Helen Banner

Helen Banner

Helen is a playwright, director and librettist working in theatre and opera. An affiliated artist at New Georges, they grew up in the British Channel Islands and studied at Cambridge and the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, where they completed an MFA in Dramatic Writing and were awarded the John Golden Playwriting Award. Helen is an alumna of the JAM at New Georges and the Ingram New Works Lab at Nashville...
Helen is a playwright, director and librettist working in theatre and opera. An affiliated artist at New Georges, they grew up in the British Channel Islands and studied at Cambridge and the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, where they completed an MFA in Dramatic Writing and were awarded the John Golden Playwriting Award. Helen is an alumna of the JAM at New Georges and the Ingram New Works Lab at Nashville Repertory Theater and they were a 2016-17 Special Resident at New Georges creating LA DÉROUTE a medieval water opera with composer Catherine Brookman for inclusion in their Water City take-over of 3LD Arts and Technology Centre in June 2017. They are a co-founder of the Byzantine Choral Project with composer Grace Oberhofer, which makes experimental epic works about Byzantine empresses and they were Archive Residents at the New Ohio Theatre. The World Premier of Helen's latest play WESTPHALIA was the opening play of this season at Luna Stage.

Plays

  • Westphalia by Helen Banner
    Cast: 
    5–8
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: Artificial Intelligence (AI), citizenship + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, political, satire
    Keyword: Artificial Intelligence (AI), citizenship, immigration, nationalism, climate change, international relations, Race, caring for a parent
    In a wild new robotic economy, AI determines people’s right to buy or sell their own citizenship. A family descended from the Pilgrims has fallen on hard times. Will they be allowed to cash out and go somewhere new? An imaginative, surprising perspective on national borders and our own humanity.

    "Playwright Helen Banner has penned a brilliant piece of speculative fiction!"-Q On Stage...
    In a wild new robotic economy, AI determines people’s right to buy or sell their own citizenship. A family descended from the Pilgrims has fallen on hard times. Will they be allowed to cash out and go somewhere new? An imaginative, surprising perspective on national borders and our own humanity.

    "Playwright Helen Banner has penned a brilliant piece of speculative fiction!"-Q On Stage

    "A richly imaginative and thought-provoking vision of the not-so-distant future!"-NJArts

    "I cannot more strongly urge you to get to Luna Stage and see Westphalia!"-Out In Jersey
  • Intelligence by Helen Banner
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: women, diplomacy + 5 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: women, diplomacy, State Department, role play, America, American politics, American intervention
    Intelligence transports us into the basement of the US State Department, where two young Foreign Service Officers are forced to rethink their secret views on American diplomacy, working on a back-channel negotiation with Sarah MacIntyre, a charismatic but controversial special envoy. As events on the ground push them deeper into role-play, the question of when we make bargains with violent men becomes ever more...
    Intelligence transports us into the basement of the US State Department, where two young Foreign Service Officers are forced to rethink their secret views on American diplomacy, working on a back-channel negotiation with Sarah MacIntyre, a charismatic but controversial special envoy. As events on the ground push them deeper into role-play, the question of when we make bargains with violent men becomes ever more personal and a future of war or peace hangs in the balance. “Gripping” (New York Times), “Intelligence doesn’t just pass the Bechdel-Wallace test, it raises the bar for what a feminist production can be” (Opplaud). Intelligence will be performed at the The Assembly, Roxy Upstairs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2022, produced by Dutch Kills Theater Company. An earlier version of the play appeared in the NYTW Next Door Series in January 2019.
  • Thrill Day by Helen Banner
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    8
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 3 more
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    Keyword: ensemble, experimental + 6 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, period, political, tragedy
    Keyword: ensemble, experimental, Victorian, train disaster, Race, money, gender, thriller
    In the 1890s, all around America, Victorian entrepreneurs exploited a craze for wrecking steam trains head-on on the final day of State Fairs, sometimes with fatal consequences as steam can explode like a bomb. KATE, a train crash survivor and her husband, PHILIP, are struggling with her diagnosis of railroad spine. They want to use a staged train wrecking at their local State Fair to cure Kate and regain the...
    In the 1890s, all around America, Victorian entrepreneurs exploited a craze for wrecking steam trains head-on on the final day of State Fairs, sometimes with fatal consequences as steam can explode like a bomb. KATE, a train crash survivor and her husband, PHILIP, are struggling with her diagnosis of railroad spine. They want to use a staged train wrecking at their local State Fair to cure Kate and regain the bohemian marriage they used to have. As they manipulate the stunt crew in pursuit of increasing thrills, they antagonize ALISTAIR, the puritanical carnie man in charge of the wrecking, and put the whole town at risk in a collision of steel, sex, race, gender and class.
  • Soldier Love by Helen Banner
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: adventure, drama + 3 more
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    Keyword: Hang-gliding, soldiers + 8 more
    Genre: adventure, drama, experimental, political, tragedy
    Keyword: Hang-gliding, soldiers, danger, war, trauma, lovers, wife, duty, affair, choice
    SOLDIER LOVE is a love triangle set in the air that examines our contemporary beliefs about courage and self-realization. FRED, an American soldier on his last day of leave from active combat in Afghanistan, takes off on a final day of hang-gliding with his lover ERIN. His wife LINDA interrupts them at take off, aware of the potential affair, but oblivious to Fred and Erin's plan to fly AWOL over the...
    SOLDIER LOVE is a love triangle set in the air that examines our contemporary beliefs about courage and self-realization. FRED, an American soldier on his last day of leave from active combat in Afghanistan, takes off on a final day of hang-gliding with his lover ERIN. His wife LINDA interrupts them at take off, aware of the potential affair, but oblivious to Fred and Erin's plan to fly AWOL over the border. When Linda makes Fred take an unwanted radio with him and keep talking to her on the ground, she discovers their flight plan.

    Furious at his ability to leave her and their young children and betray his country, Linda ruthlessly uses Erin's fear of crashing to force Fred to choose between freedom and duty.