Jillian Blevins

FULL LENGTH QUEER HISTORICAL DRAMEDY

In 1845, Charlotte Cushman is the most famous American actress in the world, well-known for playing men's roles in the plays of Shakespeare. Despite her international fame, she harbors a secret, hidden in plain sight: she loves women. Celebrated in her own country, she has brought her sister Susan to London to play Juliet to her Romeo. Old resentments between the sisters surface as Charlotte--along with Sallie, her dresser and closest confidant--struggles to balance her exploding career, her tumultuous relationship with writer Matilda Hays, and her affair with another young woman, all while keeping her personal life hidden from her fans, her sister, and her bitter rival, Edwin Forrest. Will the play be a success or a flop? Will Charlotte and Susan put aside their differences and come together in time for the curtain to rise? Will Forrest uncover Charlotte's secret and use it to ruin her career? And can Charlotte allow anyone close enough to know the real her?

SHENYC 2022 SEMI-FINALIST
WORKSHOP, WHISKEY THEATRE FACORY 2022
READ AND RANT, ATHENA PROJECT 2023
SALON READING SERIES, ANGELS THEATRE COMPANY, 2023
WORLD PREMIERE, NEW HAMPSHIRE THEATRE PROJECT, 2024

FULL LENGTH HISTORICAL DRAMA

Gynecologist Gisella Perl arrives at a concentration camp and is assigned to work as the camp doctor. She has no tools, no antiseptic, no water. She is promised by a young female guard that if she behaves, sending all “interesting cases” (particularly pregnant women) to Dr. M, she will be reunited with her daughter Gabby, from whom she was separated when they left the Sighet ghetto. Guided by two bickering biblical prophetesses, Gisella treats prisoners who have fallen pregnant. Some have been assaulted, some have traded sex for life-saving goods, others just wanted to feel something aside from pain. When she realizes the scope of evil being perpetrated in the hospital, she undertakes a spiritual mission to ensure the safety and survival of the women in her care by performing secret, life-saving abortions.

MERE WATERS is a Jewish play. It's an abortion play. It's a play about mothers, daughters, faith, and survival.

Inspired by the life of Gisella Perl and her memoir "I Was A Doctor In Auschwitz".
TW: Holocaust trauma, infant death, abortion, sexual violence

WINNER, BEST SCRIPT, SHENYC FESTIVAL 2024
HONORABLE MENTION, AMERICAN PLAYWRITING FOUNDATION RELENTLESS AWARD, 2024
SEMI-FINALIST, O’NEILL PLAYWRIGHTS CONFERENCE 2024
FINALIST, SEATTLE PUBLIC THEATRE DISTILLERY NEW WORKS FESTIVAL 2024

FULL-LENGTH VERSE COMEDY

Fern attends a dinner party to meet her new boyfriend's family--which consists of his wife and the other members of their polyamorous household. An outsider to their world of consensual non-monogamy and its unfamiliar rules and norms, Fern struggles to keep up and to fit in. Written in rhyming verse and inspired by Moliere, THE POLYCULE satirizes the conventions of unconventional relationships.

Finalist, Boston New Works Festival 2024
Semifinalist, The Road Summer Playwrights Festival 2024
Frank Moffett Mosier Longlist Prize for Works in Heightened Language from Synecdoche Works 2023
WORLD PREMIERE , LOFT ENSEMBLE THEATRE, HOLLYWOOD CA 2024

10-MINUTE MEDIEVAL COMEDY. Wilkin and Doxy are locked in the pillory awaiting sunrise, and the punishing humiliation that will follow. While Wilkin prays for a reprieve from the public shaming, Doxy takes a more philosophical view.

WINNER, 49th SAMUEL FRENCH OFF OFF BROADWAY SHORT PLAY FESTIVAL

10 MINUTE JEWISH SCI FI COMEDY. Talia and David are crew-mates aboard a laser-armed satellite orbiting Earth. Faced with an unexpected and consequential choice, their disagreement about how to respond becomes a greater argument about identity, faith, and survival.

Finalist in the 48th SAMUEL FRENCH OFF OFF BROADWAY SHORT PLAY FESTIVAL

10-MINUTE ENVIRONMENTALIST EXTINCTION COMEDY. Five Endlings--the last living animals of each of their respective species--meet for a picnic. The passing of the picnic’s founder, Lonesome George, has the surviving participants at odds: do they have a duty to use their remaining time to fight back against the cause of mass extinction, or is it enough to seek joy and solace in each other?

ONE—ACT TRAGIC SEX FARCE. A man wants a woman who doesn't want him back. To protect her purity, she enlists a decoy to pretend to be her. A comic device as old as time isn't so funny for the decoy or her target in this play inspired by Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, classical tropes and modern love.

