Catherine Castellani

Catherine Castellani

CATHERINE CASTELLANI is a playwright/novelist at work on her second fantasy novel and a new comedy for the stage. Her plays include The Red Flags (AACT NewPlayFest 2024 Winner, produced by Verona Area Community Theatre, upcoming Dramatist Play Service anthology publication), Level Up (Valdez Theatre Conference PlayLab 2021), The Bigsley Project (2020 pandemic version on YouTube), In Search of Lost Time (Valdez...
CATHERINE CASTELLANI is a playwright/novelist at work on her second fantasy novel and a new comedy for the stage. Her plays include The Red Flags (AACT NewPlayFest 2024 Winner, produced by Verona Area Community Theatre, upcoming Dramatist Play Service anthology publication), Level Up (Valdez Theatre Conference PlayLab 2021), The Bigsley Project (2020 pandemic version on YouTube), In Search of Lost Time (Valdez Theatre Conference PlayLab 2018), 2Y20M (HB Studio Residency 2018, Nora Salon 2017), and Possession (Finalist, Marion International Fellowship 2017). Her 10-minute plays have been produced nationwide, including at The Public Theater (NY), Actors Theatre of Louisville, City Theatre (Miami), and The ArtsCenter (Carrboro), and published by Applause Books in 2016 The Best Ten Minute Plays (WORK). Her plays for young audiences (There Is No E in Ski and The Silent Ones) are published and licensed by YouthPlays. Catherine is a two-time Fellow of MacDowell, and one-time Ucross Foundation resident as a playwright. She studied at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Experimental Theater Wing (New York and Paris programs) and is a member of The Dramatists Guild. As a novelist: Futurescapes 2023 and 2022; Viable Paradise 2023.

Plays

  • The Red Flags by Catherine Castellani
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
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    Keyword: marriage, psychotic + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, romantic comedy
    Keyword: marriage, psychotic, Relationships, meddling, social issues
    (You know you shouldn’t.)
    Happily married Philip and Chloe want all their friends and family to be as well-coupled as they are, especially Phil’s psychotic little brother Ric and Chloe’s commitment-shy best friend Gabrielle. The match begins on a breezy note, but the darker reasons that Ric and Gabrielle have resisted coupledom won’t be going away. Despite Philip and Chloe’s belated horror that they...
    (You know you shouldn’t.)
    Happily married Philip and Chloe want all their friends and family to be as well-coupled as they are, especially Phil’s psychotic little brother Ric and Chloe’s commitment-shy best friend Gabrielle. The match begins on a breezy note, but the darker reasons that Ric and Gabrielle have resisted coupledom won’t be going away. Despite Philip and Chloe’s belated horror that they started this at all, Ric and Gabrielle go down a road of mutual fascination, culminating in a proposal that courts all kinds of bad luck.
  • Level Up by Catherine Castellani
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: artificial intelligence, Future of Work + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, movement/physical, science fiction
    Keyword: artificial intelligence, Future of Work, dead-end jobs, dream jobs, gaming, class and gender, Fun, funny
    Two Help Desk techs of the near-future babysit two Artificial Intelligences on the dreaded four-to-midnight shift. But these two AIs are not standard programs, and the humans will have to pick a side.
  • 2Y20M by Catherine Castellani
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    10
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    Genre: adventure, biography + 4 more
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    Keyword: science, Co-workers + 3 more
    Genre: adventure, biography, comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, period
    Keyword: science, Co-workers, American history, weird, climate change
    In 1991 a crew of eight was sealed into Biosphere 2 to conduct the largest closed-system experiment ever devised or attempted. Two years and twenty minutes later they emerged: skinny, triumphant, controversial, celebrated, and maligned. They had survived a near-catastrophic oxygen/carbon dioxide imbalance, perpetual hunger, caffeine withdrawal, and unrelenting interpersonal stress and strife to emerge with data...
    In 1991 a crew of eight was sealed into Biosphere 2 to conduct the largest closed-system experiment ever devised or attempted. Two years and twenty minutes later they emerged: skinny, triumphant, controversial, celebrated, and maligned. They had survived a near-catastrophic oxygen/carbon dioxide imbalance, perpetual hunger, caffeine withdrawal, and unrelenting interpersonal stress and strife to emerge with data, bragging rights, and their most important relationships cemented forever or irretrievably in ruins. This is one story of their before, during, and after and what it meant for conducting science on a grand scale.
  • Possession by Catherine Castellani
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: Race, white supremacists + 3 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: Race, white supremacists, betrayal, business, fear
    Ava Strand unexpectedly inherits a dilapidated townhouse on Albany, NY’s South End and gets sucked
    into a past she's trying to erase—an aunt she barely knew, a lover she abandoned without a word, a
    town she fled. A closet full of a 19th century dresses introduces her to a past she never had. What
    begins creatively—a woman devising a social life that omits smart phones and television in...
    Ava Strand unexpectedly inherits a dilapidated townhouse on Albany, NY’s South End and gets sucked
    into a past she's trying to erase—an aunt she barely knew, a lover she abandoned without a word, a
    town she fled. A closet full of a 19th century dresses introduces her to a past she never had. What
    begins creatively—a woman devising a social life that omits smart phones and television in favor of
    conversation and the piano--veers into the viciously destructive as it attracts a white supremacist
    crowd who appreciate the throw-back for all the wrong reasons.
  • WORK by Catherine Castellani
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
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    Keyword: Farce, madcap + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, farce
    Keyword: Farce, madcap, office
    Woe to The Temp. Assistant Mary is going to take an HR-mandated vacation, and it isn’t going to be pretty for anyone left behind at The World’s Busiest and Most Important Office. Especially since Mary isn’t planning to come back.