James Lyle

James Lyle

James is a Seattle-based playwright, actor, and member of the Driftwood After Dark playwright group. His plays have been produced by Stone Soup Theatre, Playwrights' Theatre, and Driftwood Players TIPs series (Theater of Intriguing Possibilities) and First Draft Reading Series for new works.

Plays

  • Ghost Girl by James Lyle
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: AI technology, based on historical events + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, science fiction
    Keyword: AI technology, based on historical events, science fiction, Radium, labor exploitation, superhero, worker exploitation, artificial intelligence
    Twenty-something Zoe drifts aimlessly through today’s high tech gig economy, supporting her boyfriend Noah as he tries to publish “Ghost Girl”, his new superhero webcomic. But her latest gig, processing random training data for a secret artificial intelligence project, threatens to tear the fragments of her life apart when she begins to see strange patterns in the data, patterns somehow connected both to Ghost...
    Twenty-something Zoe drifts aimlessly through today’s high tech gig economy, supporting her boyfriend Noah as he tries to publish “Ghost Girl”, his new superhero webcomic. But her latest gig, processing random training data for a secret artificial intelligence project, threatens to tear the fragments of her life apart when she begins to see strange patterns in the data, patterns somehow connected both to Ghost Girl, and to the tragic story of the Radium Girls, a group of young industrial workers from a century ago killed by radium poisoning on the job. Is Zoe losing her mind? Or are these lost spirits from the past somehow reaching out to her through the web of time, calling for justice?
  • Red Planet Blue by James Lyle
    Cast: 
    7
    ·
    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: science fiction, epistemology + 5 more
    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller, science fiction
    Keyword: science fiction, epistemology, terraform, artificial intelligence, nudity, naturism, nudism
    The commander and crew of a remote terraforming station are just three days away from pressing “the big red button”, turning their desert planet into a tropical paradise—a new home for the desperate people of an over-crowded Earth. Their world is suddenly complicated by the arrival of a documentarian more interested in creating the drama of a reality TV show, and a government inspector with her own doubts about...
    The commander and crew of a remote terraforming station are just three days away from pressing “the big red button”, turning their desert planet into a tropical paradise—a new home for the desperate people of an over-crowded Earth. Their world is suddenly complicated by the arrival of a documentarian more interested in creating the drama of a reality TV show, and a government inspector with her own doubts about the project and a troubled personal history with the station commander. When a crewmember is mysteriously killed, this isolated group must determine the cause before it’s too late. Is it a mere accident? Or the beginning of the end for humanity’s last best hope?
  • Shiloh by James Lyle
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: 19th century American history, American Civil War + 2 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: 19th century American history, American Civil War, American politics, Illinois
    A contemporary man struggling with loss, and a Civil War general dying from a bullet wound to the head, meet in a dream-like landscape that might or might not be the battlefield at Shiloh, Tennessee. Together they must come to terms with the deep divisions tearing their country, and their families, apart.
  • To the Naked Eye by James Lyle
    Cast: 
    6–18
    ·
    Genre: comedy, parody/spoof + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: short comedy, absurd comedy + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, parody/spoof, romantic comedy
    Keyword: short comedy, absurd comedy, nudity, nudism, meta comedy
    A collection of six short serio-comic pieces on the subject of nakedness.

    Clothing Optional I - a man and a woman meet by chance on the roof of an apartment building on a summer night. One is in formal attire, the other completely nude.
    The Payback - decades later, vulnerability is the key to resolution of a high-school dating grudge
    Art Therapy - the subjects of several famous...
    A collection of six short serio-comic pieces on the subject of nakedness.

    Clothing Optional I - a man and a woman meet by chance on the roof of an apartment building on a summer night. One is in formal attire, the other completely nude.
    The Payback - decades later, vulnerability is the key to resolution of a high-school dating grudge
    Art Therapy - the subjects of several famous works of figurative art explore their issues in group therapy
    Cupid in Autumn - the god of love is sent to the wrong address on a mission of seduction for his boss, Zeus
    Romance Recovered - the actors begin to stage a version of Chekhov's story "Romance with a Double Bass" when they are interrupted by the author himself
    Clothing Optional II - the same two actors perform Clothing Optional I again, but with the roles reversed. Wait, is this the same thing or completely different?