Brooke Shilling

Born and raised in New York City, Brooke is a theatre artist, theatre educator, and clown. She has collaborated with companies such as One Year Lease Theater Company, Theater Unspeakable, inFLUX Theatre Collective, The Lemonade Stand, Theatre Ariel, Arden Theatre Company, and more. She has facilitated workshops and taught as a visiting artist at the University of the Arts, Arcadia University, Theatre Horizon, One Year Lease Theater Company's International Program in Greece, Japan and India, performing arts high schools, and more, working with both theatre makers and non-theatre makers, the elderly, autistic youth and young adults, incarcerated young people, medical and business students, and others.

As a playwright, Brooke is a member of the 2024-2025 PlayPenn Playwright's Cohort and was...

Born and raised in New York City, Brooke is a theatre artist, theatre educator, and clown. She has collaborated with companies such as One Year Lease Theater Company, Theater Unspeakable, inFLUX Theatre Collective, The Lemonade Stand, Theatre Ariel, Arden Theatre Company, and more. She has facilitated workshops and taught as a visiting artist at the University of the Arts, Arcadia University, Theatre Horizon, One Year Lease Theater Company's International Program in Greece, Japan and India, performing arts high schools, and more, working with both theatre makers and non-theatre makers, the elderly, autistic youth and young adults, incarcerated young people, medical and business students, and others.

As a playwright, Brooke is a member of the 2024-2025 PlayPenn Playwright's Cohort and was a 2024 Terrance McNally Award Semi-finalist. Brooke is a four-time Illuminate the Arts Individual Artist Grant recipient, awarded by the City of Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy. She holds a BFA in Acting from Ithaca College and an MFA in Devised Performance from The University of the Arts/Pig Iron School.

Brooke’s work has been presented Off-Broadway at 59E59 Theaters, at the Philadelphia FringeArts Festival, The Cannonball Festival, PhysFest NYC, The Drama League, Dixon Place, at the Shoe Box Theater Festival, and with The Lemonade Stand. Some original works include Ladies of the Land, Threnody, Sinky The Pirate, Standardized and Pirate Queens, which was a 2024 Week Two Philly Fringies Frontrunner at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

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Scripts

Pirate Queens

by Brooke Shilling

Cast Size
3
Genre
adventure,
comedy,
docudrama/historic,
movement/physical,
period,
romantic comedy

In this relatively true story, we follow the 18th-century tale of Mary Read, a woman dressed as a boy since childhood. The day she is captured by pirates, she meets Anne Bonny. The two share a unique, piratey love story until their end. In Pirate Queens, three players perform the entire play on a four-foot-by-three foot old, wooden crate. Using only their bodies in this small space, they mime all of the props...

In this relatively true story, we follow the 18th-century tale of Mary Read, a woman dressed as a boy since childhood. The day she is captured by pirates, she meets Anne Bonny. The two share a unique, piratey love story until their end. In Pirate Queens, three players perform the entire play on a four-foot-by-three foot old, wooden crate. Using only their bodies in this small space, they mime all of the props, set pieces and effects and each play many characters.

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WAKE

by Brooke Shilling

Cast Size
6
Genre
dark comedy,
experimental

In a magical kitchen where memory, grief, and absurdity collide, a woman mourning her mother’s death navigates the messy, beautiful, and often hilarious process of letting go—with help from her sibling, a chorus of strange visitors, and the lingering scent of brisket.

In a magical kitchen where memory, grief, and absurdity collide, a woman mourning her mother’s death navigates the messy, beautiful, and often hilarious process of letting go—with help from her sibling, a chorus of strange visitors, and the lingering scent of brisket.

Standardized

by Brooke Shilling

Cast Size
3—4
Genre
comedy,
experimental,
satire

A Standardized Patient (or an SP) — someone who is trained to act as a real patient for training medical students — learns they are actually ill from one of their encounters with a student doctor. One after the other, absurd doctor’s visits, meetings with their insufferable boss, conversations with their surprisingly jolly coworker, and phone calls back home force our SP to stop avoiding what may be a real...

A Standardized Patient (or an SP) — someone who is trained to act as a real patient for training medical students — learns they are actually ill from one of their encounters with a student doctor. One after the other, absurd doctor’s visits, meetings with their insufferable boss, conversations with their surprisingly jolly coworker, and phone calls back home force our SP to stop avoiding what may be a real sickness in order to give in to the many costs of receiving real, professional medical care in America. Just a gig turns into a real ache for this SP as they interrogate what is really most important in a profit-oriented society.

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Smart Casinos

by Brooke Shilling

Cast Size
1—2
Genre
dark comedy

Smart Casinos peers into the life of a live casino game employee. Mel, an online blackjack dealer for an online casino app, learns her brother is missing. But as she returns to work everyday amongst the card shuffling and the aggressive chat storms of anonymous players, she begins to think she may know where her brother is.

Smart Casinos peers into the life of a live casino game employee. Mel, an online blackjack dealer for an online casino app, learns her brother is missing. But as she returns to work everyday amongst the card shuffling and the aggressive chat storms of anonymous players, she begins to think she may know where her brother is.

Wonder Wheel

by Brooke Shilling

Cast Size
2
Genre
comedy,
dark comedy

Siblings Brighton and Connie need to have a talk... at the top of a ferris wheel.

Siblings Brighton and Connie need to have a talk... at the top of a ferris wheel.

Mom's Matzoh Ball Soup

by Brooke Shilling

Cast Size
1
Genre
dark comedy,
experimental,
movement/physical,
young audiences

A young woman attempts to perfectly recreate her mom's matzoh ball soup in order to find the confidence not to chicken out.

A young woman attempts to perfectly recreate her mom's matzoh ball soup in order to find the confidence not to chicken out.