I’ve always been obsessed with graveyards, but not in any morbid way. When I was growing up in New Hampshire, a state that offers youth very little in the way of entertainment options, I used to hang out in one. It was like our version of the mall. My small group of friends would sit around hundred-year-old graves, dream of a future where we’d leave New Hampshire, and talk about what we would eventually do for work. I would imagine what it’d be like to work in a cemetery. I had no idea if somebody could actually work there. I never knew anybody who did, but I thought, somebody digs the graves... somebody sets the stones... somebody organizes the funerals. There’s a lot of stuff that goes on in a place like that. We just never see any of it. Later in life I would have a succession of corporate 9-to-5 office jobs and they were all essentially the same with a boss and a bunch of schlubs passing time, getting through the workday. Now I think back on life I imagine working in a cemetery might not be altogether different than any other job in the world…

| Full length comedy |

A group of people work at a cemetery in the fictional Ashworth, New Hampshire... some wishing they were elsewhere, others perfectly happy to be miserable where they are. Ronnie used to be married to Bobby, who is unhappily married to Ricky. Mike plays drums in a wedding band on the weekend and can't stop talking about how incredible the song "Pour Some Sugar on Me" is. Johnny shows up at the cemetery surreptitiously recording a podcast called "AshTown." They all work together digging holes and passing the time. When the WalMart of cemeteries opens across the street everybody begins to worry about losing their jobs. So they plan to put on a play to raise money to buy the cemetery themselves. The only problem is nobody goes to plays anymore...

This was originally inspired by the lives of Henry Molaison and Clive Wearing, as well as the work of Oliver Sacks, but I wrote this play because I am pathologically afraid of losing my memory. 

| Full-length play |

Henry suffers a head trauma causing him to lose the ability to create new memories. Maria, his wife, and Patrick, his doctor, become entwined as they both struggle to balance their own lives with the life of a man stuck in one perpetual moment. At a time when Patrick becomes frustrated by the lack of progress in his work, Maria convinces him to allow Henry to play piano. When music reenters their lives everything seems to change for the better, until they learn what is lost may never return.

I remember that feeling of family I had amongst my closest friends in high school. They felt closer to me than my biological family. When I thought about the powerful photo exhibit "Raised by Wolves" by Jim Goldberg, I connected deeply with the runaway teenagers he depicted and this play was the result.

| Full-length play with songs |

The sanctuary 5 runaways build in a secluded alley of the city is disrupted when one of their parents arrives, hoping to bring them back home. Inspired by the photo exhibit "Raised by Wolves" by photographer Jim Goldberg, DANCE AND CRAWL AND SING AND FALL presents a group of teenagers who decide to take on the challenges of the streets when life in the suburbs becomes too much to face.

Lyrics by Brian James Polak | Music Composed by Joey Del Ponte (see link to demos below)

When I heard the stories coming out of Abu Ghraib during the war in Iraq, I wondered what it would take for soldiers who righteously signed up to fight in a war they believed in to say enough is enough and simply leave. I started to imagine what my breaking point might be. As I was writing this piece, the story of Bowe Bergdahl came out and put a face on the narrative. This play is not about him at all, but what written in the time his actions were taken.

This play is part of a four-part series following a young teenager from the precipice of high school graduation, to joining the military, fighting in Iraq, and eventually going AWOL after experiencing atrocities he could not condone.

| Full-length play |

After witnessing an event they cannot shake, two soldiers go AWOL during the height of the War in Iraq. With help from a soldier still fighting and a local Iraqi mother, they attempt to escape the country and start a new life elsewhere, but the complications of war push them into a corner, forcing them to make the most difficult decision.

When I listened to the podcast "S Town," I was obsessed with a part of it where the town clerk was tasked with calling a list of people to tell them somebody they knew died. I wanted to explore that experience. I also wanted to write something that could be funny. This is the result (and is still a work in progress).

| solo play |

A depressed legal assistant is tasked with calling individuals on a list left behind by a man who committed suicide. The work assignment could not come a worse time, as they are dealing with their own life/work existential crisis while their mother and sister badger them via text message. Wanting to connect with their estranged father, it's a few kind words from a stranger that might give them what they ultimately need.

This play evolved out of a simple curiosity I had: What the hell did Ted Kaczynski write in that manifesto he famously wrote years ago? I read the document and started to think about how a person could pick and choose elements of any philosophy or worldview and make their own sense out of it. A story about how a domestic terrorist might come to be evolved out of this.

| Full-length play |

The sad truth of domestic terrorism is the perpetrators tend to be white men, disillusioned by the changing world around them. In "Underground" a young subway musician gives up his search for love and grapples with his disillusionment by exploring the philosophies of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. On his final day playing guitar in a Boston T station, commuters patiently wait for him to kill the noise of the train with a tune that might never come unless his one true love appears...

In 2016 I found myself in a room full of playwrights from several Central and Eastern European countries. We had all been invited to a small conference to discuss our work. In a breakout session with five other writers from Poland, Ukraine, and Hungary we were discussing the turmoil in Belarus and Belarus Free Theatre and I started to imagine what our lives as playwrights might be like if the rightwing leaders of our countries pushed us into fascism and banned the performing arts. The seeds for this play were planted that day.

| Full-length play |

Five former theatre makers convene a meeting in a near-future, fascist America, when all forms of art (and even the utterance of any art-related words) have been banned. These artists discuss what a person is to do in a world when one's purpose in life has been eradicated. During the discussion both the artists and attendees of The Meeting begin to learn even the most fascist society can never stop people from being who they truly are.

A man recounts the moment when as a child he took that first step from lightness to darkness.

An audio version of this piece can be heard here: https://soundcloud.com/brian-james-polak/fledglings-a-monologue