Giulianna Marchese

GIULIANNA MARCHESE (Writer, Dramaturg, Scholar) graduated with Honors from Carnegie Mellon University in 2017, where she studied dramaturgy. As a dramaturg, she has worked with Quantum Theatre, City Theatre Pittsburgh, American Theater Company, and Raven Theatre. Her plays have been performed by the Skokie Short Play Festival, Carnegie Mellon’s Playground Festival, At Home Artist Project, City Theatre Miami, UT Austin, and Burning Coal Theatre. Giulianna was the literary Manager of Red Theater Chicago for six years, where she founded Script Club, an online script reading "book club" for the public. She spent the pandemic substitute teaching in West Virginia. As a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz, Giulianna’s research focused on using performance to support alternative approaches to...

GIULIANNA MARCHESE (Writer, Dramaturg, Scholar) graduated with Honors from Carnegie Mellon University in 2017, where she studied dramaturgy. As a dramaturg, she has worked with Quantum Theatre, City Theatre Pittsburgh, American Theater Company, and Raven Theatre. Her plays have been performed by the Skokie Short Play Festival, Carnegie Mellon’s Playground Festival, At Home Artist Project, City Theatre Miami, UT Austin, and Burning Coal Theatre. Giulianna was the literary Manager of Red Theater Chicago for six years, where she founded Script Club, an online script reading "book club" for the public. She spent the pandemic substitute teaching in West Virginia. As a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz, Giulianna’s research focused on using performance to support alternative approaches to justice. She served on the Dean’s Student Leadership Board and was awarded the Arts Dean’s Fund for Excellence and Equity. You can read her thesis, titled Restorative Theatre, on ProQuest and her essay, An Art Festival in Rwanda Converses with the Past and Celebrates Our Share Present, on Howlround.com. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Performance as Public Practice at University of Texas, Austin.

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Scripts

Death and the Girl

by Giulianna Marchese

6
Cast Size
2—10
Genre
drama,
horror,
movement/physical,
tragedy

Dru, a lonely teenager with sleep paralysis and the dream of going to college, is used to seeing things in her sleep. So when she sees Man in the middle of the night, she is not scared. Man tells her about his execution. Was he electrocuted, beheaded, hung, shot? He can’t remember. But he knows what they all feel like. As they get to know each other, Man embodies different people in Dru’s life until she can...

Dru, a lonely teenager with sleep paralysis and the dream of going to college, is used to seeing things in her sleep. So when she sees Man in the middle of the night, she is not scared. Man tells her about his execution. Was he electrocuted, beheaded, hung, shot? He can’t remember. But he knows what they all feel like. As they get to know each other, Man embodies different people in Dru’s life until she can finally accept the fact that she is also dead. Dru then embodies some of Man’s dreaded experiences in life— the online groups that filled him with hate. When it’s revealed that Man shot Dru in a mass shooting at her high school, she is filled with rage. Man must help her transition to the next phase. When Dru is able to move on, she leaves a new person in her place. Man realizes that he will have to face each of his victims in this purgatory.

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Impact

by Giulianna Marchese

Cast Size
1
Genre
drama,
experimental,
movement/physical

In the seconds it takes for an Osprey helicopter to fall to the ground, a service member sees their spouse's entire process of grief.

In the seconds it takes for an Osprey helicopter to fall to the ground, a service member sees their spouse's entire process of grief.

Age Play

by Giulianna Marchese

2
Cast Size
2
Genre
drama

Joe is a professor in a small college town with an unusual and secret hobby. When he is not teaching grad students, he roleplays as an infant. Joe hires Jennifer, a woman in her twenties, to babysit him. He soon discovers that Jennifer has needs of her own. She is bored with her marriage. Maybe she wants to have a baby, try something kinky in the bedroom, or jump off a cliff. She is not exactly sure.

Joe is a professor in a small college town with an unusual and secret hobby. When he is not teaching grad students, he roleplays as an infant. Joe hires Jennifer, a woman in her twenties, to babysit him. He soon discovers that Jennifer has needs of her own. She is bored with her marriage. Maybe she wants to have a baby, try something kinky in the bedroom, or jump off a cliff. She is not exactly sure.

The Central Registry

by Giulianna Marchese

2
Cast Size
2
Genre
adaptation,
drama,
fantasy,
zoom

During an online appointment with the Central Registry, Mariana attempts to correct her late husband's documents. In the process they discover that because she did not take her husband's last name, she is filed separately in the historic archive. Mariana is left with a choice: change her name and be erased but join her family in the historic archive forever OR keep her name and be alone.

During an online appointment with the Central Registry, Mariana attempts to correct her late husband's documents. In the process they discover that because she did not take her husband's last name, she is filed separately in the historic archive. Mariana is left with a choice: change her name and be erased but join her family in the historic archive forever OR keep her name and be alone.