M. D. Schaffer

M. D. Schaffer

M. D. Schaffer (He/They) is a queer, Non-Binary, African American writer born in Houston, Texas, raised in Los Angeles, CA, and currently residing in NYC. Their playwriting works include "Southern Seeds" (The Ensemble Theatre), "The Last Days of Victor Greymore" (Emerging Artist Festival), & "A Rodeo Clown" (Obsidian Theatre Festival). They have had their songs written with...
M. D. Schaffer (He/They) is a queer, Non-Binary, African American writer born in Houston, Texas, raised in Los Angeles, CA, and currently residing in NYC. Their playwriting works include "Southern Seeds" (The Ensemble Theatre), "The Last Days of Victor Greymore" (Emerging Artist Festival), & "A Rodeo Clown" (Obsidian Theatre Festival). They have had their songs written with composer, Luke Enders, at The Rattlestick Theatre & 54 Below. As a playwright, they look to excavate the contemporary conversation of theatre and expand their knowledge to analyze how they, as a practitioner and creator, can take risks that hold a mirror up to America’s history and America today.

Plays

  • A Rodeo Clown by M. D. Schaffer
    Cast: 
    4–5
    ·
    Genre: drama, movement/physical + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: Black America, the south + 8 more
    Genre: drama, movement/physical, tragedy
    Keyword: Black America, the south, Texas, Rodeo, clown, bullfighting, bull riding, pregnancy, African American, minstrelsy
    An African-American rodeo clown deals with parenthood, lineage, and a business where every performance, he's looks into the eyes of a large behemoth.
  • F***in' Howard Phillips by M. D. Schaffer
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, horror
    ·
    Keyword: horror, comedy + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, horror
    Keyword: horror, comedy, lovecraft, Cosmic Horror, satire, existential, Drugs
    Stoners. Girlfriends. Lovecraft. Two roommates, in the midst of an existential exploration of the art of the joint, debate the dimensions of how the ghosts of our passion’s pasts affect our artistic futures.
  • Southern Seeds by M. D. Schaffer
    Cast: 
    9
    ·
    Genre: drama, movement/physical
    ·
    Keyword: Racial relations, rural + 3 more
    Genre: drama, movement/physical
    Keyword: Racial relations, rural, Texas, American slavery, dance
    In order to write his latest novel, African-American novelist, James Maverick White,
    purchases The Seed Place, a sugarcane plantation outside of Smithville, Texas. It is the land
    where his ancestors were enslaved. There he meets As he tries to integrate within the community,
    the ghost of his ancestor haunts and reminds him that the soil fertilized by the blood of his
    people, and the...
    In order to write his latest novel, African-American novelist, James Maverick White,
    purchases The Seed Place, a sugarcane plantation outside of Smithville, Texas. It is the land
    where his ancestors were enslaved. There he meets As he tries to integrate within the community,
    the ghost of his ancestor haunts and reminds him that the soil fertilized by the blood of his
    people, and the family that brutalized his kin still remain on the land. And thus, his ancestor
    delivers him the duty to cease the century-plus of spiritual unrest of the plantation and bring its
    parasitic legacy to an end. He ultimately completes his task by burning the plantation down.