Ethan Warren

Ethan Warren

Ethan Warren’s plays include Why Are You Nowhere?, which premiered at Southeastern Louisiana University in 2017, Hot Dog Christmas, which was commissioned by Boston's SpeakEasy Stage in 2018, and Fast Young Beautiful, which premiered at Northern Kentucky University in 2019. He is also the writer/director of the 2018 independent feature film West of Her, and an editor at large with the online film journal...
Ethan Warren’s plays include Why Are You Nowhere?, which premiered at Southeastern Louisiana University in 2017, Hot Dog Christmas, which was commissioned by Boston's SpeakEasy Stage in 2018, and Fast Young Beautiful, which premiered at Northern Kentucky University in 2019. He is also the writer/director of the 2018 independent feature film West of Her, and an editor at large with the online film journal Bright Wall/Dark Room. His first book, The Cinema of Paul Thomas Anderson: American Apocrypha, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press. He lives on the south shore of Boston with his wife, Caitlin, and their children.

Plays

  • Why Are You Nowhere?
    When an ambivalent mother visits her parents' cabin in the Maine woods, bringing along her mute daughter and her new teenage ward, an already tense reunion is disrupted by the arrival of two eerie strangers. As a storm rages outside, the group's anxieties flare, tensions erupt, and chaos encroaches, until the most vulnerable among them must choose between the painfully familiar and the tempting unknown.
  • Fast Young Beautiful
    New to Hollywood, a naive young actor named Dennis is cast in the new James Dean film, and though he's at first unimpressed with his idiosyncratic costar, he's soon seduced by Dean's mysterious talent. Dean agrees to mentor Dennis, but as they co-star in two films across the spring and summer of 1955, both find themselves struggling to understand what it means to be a great actor, and a good man...
    New to Hollywood, a naive young actor named Dennis is cast in the new James Dean film, and though he's at first unimpressed with his idiosyncratic costar, he's soon seduced by Dean's mysterious talent. Dean agrees to mentor Dennis, but as they co-star in two films across the spring and summer of 1955, both find themselves struggling to understand what it means to be a great actor, and a good man, before they lose their chance to be either.
  • Hot Dog Christmas
    Joey and Grace are cousins and longtime Fenway Park employees who believe their daily superstitious rituals influence the fate of the Boston Red Sox. When Heather, a wealthy college student haunted by a recent trauma, gets a job as a fan photographer, Joey and Grace recognize her as a powerful influencer in their connection to the team, and decide for the first time to expand their closely-guarded circle....
    Joey and Grace are cousins and longtime Fenway Park employees who believe their daily superstitious rituals influence the fate of the Boston Red Sox. When Heather, a wealthy college student haunted by a recent trauma, gets a job as a fan photographer, Joey and Grace recognize her as a powerful influencer in their connection to the team, and decide for the first time to expand their closely-guarded circle. Featuring passages drawn from interviews with real members of Red Sox Nation, Hot Dog Christmas is an examination of responsibility, privilege, and a tumultuous era in America, all through the lens of what it means to root for your hometown team.
  • The Healing in the Air
    Bridget, a skeptical recent college graduate, travels to the remote Colorado institute of the mysterious scientist Dr. Emilia Oxendine to confront the doctor over unanswered questions in the recent suicide of Bridget’s father. But Bridget is surprised to find herself lured into Oxendine’s inner circle, and over the ensuing decade, she and Oxendine lose themselves in a destructive cycle of emotional and mental...
    Bridget, a skeptical recent college graduate, travels to the remote Colorado institute of the mysterious scientist Dr. Emilia Oxendine to confront the doctor over unanswered questions in the recent suicide of Bridget’s father. But Bridget is surprised to find herself lured into Oxendine’s inner circle, and over the ensuing decade, she and Oxendine lose themselves in a destructive cycle of emotional and mental gamesmanship, wrestling with the upper hand as Bridget’s sanity frays and Oxendine’s controversial research threatens to destroy her and everything she’s worked for.
  • Come and Take It
    When an aging movie star brings his younger novelist lover to visit his sister at her lakeside cabin, he inflames the jealousy of his depressive daughter and the passions of their naive aspiring-actor neighbor. As the web of love and hatred grows and fractures over the years, faith is tested and broken, leading to a shattering conclusion in this gender-flipped free adaptation of Anton Chekov's 'The Seagull.'
  • Bag of Nails
    On the verge of death in the Arizona desert, an escaped convict is picked up by a wandering cowboy who promises exoneration. But as his rescuer’s behavior begins to raise the convict’s suspicions, the balance of power shifts between the men, drawing them towards a brutal confrontation.
  • O Fortuna, or: Do You Like to Eat Fried Chicken?
    Late one spring night in 1969, an older-than-his-years teenager brings an intellectual drifter home to sleep on the couch. Over a whiskey-soaked conversation, the boy tries to convince the drifter to bring him on his travels, as the drifter tries to avoid enlisting the boy’s help with a mysterious mission tied to his deteriorating mental health.
  • In Gilded Palaces
    Returning home from his latest stay on a psych ward, Pete is invited for a visit by the widow of his estranged identical twin, but what starts as a cathartic night takes a turn for the eerie and painful.
  • Ode on a Donut Shop
    A late night encounter with a mysterious stranger changes two friends' lives forever.
  • Words With the Angel
    In the years following the civil war, a young Texan homesteader is surprised by a late-night visit from his presumed-dead confederate brother. But as the stories of their past few years emerge, paranoia and religious extremism flares until it seems one of the brothers may not survive the night.
  • Liberty's Honeymoon
    A prodigal daughter returns for a family celebration, provoking her straitlaced brother into a series of long-simmering confrontations and revelations
  • You Have Two New Followers
    A young woman's world is turned upside down when two intruders welcome her home with a plan to help improve her life, whether she likes it or not. (Conceived and written for the 24-hr theater presentation at the 7th Annual Hammond Horror Festival in Hammond, LA)
  • Resist the Crisp
    In a last-ditch attempt to get the job she needs to begin her transition into society, a young woman raised off the grid must convince a mentally unstable man to peacefully leave the fast food restaurant that he believes is persecuting him and ruining his good name.