Claudia Haas

Claudia Haas

Claudia focuses on theatre for young audiences and inter-generational audiences. Her plays have been produced in all fifty states and on six continents. She has recently returned her focus to writing for teen performers which is one of the most exciting genres there is. Anything is possible.. The plays have been honored by most of the youth theatre awards and included in all of the youth development arenas....
Claudia focuses on theatre for young audiences and inter-generational audiences. Her plays have been produced in all fifty states and on six continents. She has recently returned her focus to writing for teen performers which is one of the most exciting genres there is. Anything is possible.. The plays have been honored by most of the youth theatre awards and included in all of the youth development arenas. Short list of honors: AATE Distinguished Play Award, NYU New Plays for Young Audiences, Aurand Harris Memorial Children’s Playwriting Contest, University of Central MO Children’s Play Contest, East Valley Theatre’s New Play Contest; short list of development arenas: the Bonderman (now “Write Now”) Playwrights in our Schools Grant, Growing Stage New Play Development, Old Miner’s Children Playwriting Contest, Purple Crayon Players. Full listing on website. Member: Dramatist Guild of America, American Alliance for Theatre Education, Playwrights Center, Honor Roll Playwrights.

Plays

  • Becoming Italian - a monologue
    2-3 minutes. The more Angela cooks, the more Italian she becomes.
  • Yours Until Niagara Falls
    70 minutes. Work in progress. Lina and Izzy are best friends - as in "Lina-and-Izzy-one-word" best friends. Yes, there is a major disagreement was to who is cuter? Paul McCartney or George Harrison? (Okay, huge disagreement.) But they are always there for each other - during teen angst and for every important day in their lives - until one day - they aren't. Lina and Izzy must figure out what to...
    70 minutes. Work in progress. Lina and Izzy are best friends - as in "Lina-and-Izzy-one-word" best friends. Yes, there is a major disagreement was to who is cuter? Paul McCartney or George Harrison? (Okay, huge disagreement.) But they are always there for each other - during teen angst and for every important day in their lives - until one day - they aren't. Lina and Izzy must figure out what to take from the friendship and what to leave behind. With thanks (and apologies) to A.R. Gurney for inspiration and structure and shamelessly loving Gurney's ease of production in "Love Letters," the play does not need to be memorized, basically no set, no costumes, three props and flexible casting. (2-8 females). 60-70 minutes. The play is based on two lives that are very important to me. (It's always personal, right?)
  • Gentle Assassins
    (7 minutes) Inspired by the young Oversteegen sisters in the Netherlands and their friend Hannie Schaft who were active in the Resistance in World War Two, the play examines the one assignment they unanimously turned down.
  • Here Comes the Sun
    Three friends set out very early to see the sunrise. It's very important. Very.
  • She Came in through the Bathroom Window
    5-7 minutes. A scene after the infamous "Balcony Scene" in Romeo and Juliet that Shakespeare inexplicably deleted.
  • Eleanor Rigby
    4 minutes. Just two awkward kids sitting alone in the cafeteria.
  • I Am the Walrus
    Jackie and Kirby are siblings who ALWAYS play I am the Walrus. Until younger and smaller Kirby is tired of being the Oyster and wants to be the Walrus.
  • I Feel Fine
    5 minutes. We are backstage in the middle of "Romeo and Juliet." ANYA is getting ready for her potion scene. But she is being harassed by her understudy who "was born to play Juliet." As MAISIE gets all in place and cues ANYA to take the stage, ANYA faints and MAISIE has her chance. NEW GENRE: theatrical, back-stabbing play.
  • I Only Want to Dance with You
    1 minute. Liz and Maura have been best friends forever but things happen.
  • I Want to Hold Your Hand
    4 minutes. Casey wants to hold Melanie's hand. But the Holy Ghost is in the way.
  • Ob La Di, Ob La Da, Life Goes On
    5 minutes. They say, "Life goes on." But not everyone is ready to hear that. These four teens are grieving and not ready for life to go on. Let them grieve. Part of anthology for teens inspired by titles of The Beatles songs.
  • She Loves You
    5 minutes. Suzie loves Mackenzie. Maybe. Mackenzie loves Suzie. Maybe. Reese loves everyone. Definitely. A play for teens from a new anthology, for teens based on song titles by The Beatles.
  • Be Brave and Don't Look Back
    5 minutes. Code Red Playwrights: the play celebrates the life of a police office killed in the Boulder supermarket shooting of 2021.
  • Hiking
    A duet about hiking, self-harm and friendship. Winner of the Playwrights for Change Competition administered by the American Alliance for Theatre Education in the adult writer category.
  • Kafka and the Doll
    60 minutes. There is a story that Kafka found a young girl weeping in a park. He tried to console her, but she was bereft. She had lost her doll and would never get over it. Kafka announces that he has a letter that he found and he wonders if it could be from her doll. It was! And so began a three-week correspondence where Kafka wrote daily letters for the girl from her traveling doll. Her doll was not lost....
    60 minutes. There is a story that Kafka found a young girl weeping in a park. He tried to console her, but she was bereft. She had lost her doll and would never get over it. Kafka announces that he has a letter that he found and he wonders if it could be from her doll. It was! And so began a three-week correspondence where Kafka wrote daily letters for the girl from her traveling doll. Her doll was not lost. She was merely traveling to see the world. The story might have gone something like this…
  • Remembering Margot
    The play is an imagining of Margot Frank’s brief life taken into consideration newly published photos showing her love of sports, the outdoors, and her enjoyment of her friends. Yes, there was a very good intellect at play but there was also the carefree times, the typical teenage growing pains, and the hopes and dreams of what she would be when she grew up. Until a choice presented itself and Margot had to dig...
    The play is an imagining of Margot Frank’s brief life taken into consideration newly published photos showing her love of sports, the outdoors, and her enjoyment of her friends. Yes, there was a very good intellect at play but there was also the carefree times, the typical teenage growing pains, and the hopes and dreams of what she would be when she grew up. Until a choice presented itself and Margot had to dig deep into her beliefs.

