Audrey Cefaly

An allegorical tale for the #MeToo movement. This character-driven surrealist drama centers on the renowned and longtime partnership of installation artist Blue Godrey and dressmaker Vell Mawsher. On this day in the art studio, last-minute preparations are underway for a big art exhibit at Tate Modern but there is disagreement over the focal piece, a large black mourning dress. Everyone is being quite civil until a woodpecker flies into the studio, sending Vell into a bottle of gin and Blue completely off the rails, pecking away at Lorraine, the new apprentice.

​A new all-female drama from southern playwright Audrey Cefaly.

TROUBLE, set in the (fictional) mill town of Litman, Alabama, centers on the fraught relationship between an ex-mill worker and her disillusioned mother. The play opens on the eve of Euba’s "unwanted" birthday party, which her mother Bernie (against Euba's express wishes) is intent on hosting, Also in the mix are mill workers Lila (8 months pregnant) and Fin (Euba's best friend), along with YoYo, a local security officer. As the birthday hour approaches, Euba is visited by a raven, sending her spiraling in search for answers to the untimely death of her father. The play attempts to explore, without condescension, the tattered daydreams of working-class women in the deep south, traversing the landscape of mental illness, addiction, and the trials and tribulations of motherhood.

TROUBLE is the 4th installment in regionalist Audrey Cefaly's Alabama Cycle (The Gulf, Alabaster, Maytag Virgin), an exploration of the unsung voices, stories, and topographies of working-class people in the Gulf Coast region.

Cast of 4 women | A darkly comic southern drama about love, art, and the power of women. This heart-wrenching story of a reclusive Alabama folk artist won the David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize. After a tornado barrels through town leaving nothing but death and destruction, only June and her pet goat Weezy live to tell the tale. When a prominent photographer visits to take pictures of June’s scars, both are forced to reconcile the pain of loss and recovery. This all-female drama explores the meaning and purpose of art and the struggle of the lost and tortured souls that seek to create it. • Read more about ALABASTER (reviews, pix, upcoming productions): https://www.audreycefaly.com/alabaster-alabamagoatplay • Other plays by Audrey Cefaly: MAYTAG VIRGIN, THE GULF (winner of the 2018 Lammy Award for LGBTQ Drama), THE LAST WIDE OPEN, LOVE IS A BLUE TICK HOUND

Cast of 2 women | (Lammy Award, Edgerton Award, Samuel French OOB Festival Winner, Charles MacArthur Award Nominee) The divide between Kendra and Betty mimics the very world that devours them: a vast and polarizing abyss. On a quiet summer evening, somewhere down in the Alabama Delta, Kendra and Betty troll the flats looking for red fish. After Betty begins diagnosing Kendra’s dead-end life with career picks from What Color is Your Parachute, their routine fishing excursion takes a violent turn.

Cast: 1M 1W | ”a strikingly beautiful and evocative world premiere” | “poignant and emotionally glorious” | “richly-layered” | “unflinchingly honest” | “a radiant gem of light into the ordinary struggles of love, loss, and life” | “reveling in unspoken moments, Cefaly’s directorial mind allows great emotional swells to come to fruition often in the unsaid spaces of her dialogue“ | Set in the small fictional town of Lenoraville, Alabama, MAYTAG VIRGIN follows Alabama school teacher Lizzy Nash (Gillian Shelly) and her new neighbor Jack Key (Will Hardy) over the year following the tragic death of Lizzy’s husband. The play explores the ideas of inertia and self-enlightenment and the bridge between the two.

Cincinnati Playhouse Commission (world premiere musical - Feb 2019) Lina and Roberto's lives intersect and parallel as three alternate realities unfold. The play renders the near hits and near misses that are the realities of this worn out waitress and immigrant dishwasher as well as the mystical ways the universe conspires to bring us all together. Adapted from the award-winning one-act CLEAN. A love song in three movements.

