? Her talent? (that great leveler) Her intelligence?
    The white girls on the team seem dirty. Seem angry. Angrier with every goal she scores. They have it in for her. What will they do?
    Meanwhile, two white, straight, male sports radio hosts have been following Rocky’s career this whole time. You know how schools get about their sports. Is the world these two white men envision for Rocky the one she wants to end up in?
    One of these radio hosts is made sicker and sicker by the world. The other is made stronger and stronger. Until he creates his own little world. Where only white people can live.
    How does Rocky fit in? Are the girls going to kill her?
    Help.
  • Fragile Constitution (A Time for Puke Woman) by Paul Hufker
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, fantasy, political, satire, zoom
    A judge is on a date, but each time her date, the waiter, or anyone else interprets the Constitution in a way she doesn't agree with, she starts to get physically ill. When threats are made, the situation turns tense -- can Puke Woman save them all?
  • The Horses in Central Park by Paul Hufker
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: friendship, animals + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: friendship, animals, New York City
    Two horses, Snowy and Hope, have pulled the same carriage through the same strip of Central Park, taking the same path for years. Along the way they have lamented and loved, but have only ever turned to the “right.” What if, for the first time in their lives, they turn “left?”
  • Snowed In: An Imagining by Paul Hufker
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: Edward Snowden, love + 8 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: Edward Snowden, love, science, spacetime, Russia, loyalty, morality, ethics, Relationships, family
    Edward Snowden is trapped in a small Russian airport. To stave off insanity, he invents a
    Russian character and personae for a stapler he found in a desk drawer, and talks with and to it, as well
    as his constant companion – his cat. But more than this, Snowden seems to be very interested in the
    Holographic Principle. The principle – which essentially states that all the information about...
    Edward Snowden is trapped in a small Russian airport. To stave off insanity, he invents a
    Russian character and personae for a stapler he found in a desk drawer, and talks with and to it, as well
    as his constant companion – his cat. But more than this, Snowden seems to be very interested in the
    Holographic Principle. The principle – which essentially states that all the information about the
    contents of (or volume of) a black hole can be determined by the matter infused into the edges of a
    black hole – has Snowden’s synapses firing in a pleasing manner for the first time in this leak-turned-
    escape ordeal.

    While Snowden and his (then) current situation are at the forefront of the story, spacetime
    becomes appropriately fluid as characters weave their way into and out of Snowden’s airport world. We
    meet a version of his girlfriend, his father, his mother, Angela Merkel, CIA operatives, British Secret
    Forces operatives, Snowden’s lawyer, a Buddhist Monk, and others as Snowden attempts to navigate his
    world and decide where to proceed as the situation becomes increasingly dire. Beyond the eminent
    encroaching of the United States government on Snowden, now the US’s most-wanted man, is the fact
    that through the window of the small airport utility room, a black cloud (one that in fact resembles a
    black hole) is beginning to swallow up the outside world. How does Snowden get out of this one?

    The Holographic Principle is used in this piece not merely to affix a high-minded scientific
    concept to a relevant international storyline, but instead is used (through the lens of the theatrical) to
    delve into what it is we all owe one another, if the very fabric and nature of our existence is in question.
    If there are in fact potentially an infinite number of multiple universes, layered on top of one another,
    then our mere notions of “right” and “wrong” are to be challenged. Who better to challenge them than
    one of America's most polarizing figures – the hero or the traitor, Edward Snowden
  • Modern Houses in the Lush Green Savannah that lies in the Shadow of the Volcano by Paul Hufker
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: white privilege, Africa + 8 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, experimental, tragedy
    Keyword: white privilege, Africa, elephants, absurd, hubris, loyalty, racism, class warfare, climate change, environmental crisis
    The edge of everything. Four western 20-somethings have come to this wild, unfettered place to “live life as it was meant to be lived.” They’d like to open a yoga studio for the women of the village. But there’s a chained elephant that desperately needs its own help, and are we sure the villagers are peaceful? Suddenly the earth is very dry, their money has run out, the baby is missing. They are forced to hunt...
    The edge of everything. Four western 20-somethings have come to this wild, unfettered place to “live life as it was meant to be lived.” They’d like to open a yoga studio for the women of the village. But there’s a chained elephant that desperately needs its own help, and are we sure the villagers are peaceful? Suddenly the earth is very dry, their money has run out, the baby is missing. They are forced to hunt. Things here have quickly become dark and desperate.

    Can man outrun himself?

  • The Wet Woods by Paul Hufker
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: coming of age, midwest + 8 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: coming of age, midwest, friendship, sexual abuse, abuse, woods, time, changing the past, bonding, brothers
    Paul and Anthony have been friends since birth. Paul said his first word in Anthony’s kitchen. But screw Missouri. Screw high school. Screw freshman year. They wanna live in this really cool patch of woods Paul found. Girls are coming! With f-ing beer! This is going to be a very good night. Paul is eager to touch the goodies. He’s seen a lot of stuff. Porn. Starting at age eight? Yikes. Where the hell are the...
    Paul and Anthony have been friends since birth. Paul said his first word in Anthony’s kitchen. But screw Missouri. Screw high school. Screw freshman year. They wanna live in this really cool patch of woods Paul found. Girls are coming! With f-ing beer! This is going to be a very good night. Paul is eager to touch the goodies. He’s seen a lot of stuff. Porn. Starting at age eight? Yikes. Where the hell are the girls? What’s keeping them? Anthony’s room is always clean. Paul’s tired of a filthy home. He’ll have Anthony use the rake and get the leaves up and keep the dirt in straight lines like Paul wants. Paul will hunt the food. Anthony is pretty f-ing nervous. What happens when the girls actually get here? Paul says, Anthony if we’re friends you’ll agree to do to the girls what they do in the Hustler I brought. It involves lots of things. Fingers. Fists. Anthony cries. He likes animals. He’d rather talk about the rabbit he keeps in his mom’s garden. Paul is having serious troubles with his digestive tract. There’s blood when he wipes. It won’t stop. Will their older friend Rob show? He’s great with girls. Will he bring his dad’s gun? Paul’s seen him shoot it.
    Suddenly, the sounds of the woods are electronic. Suddenly they are older. They’re coming back here. What has life done to each of them? Rob has been wounded in Iraq. His wife took the kids. PTSD, they think. Works the night shift at the Mobil on Lindbergh. Anthony’s wife is having their second child. He’s an activist? Who would have thought? He was such a docile kid. Vegetarian? Yea, we saw that one coming. Paul? What of Paul? He says he’s got a nice set up somewhere with a friend, but. Does he? And. There’s still blood. Only much more this time.
    “Anthony? Help. Please.”
    Will he?