  • Remembering Margot - One Act Version
    35 minutes. The play is an imagining of Margot Frank’s brief life taken into consideration newly published photos showing her love of sports, the outdoors, and her enjoyment of her friends. Yes, there was a very good intellect at play but there was also the carefree times, the typical teenage growing pains, and the hopes and dreams of what she would be when she grew up.
  • The United Plays of America
    An anthology of 51 short plays for high school classes and beginning drama students in college. Plays subject matter varies: blue crabs on a blind date, loss, historical view of the Little Bighorn National Monument, oysters, and Monet's Water Lilies (and anything else that could only be set in that state). To date, the plays have been used in 15 festivals and 25 classrooms world-wide. Don't have time...
    An anthology of 51 short plays for high school classes and beginning drama students in college. Plays subject matter varies: blue crabs on a blind date, loss, historical view of the Little Bighorn National Monument, oysters, and Monet's Water Lilies (and anything else that could only be set in that state). To date, the plays have been used in 15 festivals and 25 classrooms world-wide. Don't have time to read 51 plays? Go to the Table of Contents and pick your favorite states.
  • Bound by Stardust
    Grief comes in all forms. Otto Schmidt grieves for the lost of his "glory years," Elsiue grieves for her past independence, and fourteen year-old Miranda dwells in the past. Any past – as long as the world is prior to her father’s death 2 years ago. Reeling from her mother’s remarriage, Miranda spends a week with her great aunt and acquaints herself with an ancestor from her father’s past – the...
    Grief comes in all forms. Otto Schmidt grieves for the lost of his "glory years," Elsiue grieves for her past independence, and fourteen year-old Miranda dwells in the past. Any past – as long as the world is prior to her father’s death 2 years ago. Reeling from her mother’s remarriage, Miranda spends a week with her great aunt and acquaints herself with an ancestor from her father’s past – the Russian Polar explorer Otto Schmidt.

    In the confines of Elsie’s apartment, Miranda travels back and forth to the North Pole gleaning information about the nature of the universe, loss and ever-lasting presence. As Miranda visits Otto in the past, Elsie is struggling to maintain the equilibrium she is barely holding to since her sister’s death. Trying to keep her crushing anxiety at bay, Elsie tries to give Miranda remembrance and closure.

    But Miranda will have none of it. She turns to the stars and devises a physics theory that she thinks will bring her face-to-face with her father one more time. But it's problematic - in order for it to work you need to travel faster than the speed of light. During her debates with Otto about the origins of the universe, Miranda carves a way to bring her back into the world.
  • Sunday Sauce
    Giancarlo has died. Anna and Emilia run to Tess’s side to help her through this difficult time. But Tess is amazingly calm. Is the make-up of a family blood? Bones? Pasta and opera? If you’re Italian – it probably is.

    The play was written to address the waste of “fine wine” actresses (over 40) that are too often absent on the stage these days.
  • Making Some Noise - One Act
    40 minutes. Juliana, Emma and Nell see Nazis and terrorists around every corner. This is noted as the three sisters gather yet again for the anniversary of their mother’s death on 9/11. What is the make-up of a life? Is it reduced to belongings and haphazard memories? They have been sitting shiva every September 11th since the 2001 terror attacks. Things are turned upside down when Nell returns home and no...
    40 minutes. Juliana, Emma and Nell see Nazis and terrorists around every corner. This is noted as the three sisters gather yet again for the anniversary of their mother’s death on 9/11. What is the make-up of a life? Is it reduced to belongings and haphazard memories? They have been sitting shiva every September 11th since the 2001 terror attacks. Things are turned upside down when Nell returns home and no longer wishes to continue the grieving tradition.

