Allyson Jacob

Allyson Jacob lives and writes in the Greater D.C. area. Her three children’s plays—Jillian’s Island, Noah and the Ark¸ and Mr. Gershwin Goes to the Farm—were all produced in Cincinnati. Several of her scripts for adults, including Outside the Lines and Jay’s Symphony, were given staged readings by Cincinnati Playwrights’ Initiative and The Open Door Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC.

In addition to writing-for-hire as a journalist and ghostwriter, Allyson conducts creative writing enrichment classes for middle school-aged writers (https://www.yeahwrite.fun/).

Allyson Jacob lives and writes in the Greater D.C. area. Her three children’s plays—Jillian’s Island, Noah and the Ark¸ and Mr. Gershwin Goes to the Farm—were all produced in Cincinnati. Several of her scripts for adults, including Outside the Lines and Jay’s Symphony, were given staged readings by Cincinnati Playwrights’ Initiative and The Open Door Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC.

In addition to writing-for-hire as a journalist and ghostwriter, Allyson conducts creative writing enrichment classes for middle school-aged writers (https://www.yeahwrite.fun/).

Scripts

Jew-ish

by Allyson Jacob

Cast Size

6—30

Genre

dark comedy,

faith-based

Jew-ish deals with the themes of belongingness and human connection viewed through the lens of Jewish holidays and celebrations. Each scene is loosely focused on a Jewish holiday; the audience meets Rosalyn and Diane, two old friends who have been getting their weekly manicures for years, and learns about a particularly trying Sabbath dinner. They meet Shirley right after the death of her husband, Vic, and watch...

Jew-ish deals with the themes of belongingness and human connection viewed through the lens of Jewish holidays and celebrations. Each scene is loosely focused on a Jewish holiday; the audience meets Rosalyn and Diane, two old friends who have been getting their weekly manicures for years, and learns about a particularly trying Sabbath dinner. They meet Shirley right after the death of her husband, Vic, and watch as her daughters, Leah and Rachel, grapple with their mother getting older and living with early-stage dementia. They watch poor Stacy, a clueless young bridesmaid, try to make sense of the rituals of a Jewish wedding and ruin a designer dress and most probably a friendship in the process. And they listen in on the words and thoughts of six random women musing on Passover, meeting in committees, picking up the kids at preschool and sitting in seemingly never-ending high holiday services, as they worry about their families, social media, the lox and bagels waiting back home, and how, in a world that is so spread out, and within a religion that seems increasingly sectionalized, they are supposed to make a connection.

Outside the Lines

by Allyson Jacob

Cast Size

5

Genre

drama,

experimental

Marlowe, an artist, has a studio in the same town where Charlie and her friend Emma attend university. Charlie likes Marlowe, but he wants every other woman he sees except for her. After college, the three drift apart and Charlie gets married. When Charlie is visiting friends in Chicago, she stops into a gallery where Marlowe is exhibiting his work and all the old feelings come rushing back, causing her to...

Marlowe, an artist, has a studio in the same town where Charlie and her friend Emma attend university. Charlie likes Marlowe, but he wants every other woman he sees except for her. After college, the three drift apart and Charlie gets married. When Charlie is visiting friends in Chicago, she stops into a gallery where Marlowe is exhibiting his work and all the old feelings come rushing back, causing her to question her commitment to her husband and ultimately, the choices she has made in her life along the way. Marlowe finally requites her love, but then she is stuck with the difficult decision—should she go with her heart and rekindle the love that has been there underneath everything else in her life, or should she stay true to her husband?

The play takes place in two acts. Act I takes place ten years ago, and Act II takes place today. It is experimental in that time in Act II is fluid...the action moves quickly among different moments in time over the intervening decade.