Donna Spector - playwright

DONNA SPECTOR

Playwright ~ Poet ~ Novelist

Although she was born in Chicago, Donna Spector spent most of her childhood and adolescence in Los Angeles. She attended U.C.L.A. on a theater scholarship, then transferred to U.C. Berkeley, where she received her B.A. and M.A. in English, with a minor in French.

In the late Sixties she directed and acted in an improvisational theater troupe called Dementia, often performing with folk and rock groups like Santana and the Grateful Dead. From the time she was seven, she has studied dance-ballet, modern, jazz, folk, Balinese, African, Kathakali-both in California and in New York, where she has lived since the mid-Seventies. She has taught English, drama, French and creative writing in high schools and colleges. Recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities grants to study in Greece, she has traveled to Greece many times (most recently for the International Women Playwrights Conference) and speaks a passable Greek.

Ms. Spector has written fifteen full-length plays (and is working on her sixteenth) and many one-acts. A member of Dramatists Guild, Women Playwrights International, ICWP, Harbor Theatre in Manhattan, New Jersey Theatre Educators Coalition and Poets & Writers, her poems, stories and monologues have been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies.

Her latest play, Golden Ladder, was produced Off Broadway in 2002, at the Players Theatre on MacDougal Street. She lives in an old farmhouse in Warwick, New York, across from a wildlife sanctuary.

Arts CV

DONNA SPECTOR
Member: Dramatists Guild, Poets & Writers

Agent:
Carolyn French at Fifi Oscard Agency

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

U.C.L.A. - Theater Arts and English

U.C. Berkeley - B.A., M.A. in English

HONORS

National Endowment for the Humanities grants to study abroad: Greece, 1994; Greece, 1990;

N.Y.U. - N.D.E.A. fellowship in English and Creative Writing

Masters Poetry Prize (David Citino, judge)

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Playwright, Rutgers University Summer Arts Institute

English, Theater, Creative Writing and French teacher, high school and college

Director, actor, writer: Dementia, a S.F. Bay Area improvisational theater troupe

Storyteller on Warwick Cable T.V.; WNYE, New York; KPFA, Berkeley, CA

~PRODUCTIONS~

FULL-LENGTH PLAYS:

Burying Mother
- Workshopped at Manhattan Oracles, 2005-6
- Semi-finalist for the 2006 O'Neill Playwrights Conference

Unforgiveable Act
- Finalist for the 2005-6 Panowski Playwriting Award
- Developed in workshop at Manhattan Oracles in 2005

Life Lines
- Finalist in Reverie Productions' Next Generation Competition, NYC, 2006
- Staged reading at Reverie Productions, NYC, 2006
- Finalist in Theatre Unbound Competition, Minneapolis, 2005
- Staged reading at the Theater WorkShop, NYC, 2002
- Developed at the Harbor Theatre, NYC, 2001-2

Golden Ladder
- Off-Broadway production at the Players Theatre, New York City, 2002;
- Published in Women Playwrights: Best Plays of 2002 (Smith & Kraus) and Best Stage Scenes of 2002 (Smith & Kraus). Finalist, Herbert Mark Newman Theatre contest (then titled How to be Really Jewish)
- Produced at Hope College, Michigan, 2004
- Staged Readings: Mirror Stage, Seattle, 2004; International Women Playwrights Conference, Athens, Greece, 2000; Grove Street Playhouse, New York 1999

Another Paradise
- Off Broadway production, Players Theatre, 1986; Chinook Theatre production, Edmonton, Canada, 1985; Equity Showcase, Open Space Theatre, TOMI, NYC, 1984; Upstart Stage, Berkeley, CA, 1989

Manhattan Transits
- Semi-finalist in Beverly Hills/Julie Harris contest & Chesterfield Writer’s Film Project;
- Short-listed in the BBC/British Council International Radio Playwriting Competition, 2001
- Staged readings: Urban Stages, NYC, November 2004; Medicine Show, NYC, 1999; Passage Theatre in Trenton, NJ, 1992; Contemporary Theatre of Syracuse, NY,1990; Players Theatre, NYC,1989