  • Making Some Noise
    Juliana, Emma and Nell see Nazis and terrorists around every corner. This is noted as the three sisters gather yet again for the anniversary of their mother’s tragic death on 9/11. What is the make-up of a life? Is it reduced to belongings and haphazard memories? They have basically been sitting Shiva every September 11th terror attacks. Juliana’s grieving tradition has taken a toll on her marriage. Emma who...
    Juliana, Emma and Nell see Nazis and terrorists around every corner. This is noted as the three sisters gather yet again for the anniversary of their mother’s tragic death on 9/11. What is the make-up of a life? Is it reduced to belongings and haphazard memories? They have basically been sitting Shiva every September 11th terror attacks. Juliana’s grieving tradition has taken a toll on her marriage. Emma who is always quick to please anyone is ready for a change. Things are turned upside down when Nell returns home and no longer wishes to continue the grieving tradition. The full length version was an Eugene O'Neill Semi-Finalist. 20 minutes.
  • Almost Mary
    Newly edited version to expand the cast to twelve or more. Mary Anning is considered the first female paleontologist. She lived in Lyme Regis which is still a hotbed of fossils. She learned to find fossils at her father’s knee. After her father died, she continued to find fossils and sell them to help her family earn a meager living. This play chronicles her first big discovery at the age of twelve: an...
    Newly edited version to expand the cast to twelve or more. Mary Anning is considered the first female paleontologist. She lived in Lyme Regis which is still a hotbed of fossils. She learned to find fossils at her father’s knee. After her father died, she continued to find fossils and sell them to help her family earn a meager living. This play chronicles her first big discovery at the age of twelve: an ichthyosaur (fish lizard). Mary had little schooling but was a learner. She read incessantly, carefully chronicled and drew all of her findings. Her thirst for knowledge began at an early age (and was attributed to being hit struck by lightening although that is more lore than fact).

    Mary’s brother Joseph found a large (4 feet) fossil head. Mary believes that the entire fossil could be found and the play is about her efforts – against all odds – to do so. To be published by YouthPLAYS.
  • Clara and the Nutcracker - an immersive and inclusive retelling
    This is a "treatment" and an 8 page read. Looking for development. The pantomime/dance would run about an hour. Created by award-winning playwright Sandra Fenichel Asher and me, we sought to find new ways to tell a classic story that is for all populations. After rereading E.T.A. Hiofman's story, we think Hoffman would approve.
    PLAYWRIGHTS' NOTE: In his original story, "...
    This is a "treatment" and an 8 page read. Looking for development. The pantomime/dance would run about an hour. Created by award-winning playwright Sandra Fenichel Asher and me, we sought to find new ways to tell a classic story that is for all populations. After rereading E.T.A. Hiofman's story, we think Hoffman would approve.
    PLAYWRIGHTS' NOTE: In his original story, "Nutcracker and Mouse King," E.T.A. Hoffman speaks of "a land where you can still see . . . the most splendid and most wondrous things, if you only have the right eyes to see them with." It was his intention to inspire all children to develop and maintain those "right eyes" by using their imaginations as fully as possible. HIs emphasis was on "all children." All adults, too. Indeed, the fabulous utopia he creates includes "Greeks and Armenians, Jews and Tyroleans, officers and soldiers and preachers and shepherds and buffoons -- in short: every kind of person to be found in the entire world." (His world at the time.) He was a man way ahead of his time. (Written in 1816.)

    This is not your grandmother's "The Nutcracker Ballet," generally performed by slender, classically-trained, young, white ballerinas and danseurs. The intention of this dance/theatre piece is to bring Hoffman's noble ideals into our own time by setting it in the twenty-first century (and imagined places) and offering opportunities for productions to be as all-inclusive as possible, leaving open to each company decisions about dance styles; music choices; performers of various abilities, ages, shapes, sizes, genders, and cultures; and the possible inclusion of audience members.

