Jenni Lamb

Jenni Lamb

Jenni Lamb is a Chicago-based playwright and former improviser. Her plays include The Skylark Inn, Mother Lode, Quiver, Candy Store, Memento Polonia, Period Piece, Thou Proud Dream (a site-specific adaptation of Henry V written with Damon Kromeitis), Jumble of Bones, and Waterway. Jenni’s plays have had developmental readings or productions with Pivot Arts, The Road Theatre (LA), The Goodman Theatre, Route 66,...
Jenni Lamb is a Chicago-based playwright and former improviser. Her plays include The Skylark Inn, Mother Lode, Quiver, Candy Store, Memento Polonia, Period Piece, Thou Proud Dream (a site-specific adaptation of Henry V written with Damon Kromeitis), Jumble of Bones, and Waterway. Jenni’s plays have had developmental readings or productions with Pivot Arts, The Road Theatre (LA), The Goodman Theatre, Route 66, The Gift, American Theatre Company, Stage Left Theatre, Project Y (NY), Links Hall, Flint Repertory (MI), Broken Nose, Wordsmyth Theatre (Houston), Northwestern University, and Chicago Dramatists. Jenni's play Quiver was cited by the Kilroy List, and she has been a member of the Goodman Playwrights Unit and a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists. In addition to writing traditional plays, she also has a special interest in collaborative work including site-specific and devising. Jenni was awarded a 3Arts Make a Wave Grant in 2021, and she holds an MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University.

Plays

  • Jumble of Bones by Jenni Lamb
    Cast: 
    3–4
    ·
    Genre: adventure, comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: paleontology, psychology + 4 more
    Genre: adventure, comedy, drama, movement/physical
    Keyword: paleontology, psychology, evolution, mother-daughter relationship, Mental Health, animals
    Therapist-in-training Pauline struggles to help her client Ruby who is an excavator at the Culver Tar Pit Museum in Southern California. When their session goes off the rails, Pauline reaches out to Ruby to make amends and the pair form an unlikely friendship. Ruby reveals a mysterious discovery among an entrapment of Ice Age fossils, and Pauline sets out on a journey with her to find the nature of the fossil...
    Therapist-in-training Pauline struggles to help her client Ruby who is an excavator at the Culver Tar Pit Museum in Southern California. When their session goes off the rails, Pauline reaches out to Ruby to make amends and the pair form an unlikely friendship. Ruby reveals a mysterious discovery among an entrapment of Ice Age fossils, and Pauline sets out on a journey with her to find the nature of the fossil and uncover her own unspoken truth. This play received development in the Incubator program with Pivot Arts in 2019.
  • Quiver by Jenni Lamb
    Recommendations: 3
    ·
    Cast: 
    6–8
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
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    Keyword: Adolescence, Talking Animals
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: Adolescence, Talking Animals
    For over twenty years, Adam and Diane (twin brother and sister) have spent a week at their cabin in Northern Michigan waking at dawn and heading into the woods armed with compound bows and coffee. After missing the last three years, Adam is desperate for the silence of the woods and Diane needs to fill her freezer with venison for the winter. The twins’ hunting plans are interrupted when Cassie (Adam’s wife)...
    For over twenty years, Adam and Diane (twin brother and sister) have spent a week at their cabin in Northern Michigan waking at dawn and heading into the woods armed with compound bows and coffee. After missing the last three years, Adam is desperate for the silence of the woods and Diane needs to fill her freezer with venison for the winter. The twins’ hunting plans are interrupted when Cassie (Adam’s wife) arrives with Pearl (Cassie and Adam’s daughter), who has been suspended from school for drinking. She also leaves Adam with the task of telling Pearl that their marriage is ending. Quiver explores our relationship to our surroundings and habitat, and our deep need to connect with nature. It also delves into the way we experience the end of relationships, childhood, and life itself.
  • Mother Lode by Jenni Lamb
    Recommendations: 5
    ·
    Cast: 
    9–14
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: feminism, motherhood + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, movement/physical
    Keyword: feminism, motherhood, reproductive choice, breastfeeding, biological mother, large cast
    Lauryn chose to have a baby, and now she has to choose between her work and her child. She is a publicist for a young singer who is about to blow up. And she has a six-week old baby. And her husband has to go out of town to a conference. And her stepmom is the only family nearby to help. This wild play draws from Greek mythology to depict the perilous journey that is modern motherhood. What choice do you make...
    Lauryn chose to have a baby, and now she has to choose between her work and her child. She is a publicist for a young singer who is about to blow up. And she has a six-week old baby. And her husband has to go out of town to a conference. And her stepmom is the only family nearby to help. This wild play draws from Greek mythology to depict the perilous journey that is modern motherhood. What choice do you make when it feels like there are no good options?

    **Mother Lode (previously titled Messina) was commissioned by Goodman Theatre, Chicago, IL.
  • Breaking Point by Jenni Lamb
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: a Zoom play, science + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, young audiences, zoom
    Keyword: a Zoom play, science, engineering, pandemic COVID 19, Isaac Newton
    Trapped overseas at Cambridge University, Sky is an ambitious senior in engineering who has gathered her parents, professors, and best friend on Zoom for her senior presentation. Just like Sir Isaac Newton, she pushes through the pandemic. Her goal: putting out brilliant, world-changing work that might land her a job at NASA. But the personal challenges of quarantine push her to the edge, and she begins to...
    Trapped overseas at Cambridge University, Sky is an ambitious senior in engineering who has gathered her parents, professors, and best friend on Zoom for her senior presentation. Just like Sir Isaac Newton, she pushes through the pandemic. Her goal: putting out brilliant, world-changing work that might land her a job at NASA. But the personal challenges of quarantine push her to the edge, and she begins to understand the difference between the mythology of Newton's work and the reality. This play was commissioned by eTopia at Northwestern University and received a staged virtual reading in April 2021
  • Waterway by Jenni Lamb
    Cast: 
    5–16
    ·
    Genre: young audiences, zoom
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    Keyword: a Zoom play, clean water + 1 more
    Genre: young audiences, zoom
    Keyword: a Zoom play, clean water, recycling
    Built from research on Chicago infrastructure and the process of recycling, this is an episodic play that follows the journey of water through the metropolitan water system, into a bottle, and ultimately to a recycling plant. Waterway poses questions to young people around how we as a society value water, and what we can do to better protect this life-giving resource in the future. This play is specifically...
    Built from research on Chicago infrastructure and the process of recycling, this is an episodic play that follows the journey of water through the metropolitan water system, into a bottle, and ultimately to a recycling plant. Waterway poses questions to young people around how we as a society value water, and what we can do to better protect this life-giving resource in the future. This play is specifically written for zoom and runs under an hour.
  • Throw Away by Jenni Lamb
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: recycling, climate change + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: recycling, climate change, socio-economics
    Stationed along the conveyor belt at a recycling sorting center, three employees grapple with
    questions of idealism, reality, and planning for the future.
  • Transaction by Jenni Lamb
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Genre: comedy, drama
    When her sister comes to visit, Haley takes her Freida to a furniture store in her trendy city neighborhood and offers to buy her a new dresser for her room. But Haley's generosity isn't so quickly accepted by Freida who has been taking care of their ailing father in their working class hometown. This ten-minute play explores sibling relationships and the role consumerism plays in family love and guilt.
  • Suicide Kills by Jenni Lamb
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Vera, a stand-up comedian, is thrown when a long-lost friend attends her open mic. This play received production with the Living Room Playmakers and American Theatre Company's Big Shoulders Festival.