Marianna Staroselsky

(MFA - Columbia University, ‘19, PhD - University of Chicago, ‘22) writes, teaches, and makes art about identity and the strangeness of being a person in modern society. Her full-length projects, produced and developed in New York City and Chicago include "Cry Baby Meets Audrey Hepburn,"(20% Theatre Company, Cornservatory, Tikkun Fellowship, 2016,) "How I Married Myself and Other Misadventures," (The New Colony, Athena Theatre Company, Columbia University School of the Arts, 2015-18,) “Simulacrum,” an opera libretto (Path New Music Theater, 3LD, 2018) and "100 Awkward Ways to Be a Person" (Columbia University School of the Arts, La MaMa, 2017-18, Rising Sun Performance Company, 2018.) “Ella in the Tundra," performed as part of the 2019 Columbia University Playwrights Festival, Signature...

(MFA - Columbia University, ‘19, PhD - University of Chicago, ‘22) writes, teaches, and makes art about identity and the strangeness of being a person in modern society. Her full-length projects, produced and developed in New York City and Chicago include "Cry Baby Meets Audrey Hepburn,"(20% Theatre Company, Cornservatory, Tikkun Fellowship, 2016,) "How I Married Myself and Other Misadventures," (The New Colony, Athena Theatre Company, Columbia University School of the Arts, 2015-18,) “Simulacrum,” an opera libretto (Path New Music Theater, 3LD, 2018) and "100 Awkward Ways to Be a Person" (Columbia University School of the Arts, La MaMa, 2017-18, Rising Sun Performance Company, 2018.) “Ella in the Tundra," performed as part of the 2019 Columbia University Playwrights Festival, Signature Theatre Company NYC, May 2019. Marianna is currently a member of the Pilot Program at the Tank theatre where she is developing a number of tv pilots, including one based on her immigration from the Soviet Union called "The Soviet Union of Iowa." She also works as a fellow in dramaturgy and research with Young Jean Lee. As a child refugee and immigrant and now nomad and polyglot (fluent in Russian, Portuguese, French, Spanish, and English,) she's particularly interested in trans-national and trans- and multicultural projects which explore, expand, and uplift identit(ies), voices, and ways of reimagining stagnant assumptions and types.

Scripts

Simulacrum

by Marianna Staroselsky

Cast Size

2—5

Genre

opera

Lydia, a professional ballroom dancer, tragically lost her limb. Herself? Her identity? Her body and mind grapple with phantom limb syndrome and the presence of a new high tech bionic limb that is supposed to fuse with her body and make her whole again. The bionic limb and stump/past body grapple with fusing past and future with a present wholeness. Her lover and dance partner, Elias, tries to find his own place...

Lydia, a professional ballroom dancer, tragically lost her limb. Herself? Her identity? Her body and mind grapple with phantom limb syndrome and the presence of a new high tech bionic limb that is supposed to fuse with her body and make her whole again. The bionic limb and stump/past body grapple with fusing past and future with a present wholeness. Her lover and dance partner, Elias, tries to find his own place in the throes of Lydia’s attempts to rehabilitate herself. The highs are soaring and the lows deeply painful. Is there hope? They gyrate in a magic cycle from nothingness to synesthesia, numbness to super-existence. How can they reconcile their new identities with themselves and each other? A song, multimedia, and movement painting about a woman and her significant other, be it bionic limb or lover.

100 Awkward Ways to Be a Person

by Marianna Staroselsky

Cast Size

6—10

Genre

biography,

dark comedy,

docudrama/historic,

experimental,

farce,

movement/physical

Roger cannot seem to stop sweating.
Alex is unable to keep track of herself.
Allison just wants to have a proper orgasm,
and Anya is hungry and waiting for Vampire Time.
What do they all have in common?
"100 Awkward Ways to Be a Person," loosely based both on life experience and the writer's doctoral research,
explores a few of the many ways in which it is awkward,
nearly-impossible, and anxiety-inducing as...

Roger cannot seem to stop sweating.
Alex is unable to keep track of herself.
Allison just wants to have a proper orgasm,
and Anya is hungry and waiting for Vampire Time.
What do they all have in common?
"100 Awkward Ways to Be a Person," loosely based both on life experience and the writer's doctoral research,
explores a few of the many ways in which it is awkward,
nearly-impossible, and anxiety-inducing as hell
to be a person in the United States today.

The play follows a non-linear structure and a poem-spewing anxiety chorus.

Cry Baby Meets Audrey Hepburn

by Marianna Staroselsky

Cast Size

5—8

Genre

biography,

dark comedy,

drama,

satire

A loose, surrealistic, and poetic memoir of my identity formation as a Jewish woman from Kiev, Ukraine in the former Soviet Union. Follow Olya's journey as she pieces together her identity through her emigration from the USSR, her comedically horrific dating life, and memories of her harsh yet imaginative childhood.

Ella in the Tundra

by Marianna Staroselsky

Cast Size

5—8

Genre

adventure,

comedy,

dark comedy,

drama,

fable/folktale,

farce,

political

Ella, a world class fertility doctor, specializes in the latest cryo-freezing technologies and also happens to be every cursed princess's fairy godmother. Ella's perfectly controlled world gets turned upside down with the appearance of a most unusual patient who also happens to be a convicted criminal about to go to prison.

How I Married Myself and Other Misadventures

by Marianna Staroselsky

Cast Size

6—8

Genre

adventure,

comedy,

dark comedy,

drama,

fable/folktale,

farce,

satire,

verse

Levana, a young Hassidic Jewish woman from modern-day Brooklyn wasn't too excited to marry Omer--a young man chosen for her by her community. She decides that self-marriage is the answer for her, leaves Omer at the alter for a marriage to herself complete with a personally-designed ceremony in front of shocked family and Hassidic community members. Levana goes off on a series of (mis)adventures with herself from...

Levana, a young Hassidic Jewish woman from modern-day Brooklyn wasn't too excited to marry Omer--a young man chosen for her by her community. She decides that self-marriage is the answer for her, leaves Omer at the alter for a marriage to herself complete with a personally-designed ceremony in front of shocked family and Hassidic community members. Levana goes off on a series of (mis)adventures with herself from a cabin in Utah to a polygamous commune in Louisiana to a hippy nunnery in California. She finds that sologamy, an answer to confinement, places her in an ever-more intensifying journey of questions like: who is she? How do you make it work with yourself? What does she do once the honeymoon period is over? In an accelerating spiral of characters and questions, the story examines what it means to be a woman in the conflicting pulls of gender norms and community traditions, group belonging, and the modern American drive towards autonomy for all.