    We see Hoffman's "thousands . . . raising the merry uproar" as diverse performers contributing to the beauty and joy of the dances while riding on shoulders, twirling in wheelchairs and in any other way they can, be it in the Party Scene, the Battle Scene, the Snowflake Ballet, the international scenes, and/or the Waltz of the Flowers. As a non-verbal piece, we also offer inclusion to audience members with hearing impairment and those for whom English is not a first language. There are also optional possibilities for full immersion of the audience. Inclusive pre-and-post show activities are encouraged.
  • The United Plays of America - Alaska, Moose Lips
    The magic of moose lips... yep… part of the United Plays of America anthology.
  • The United Plays of America - Delaware
    Casey lives in a state where there are 200 chickens for every person. That worries her. A brief, silly play - because - chickens. Another of the 51 plays in the United Plays of America anthology.
  • The United Plays of America - Idaho - Craters of the Moon
    One could commit the perfect murder here. Only, of course, if one is a murderer. One of 51 plays in the United Plays of America anthology.
  • The United Plays of America - Iowa - Crashing Tulips
    Tulips and marriage, tulips and marriage go together like a horse and carriage... maybe. One of 51 plays in the United Plays of America anthology.
  • The United Plays of America - Kansas
    It's a twister. Time to take shelter. But Gayle has other ideas. She wants to go to Oz. One play out of 51 short plays from the United Plays of America anthology.
  • The United Plays of America - Maryland - Under the Boardwalk
    BARRY tries to hook up his best friend STUFFY with CALLIE. CALLIE tries to hook up her best friend CAKE with BARRY. Oh. And they are all crabs.
    With a huge thank-you to WHEN HARRY MET SALLY.
  • The United Plays of America - Nebraska
    Xan is a corn farmer. Dan is a corn farmer. But something strange is happening to Dan. Can he be turning into an ear of corn? Part of a collection of very short plays set in every state in the USA. Easy to do outside, via zoom and with social distancing.
  • The United Plays of America - Nevada - The Loneliest Road in America
    Beth and Letia are on Highway 50, dubbed "The Loneliest Road in America" on a mission to scatter their mother's ashes. And that's when the fun begins.
  • The United Plays of America - New York
    SYLVIA makes her regular visit to Monet’s Water Lilies at the Met. She puts herself in the garden. MILLER is painting a replica of Monet’s masterpiece. He only sees the garden from afar.
  • The United Plays of America - Texas - Invasion of the Tumbleweeds
    A town near Lubbock, Texas found themselves surrounded by huge tumbleweeds - some so big that they couldn't leave their homes. Was it an invasion?
  • The United Plays of America - Wisconsin
    A poet and a duck meet on a bridge in Milwaukee. Appropriate for Zoom.
  • 7 Weeks, 3 Days
    Emma visits her friend after 7 weeks and 3 days apart. It's awkward. She's awkward. Everything is awkward. Easy to do via zoom or social distancing.
  • A Kiss is Just a Kiss
    EVA blurts out that she would like JAKE to kiss her and all goes topsy-turvy with recollections of childhood and a possible love found – and lost.
  • A Paper Forest
    Gary is sent to help Lucy plant a forest. But the forest is planted and Lucy needs art – fast-food art – to keep the deer from eating her fledgling-forest. This could be the last forest planted in Minnesota because the forest really wants to move into Canada. A tale of climate change and clinging to hope. Ten-minutes.
  • A Tale of Two Ornaments
    Two ornaments on a Christmas tree are terrorized by a kitten. A short holiday play for teen actors. Easy to do via zoom and with social distancing.
  • After the Garden
    On their 300th anniversary, Adam has a surprise for Eve.
  • Alice, Pursued by a Bear
    Alice has worked at keeping her anxiety at bay. But the more she hides it, the bigger BEAR gets. ALICE finally has to face BEAR.
  • Fossil Lady
    In spite of discovering some of the more extraordinary fossil finds of her time, Mary Anning finds herself dismissed by scholars and in such dire straits that she is selling all her worldly goods.
  • Frosty the Rogue Man
    A short play about a catcalling snowman and the woman who tames him.
  • Just in Case Texts
    Ellie shares her texts with her best friend. Things are not always as they seem. A very, very short play.
  • And Frank Sinatra Singing in a Fig Tree
    10 minutes. Luigi is using the twelve days of Christmas to woo Luisa. Things do not go according to plan. It's pure Italian food silliness - partly from having an Italian food blog for a decade and partly because I have 100+ Italian cookbooks and have memorized all the recipes. Read it when you're hungry.
  • Of Butterflies and Roses
    The memorial service for CLARA and LAUREL’s mother is done. The last guest has left and LAUREL and CLARA are now picking up the last pieces of comfort they can muster in their newly-orphaned world.
  • Twenty Below
    A frigid walk around White Bear Lake, MN reveals a hidden mission.
  • Quarantined with Human
    I had a silly attack and wrote a one-minute play about a cat. It's always all about the cat. Super easy to do with zoom or social distancing.
  • Wish You Were Here
    It's Ashley's last evening in Paris. It's Jean-Louis's first evening back in Paris. Anything can happen when the street lights come on. It was published in an anthology Of "Bests" where I kept the rights. It has been updated. It takes place outside and easy to do with social distancing. It's also easy to do via zoom.
  • It's Special
    A mother proudly shows her daughter all the "back-to-school" stuff she bought her. Very, very, very short play.
  • We Interrupt This Broadcast
    Guns. Only in the USA.
  • Smile, Baby
    Karma on the street. Another very, very short play.