ONE-ACT, INTERACTIVE DRINKING GAME. Audiences are invited to attend the best party in the world, hosted by the god of wine himself.

Part irreverent adaptation of Euripides' most famous tragedy, part drinking game, and all chaos, BTB was conceived for Zoom but can and should be performed in a bar, theatre, or any venue where audiences can play (and drink) along with actors.

15-MINUTE HORROR. The Mother had a baby a month ago. Her Husband knows something is wrong. And the baby monitor keeps making these weird noises...

ONE ACT SPOOKY MYSTERY FOR THE STAGE OR ZOOM. Izzy, a people-pleasing young woman with a tragic family history, attends her first online therapy session. Her sister just died, and what's worse, the plague has returned. Is she going crazy, or is the curse that claimed her whole family coming for her? And what is her therapist hiding?

Inspired by The Oedipus cycle, IAZT may be performed online or in person.

ONE-ACT FEMINIST MYTHOLOGICAL COMEDY. Medusa is living comfortably enough in exile on her deserted island, surrounded by statues of the men she's turned to stone, when the blind Princess Metope arrives seeking sanctuary. Is Metope safe with Medusa? And who is the mysterious old man who brought them together?

ONE ACT NIGHTMARE NATIVITY PLAY. Margot and Jodie are having a baby. A talking toad tells them why. They journey to a magical swamp where three visitors bring them gifts and sing to them.

It's a nativity play, sort of.

(TW: trypophobia)

TOADS!!! was written for the 2023 Playwrights Thriving Secret Santa title exchange. (Title provided by Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend.)

ONE-ACT EPISODIC TRAGEDY. Three kids sit in a dark classroom, trying to stay quiet during a routine lockdown drill. Their friendships, and their shared understanding of what the drills mean, evolve as they age from five to seventeen.

TW: gun violence

High school students may perform this play royalty free (with permission from the playwright)

10-MINUTE QUEER SHAKESPEAREAN ROMANTIC DRAMA. In the story of Henry V, his dearest friend Poins disappears when Hal leaves his life in London to take the throne; the rest of the disreputable friends of Hal's youth are imprisoned, but Poins himself is never spoken of again.

THE PRINCE'S SHADOW imagines their farewell.

FULL LENGTH ANTHOLOGY. Strangers meet at a bar where the bartender is mysteriously missing. A college professor’s martini-time is interrupted as he and his student negotiate over a recommendation. Three drunks swap drinks and personalities. This triptych, created to be performed on a unit set or in a real bar, explores themes of love, sex, betrayal, and the power of a good drink.

10 MINUTE EXISTENTIAL ROM-COM FOR ACTORS OF ANY GENDER. Two strangers meet in a bar, both waiting for a bartender who never comes. Will opposites attract? Or will it be their shared unhappiness that brings them together?

(Tipping may be performed on its own, or together with Recommendation and Last Call.)

ONE-ACT PHILOSOPHICAL REVENGE DRAMEDY. Lane wants her professor to write her a recommendation to her university’s graduate philosophy program. Her simple request becomes a power struggle, a seduction, and a debate on the morality of revenge.

(Recommendation may be performed on its own, or together with Tipping and Last Call.)

10 MINUTE ABSURDIST COMEDY. A bartender wields power over their customers as they swap seats, drinks, and personalities.

(Last Call may be performed on its own or together with Tipping and Recommendation.)

10 MINUTE HOLIDAY COMEDY. Teenaged siblings Jason and Jen are getting ready to take their annual Christmas card photos when a disagreement about what to wear threatens to ruin their picture perfect family.

15 MINUTE HALLOWEEN COMEDY. Clara is enjoying a night to herself, watching her favorite scary movie in her dilapidated beach house. Kendra, who has inherited the house from her grandmother, arrives to claim it. Will Clara stand her ground, or will an unexpected connection change the fate of both young women?

ONE ACT EPISODIC SHAKESPEARE SEQUEL. Orlando and Rosalind are celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary. Orlando just wants to go to dinner, but Rosalind has something else in mind. In a series of vignettes taking place over 20 years, the Shakespearean lovers navigate disparate expectations for marriage, break each other's hearts, and seek answers in the forest where they once fell in love.

NO CLOCK IN THE FOREST was written for Shakespeare On The Sound’s 2022 New Play Festival.

ONE-ACT COLLABORATIVE WESTERN NOIR.

The Cooterville Caper was written for the Story Relay at the 2023 Valdez Theatre Conference Fringe by The Loud Mouthed Malamutes (aka Kelsey Sullivan, Jillian Blevins, Jan Probst, Erin Moughon and Dante Medema).