Kelly McBurnette-Andronicos

Kelly McBurnette-Andronicos

A small town, American playwright raised in Alabama, New Mexico and West Texas, Kelly’s aesthetic view is a fusion of Southern Appalachian and Southwest U.S. culture, and heavily influenced by the literary genres of Magical Realism, Romanticism and Gothicism. She is the author of the Southern Gothic crime noir, "To Tread Among Serpents" (Off-Off Broadway production, Winner of the Southern Playwrights...
A small town, American playwright raised in Alabama, New Mexico and West Texas, Kelly’s aesthetic view is a fusion of Southern Appalachian and Southwest U.S. culture, and heavily influenced by the literary genres of Magical Realism, Romanticism and Gothicism. She is the author of the Southern Gothic crime noir, "To Tread Among Serpents" (Off-Off Broadway production, Winner of the Southern Playwrights Competition, O'Neill Semi-finalist) and the dark comedy western, "The Hall of Final Ruin" (Stage Raw Los Angeles Playwriting Award, Renaissance Theaterworks Brink! Award, Great Plains Theatre Conference Finalist, Two-time Princess Grace Semi-finalist, BAPF Semi-finalist). Other full length plays include "A Poison Squad of Whispering Women" (BAPF Finalist); "Second Death of a Mad Wife"; and "The Resurrection of the Publick Universal Friend". Short plays include "El Loro, El Gato Y El Espíritu Santo (or The Parrot, the Cat, and the Holy Ghost)" (published by YouthPLAYS); "The Show Must NOT Go On!" (Cambridge University Press Finalist), "Two Yards of Satan", "Sock Puppet Fetish Noir", "The Garden Path to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions", "Suicide Hotline" as well as several others. Her plays have been developed or produced from New York to LA, Chicago to Chile. Notable theaters include HB Playwrights Theatre (Off-Off Broadway), Ophelia’s Jump Productions (CA), The Barter Theatre (VA), NyLon Fusion (NYC), Renaissance Theaterworks (Milwaukee), Something Marvelous (Chicago), The Bechdel Group (NYC), Teatro Vivo, (Austin), and Jacksonville State University (AL). Kelly has a degree in Theatre Arts and an English Literature minor from the University of New Mexico. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and an emeritus member of the Ithaca Shakespeare Company (Ithaca, NY). Kelly makes her home in the small farming village of Peralta, NM.

Plays

  • A Poison Squad of Whispering Women
    Finalist - BAPF Playwrights Foundation

    FULL LENGTH - In 1924, an unlikely union of women lead a righteous whisper campaign against the Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan, exacting a bitter reckoning that ends in the brutal murder of one of their own.
  • The Hall of Final Ruin
    Semi-finalist - Princess Grace (twice), BAPF Playwrights Foundation, Garry Marshall

    FULL LENGTH - Someday, the ‘madrina’ of 19th century Santa Fe would like to die a good Catholic death and be buried in her beloved church, La Parrochia. But Death is coming sooner than she thinks and the arrival of a needy Protestant, a fortune in gold, and the invasion of the American Army complicate her perfect...
    Semi-finalist - Princess Grace (twice), BAPF Playwrights Foundation, Garry Marshall

    FULL LENGTH - Someday, the ‘madrina’ of 19th century Santa Fe would like to die a good Catholic death and be buried in her beloved church, La Parrochia. But Death is coming sooner than she thinks and the arrival of a needy Protestant, a fortune in gold, and the invasion of the American Army complicate her perfect exit into Purgatory. In order to save her family from ruin and earn her way into Heaven, the gambler must orchestrate a final, high-stakes card game in which all is both lost and won.
  • To Tread Among Serpents
    Semi-Finalist - O'Neill

    FULL LENGTH - In 1959, a New York reporter is sent deep into Southern Appalachia to cover the gruesome ax murders of two men. What she finds is a publishing jackpot - a confessed killer with cover girl appeal. An escalating battle for control emerges when the women’s dual pursuit of illicit wealth and lurid public adoration brings out the Devil in them both.
  • Second Death of a Mad Wife
    (60-75 MINS) Whatever happened to Jack the Ripper’s wife? Bunny Maybrick began life in an opulent Alabama mansion and is ending it in a squalid shack full of cats in rural Connecticut. In another life, under a more notorious name, she was sentenced to life in a Victorian prison for killing her British husband. Now old and preparing for death, Bunny has given away most of her meager belongings, but the heavy...
    (60-75 MINS) Whatever happened to Jack the Ripper’s wife? Bunny Maybrick began life in an opulent Alabama mansion and is ending it in a squalid shack full of cats in rural Connecticut. In another life, under a more notorious name, she was sentenced to life in a Victorian prison for killing her British husband. Now old and preparing for death, Bunny has given away most of her meager belongings, but the heavy contents of her soul are harder to leave behind. That is until a local prep school boy, Theo Voss, becomes an accomplice in Bunny’s meandering, mad confession – one that includes adultery, arsenic addiction, and murder. Second Death of a Mad Wife is about a disturbing relationship between two outcasts who share secrets and an appetite for the macabre.
  • The Resurrection of the Publick Universal Friend
    [seeking workshop] (75 mins) - A wayward disciple returns to keep a vigil with the corpse of the prophet he once betrayed. But he’s confronted by the charlatan’s most zealous supporter, who uses the former follower’s own transgressions to undermine his search for the truth. What does it cost the soul to lie if it comforts the faithful?
  • Two Yards of Satan
    10 Minute - Pam ordered two yards of satin to finish a Holy Communion dress, but a typo results in her getting a six foot tall Satan instead.
  • El Loro, El Gato y El Espiritu Santo (or The Parrot, the Cat and the Holy Ghost)
    10 MINUTE - With their pious neighbor's precious parrot dead and their cat the prime suspect, three sisters are about to engage in the mother of all cover-ups.
  • Sock Puppet Fetish Noir
    10 MINUTE - Jane's socks are missing, and she needs the help of "Darrell", a sock puppet investigator, to find them. But "Darrell" has issues. As it turns out, so does Jane.
  • Closedbook
    10 MINUTE - A "vampire" computer virus unleashes the Dead from Facebook.
  • End of an Era
    10 MINUTE - The old ‘Lady Addington’ is being retired from the show and replaced by the new (and younger) ‘Lady Addington,’ but not before the more experienced diva teaches the upstart actress a few brutal, backstage, battlefield tactics.
  • The Show Must NOT Go On!
    10 MINUTE - The loss of a key actor in a community production of Hamlet presents the opportunity of a lifetime for the theatre’s longtime janitor whose zealous enthusiasm gives all new meaning to the expression “take the stage!”
  • Suicide Hotline
    10 MINUTE - Jim can’t let go of a wrong number to the Suicide Hotline.
  • The Garden Path to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions
    10 MINUTES - The friendly HOA president is looking forward to spring, the pandemic's end, and Game Day! But his neighbor, an unrepentant master gardener, needs just a few minutes of his time to help her with some simple tasks in the garden. In a matter of minutes, the president finds himself on the other side of the law when the yard chores turn hilariously criminal.
  • How to Pill a Cat in Three Easy Steps
    MONOLOGUE - A. Cat provides a tutorial on this unpleasant but often necessary task.
  • The Girl in the Wall
    MONOLOGUE - Steeped in religion and the supernatural, an Appalachian woman explains death, dying, and damnation through a pivotal childhood memory.