Dancing with Strangers
- Semi-finalist in Chesterfield Writer’s Film Project
- Staged Readings: Wings Theatre, NYC, 2001; Playwrights Theatre of NJ, 1999

Hanging Women
- Production at California State University, Hayward, 1998
- Staged readings: International Women Playwrights Conference, Galway, Ireland, 1997; Playwrights Theatre of NJ, 1996; Summit Theatre, NJ, 1995; Playwrights Harbor, NYC, 1995

Dementia
- Staged Reading, Harbor Theatre, NYC, 1998; two scenes performed at Producers’ Club, 1999

These Are My Adults
Finalist in Beverly Hills/Julie Harris & Mill Mountain Theatre contests
- Staged Reading, Playwrights Theatre of NJ, 1996

Seductions
- Staged Readings: Lark Theatre, NYC, in Festival of New Plays, 1996; William Mount-Burke Theatre, NJ, 1996; Playwrights Theatre of NJ, 1996; George Street Playhouse, NJ, 1995

Strip Talk on the Boulevard
- Staged Readings: Lark Theatre Company at the Chelsea Theatre, 1996; Win Atkins Memorial Play Reading Series, Hoboken, NJ, 1994; Waterfront Ensemble, Players Theatre and Williams Center (Rutherford, NJ), 1990-1992

Missing Families
- Semi-finalist: Mill Mountain Theatre Contest; Bloomfield College Theatre, 1993
- Staged Reading: Playwrights Theatre of N.J., 2000

A Sense of Movement
- Miranda Theatre Company (NYC), 1996;
- Production: Creative Theatre Group, with a grant from the New York Council for the Arts, 1987

Not for the Ferryman
- Production: Spetses Theater at Anagyrios College, Greece, 1994; Pickup Styx Production with a grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, 1993; International Center for Women Playwrights & Buffalo Ensemble Theatre, 1993
- Staged Readings at Princeton University theater, 1991, Playwrights Theatre of NJ, 1992

Caught in the Act
- Productions: Showcase, Players Theatre, NYC, 1988; Warwick Lake Playhouse production, 1987

Mr. Big (Hip! Hip! Hooray!) a political musical: Staged reading: Kaufman Theatre, NYC, 1987

Life Lines: a new play, staged reading at the Theater WorkShop, NYC, November 2002

Unforgivable Act: a new play.

ONE-ACT PLAYS:

The Audition: Produced in a one-act play festival, Williams Center, Rutherford, N.J., 1988
- Staged Reading, The Theater Center, Philadelphia, 1985

The Gray Bombers Passing Fancies: SASI Productions’ One Act Festival, NYC, 2000

The Crystal Ball: Harbor Currents production, NYC, 2001

The Kitchen Sink Play: Playwrights' Theatre of N.J., Gallery Players, 2003

Blind Date: Harbor Currents production, Center Stage, NYC; Playwrights Theatre of N.J, Samuel French One-Act Play Festival, 2003

Dinner with Marvin: Staged reading, Playwrights Theatre of N.J., 2004: Staged reading, Playwrights Theatre of NJ, 1997

10-20 MINUTE PLAYS:

Short-Term Affairs: Winner in Palm Springs National Short Play Fest, finalist in ATL National Ten-Minute Play Contest
- Productions at Asphalt Jungle Shorts – Kitchener, 2006, Playwrights Circle in Palm Springs, 2003; Gallery Players, Brooklyn, 2002; Actors on the Verge, NYC, 2001
- Staged reading: Drama West, L.A., 2001
- Forthcoming in 35 IN 10: THIRTY-FIVE TEN-MINUTE PLAYS (Dramatic Publishing).

