Brian Silberman

Brian Silberman

Brian Silberman’s plays include "Woman in a Hat", "The Fear of Small Numbers", "The Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo", a 2016 finalist for the O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference, "Manifest", recipient of the 1998 Clauder Prize and the 2003 Pinter Review Prize for Drama, produced by Portland Stage Company, and published by the University of Tampa Press, "Esperanto:...
Brian Silberman’s plays include "Woman in a Hat", "The Fear of Small Numbers", "The Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo", a 2016 finalist for the O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference, "Manifest", recipient of the 1998 Clauder Prize and the 2003 Pinter Review Prize for Drama, produced by Portland Stage Company, and published by the University of Tampa Press, "Esperanto: A 10-minute play", anthologized in Best Short Plays of 2019, "Salvage Baas", anthologized in New American Short Plays 2015 and produced by Ensemble Studio Theatre, "Capgras Delusion", "Chattanooga: a series of monologues for a solo performer", "Walkin’ Backward", which appears in the anthology Best American Short Plays of 2001, "Throw", "Sugar Down Billie Hoak", produced Off-Broadway by New American Stage Company and Trap Door Theatre Chicago, "Feral Music", "Half Court", "Retrenchment", and "The Gospel According to Toots Pope". Selected scenes and monologues appear in Smith & Kraus's Best Stage Scenes of 1995, Best Men's Monologues of 1995, and Best Women's Monologues of 1995 and in the Applause Theatre & Cinema Books anthologies The Best Men’s Monologues from New Plays 2019, The Best Women’s Monologues from New Plays 2019, The Best Women’s Monologues from New Plays 2020 and The Best Men’s Monologues from New Plays 2020. He’s been awarded residencies at YADDO, Macdowell Colony, Ucross Foundation, Djerassi Resident Artist Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Millay Colony for the Arts, and The Edward Albee Creative Persons Center, among others.

Plays

  • Woman in a Hat by Brian Silberman
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: drama
    Genre: drama
    When Ameil, a struggling artist, is approached by Mara, a well-known gallery owner, to assist in the recovery of a stolen painting, she readily agrees to help. After painting a replica, she willing or unwillingly – as the play questions her motives and awareness – becomes involved in a forgery plot. When the men in her life – Rifkin and Tom – become embroiled in the case, her personal life begins to mirror...
    When Ameil, a struggling artist, is approached by Mara, a well-known gallery owner, to assist in the recovery of a stolen painting, she readily agrees to help. After painting a replica, she willing or unwillingly – as the play questions her motives and awareness – becomes involved in a forgery plot. When the men in her life – Rifkin and Tom – become embroiled in the case, her personal life begins to mirror the illusory and questionable reality forgery enacts. When the plot is ultimately exposed, Ameil and those around her must come to grips with the seemingly tenuous hold truth maintains in the modern world. Loosely based on actual contemporary art world forgery cases, the play investigates and probes ideas of authenticity, storytelling, particle physics, dream theory, provenance, and truth, both in the world of Art and in the interpersonal relationships contemporary human beings form and seek.
  • The Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo by Brian Silberman
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama
    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama
    Based on a true story. Admira Ismic and Bosko Brkic, were natives of the former Yugoslavia, living in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. She was a Muslim and he a Catholic Serb, but the young couple fell in love. They were killed on May 19, 1993, while attempting to escape their war-torn city. Photographs of their bodies were used by media outlets and a Reuters dispatch was filed, dubbing them the Romeo and...
    Based on a true story. Admira Ismic and Bosko Brkic, were natives of the former Yugoslavia, living in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. She was a Muslim and he a Catholic Serb, but the young couple fell in love. They were killed on May 19, 1993, while attempting to escape their war-torn city. Photographs of their bodies were used by media outlets and a Reuters dispatch was filed, dubbing them the Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo. It isn’t clear who fired the fatal shots, but their bodies remained in No Man's Land for eight days, as an argument raged between the warring political factions over who would take responsibility for their deaths. The play takes place during the days Admira and Bosko lay unclaimed. Though dead, they speak to the audience, aware they are being called Romeo and Juliet but not familiar with Shakespeare's play. As they wait, they enact some of Shakespeare’s scenes, attempting to understand their predicament and legacy. The narrative chronology is fractured, the scenes flashing forward and back from the time of their death, to their first meeting, and to their families' attempts to fight bureaucratic obstacles to recovering their bodies.
  • Esperanto by Brian Silberman
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama
    Genre: drama
    Two giant pandas in Zoo Atlanta contemplate their purpose, the communication gap between themselves and their human viewers, and the value of Esperanto, the international auxiliary language constructed in 1837 by Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist as a means of fostering harmony between people of different nations and cultures.
  • The Yip by Brian Silberman
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Eddie and Sharon's married life is made tenuous by Sharon's unfounded fears of Eddie's infidelity and Eddie's unexpected nervous breakdown during a round of golf at their country club. When they meet a stranger at a cocktail party, a quirky woman named Wanda, whose hobby – when her truck driver husband Stan is off on a short haul – is driving around suburban neighborhoods and joining...
    Eddie and Sharon's married life is made tenuous by Sharon's unfounded fears of Eddie's infidelity and Eddie's unexpected nervous breakdown during a round of golf at their country club. When they meet a stranger at a cocktail party, a quirky woman named Wanda, whose hobby – when her truck driver husband Stan is off on a short haul – is driving around suburban neighborhoods and joining cocktail parties uninvited, they invite her home with them. In the course of the two days in their home, Wanda somehow allows them to come to grips with existential dread, Costco's bulk items, quantum physics, golf, and canning supplies. When Stan appears, in search of his missing wife, all must confront their unnamed fears.