"Walter is Everyman in a way never before told. He’s not the usually drawn man who seeks to control others. He simply wants to survive the day. He also attempts to hide his life in public (like we all do) but can’t keep from crying when alone. If we are honest, he is all of us. When the World is faced with male leaders who can only think of their own advancement at the expense of others, Walter is that individual who suffers a cruel world selflessly all the while seeing the good in others. Walter is the synthesis of the world’s pain, neglect and suffering and still finds a way towards hope, healing and renewal. We never feature the sensitive, broken, quiet men of the world when they are actually the majority and the strongest of us all." - Jack Cannon, Professor of Theatre, UAB Birmingham

Adaptation of Audrey Cefaly's podcast by the same name.

A lonely father navigates the world of single parenthood, dating and learning how to live again. Learn more: https://audrey-cefaly.wixsite.com/the-story-of-walter

*** Now available through Samuel French***
-
“Four short plays that confirm Audrey Cefaly’s knack for honest, quiet
talk and American South reality." - Washington Post
-
My short play collection, which has a working title of LOVE IS A BLUE TICK HOUND, is comprised of 4 shorts which have all won multiple awards. The first two (THE GULF, FIN AND EUBA) are Southern pieces for young women. The second two (CLEAN, STUCK) are modern-day love stories. All four pieces are two-handers and have a run-time of approximately 24-26 minutes.

Fin and Euba inhabit a suffocating world. Big dreams, small town prospects. As is their ritual, they sit out on the porch this late Autumn night, watching the cars go by... drinking, bitching, and planning their escape.

-----------

Published: 2003-2004 Best American Short Plays
Winner: Liverpool International Theatre Festival: Best Script
Winner: Strawberry One-Act Festival
Winner: Virginia Theatre Association Community Theatre Festival
Winner: UMBC In 10 Play Festival
Winner: Eastern States Theatre Festival
Winner: Northern Virginia One-Act Festival
Winner: Silver Spring Stage One-Act Festival
Winner: Maryland One-Act Festival
Finalist: Pittsburgh New Works Festival
Finalist: Impact Theater One-Act Festival
2nd Place: Nantucket Short Play Festival
Reading: Ensemble Studio Theatre: DirectorFest
Note: The feature-length film adaptation won the Maryland Individual Artist Award

Marisol, a worn out waitress, is having the 'worst day of her life.' She and Roberto, a quiet, ununassuming dishwasher, and one who has admired her from afar, sit alone in the diner at midnight and share stories about their lonely lives.

---------

Top-10 Finalist: Emerging Artists: EATFest
Winner: Eastern States Theatre Festival
Winner: Maryland One-Act Festival
Winner: Silver Spring Stage One-Act Festival Top

On the day of the 2013 SCOTUS decision, Garrison, an environmental lobbyist, and his partner Nate, an editor, are working through a crucial turning point of their own.

BOB: What's the worst part of internet dating?
BETTY: The people?

Bob and Betty try to beat the odds in the world of internet dating.

-------------

Winner: Eastern States Theatre Festival
Winner: Maryland One-Act Festival
Winner: Silver Spring Stage One-Act Festival
Finalist: New Jersey Rep's Theatre Brut Festival
Finalist: Dramaworks of Dublin 10-Minute Play Contest
Finalist: Run of the Mill Theater Variations on Fear Festival
Finalist: Theater Limina Summer Shorts Festival
3rd Place: Pregnant Chad New Plays Festival

Large cast (6-18) ensemble piece. A collection of ache stories by Audrey Cefaly. Perfect for colleges and high schools.

Max Jones, a popular writer in the midst of a midlife crisis is late for a reading at the Fillmore, creating havoc all around. "a bestselling author’s midlife crisis is writ small – and very, very well" - Miami Herald
"the script looks deep into the malaise that can follow success" - floridatheateronstage.com

Two lost and lonely people on a rooftop at night. Outdoor drama.