How to Make Yourself Miserable by Traveling to France with a Frenchman Who Happens to be Your Boyfriend: Staged reading at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, 2004

How to Prepare for the Rapture: Staged reading at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, 2005

The Church of Empirical Human Cartology: Staged readings: Grove St. Playhouse, NYC, 2000; Drama West, L.A., 2000

Passing Fancies: SASI Productions’ One Act Festival, NYC, 2000

CONFERENCES

- International Women Playwrights Conferences, where my plays were selected for readings: Athens, Greece, 2000; Galway, Ireland, 1997; Buffalo, NY, 1988
- Key West Theatre Conference, 1988
- Squaw Valley Writers Conference, 1988

PUBLICATIONS

Notre Dame Review and Poetica, an Australia Broadcasting Company program of my poems

Poems, short stories, plays, scenes and monologues: Women Playwrights: Best Plays of 2002 (Smith & Kraus), 2002 Best Stage Scenes (S & K), Monologues by Women, for Women, Even More Monologues for Women, by Women (Heinemann), Blue Unicorn, The Greensboro Review, Black River Review, Poet & Critic, Pudding Magazine (forthcoming), Sycamore Review, Teachers as Writers, The Connecticut
River Review, The Paterson Literary Review, The Bellingham Review, Poet Lore, South Florida Poetry Review, Gaia; Plainswoman, Facets, Journal of New Jersey Poets, Sow's Ear Poetry Review, Mudfish, Oberon, The Pedestal Magazine, XY Files: Poems on the Male Experience (Sherman Asher); At Our Core: Women Writing about Power (Papier-Mache Press); In the West of Ireland (Enright House); Emily Dickinson Award Anthology

~Synopses of Donna’s Plays~

FULL LENGTH PLAYS:

ONE-ACT PLAYS:

FULL-LENGTH PLAYS

GOLDEN LADDER:
This semi-autobiographical comedy/drama is an exploration of the difficulties many people experience when they come from families torn by religious and ethnic differences. CATHERINE speaks directly to the audience throughout the play, commenting on scenes from her childhood and adolescence which are acted out by her family and friends. Events move back and forth between 1943 and 1980. CATHERINE's adolescent scenes take place in the early 1960's.

Raised as a Presbyterian by her anti-Semitic mother who married a Jew, CATHERINE worries that her father, a "Jewish atheist," will go to Hell. Because her Catholic friend MARY has told her that Jewish girls have excessive hormones, when she meets AARON FELDMAN, CATHERINE assumes he is her sexual destiny. Too innocent at 14 to be lovers, they become close friends until CATHERINE breaks off their friendship because she knows her father wants her to please her mother. With zealous fervor CATHERINE tries to be a Presbyterian, then a Catholic and finally a Fundamentalist Christian. But each fails to satisfy her because she is motivated by the wrong reasons. Ultimately CATHERINE realizes that in denying her Jewish heritage she has become like her mother. It is then that she returns to AARON and the religion of her father and grandmother.

4 f, 2 m

Produced Off Broadway; 2002; finalist, Herbert Mark Newman Theatre contest
Staged readings: Intenational Women Playwrights Conference, Athens, Greece, 2000; Grove St. Playhouse,1999; Playwrights Theatre of N.J.,1998

Forthcoming in Women Playwrights: Best Plays of 2002

(Smith & Kraus)"

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ANOTHER PARADISE:
Set in Paradise, Kentucky, ANOTHER PARADISE is a memory play narrated by two women, Birdie Mae Tyler and her daughter Neva, both on a journey of self-discovery. The play's action, called forth by these women's narratives, runs from Birdie Mae's marriage in 1903 to Hiram Tyler until Neva's marriage in 1924 to Aaron Greenberg.

Although the events which Birdie Mae and Neva describe are the same, their points-of-view throughout the play are conflicting. Birdie Mae tells a simple, honest story of her difficult marriage and family life in backwoods Kentucky. Neva, a would-be writer and early feminist who is ashamed of her background, embroiders her story, making it into "elegant literature."

3 f, 2 m, single set; Appalachian music composed by Carolyn Dutton

Off Broadway production, Players Theatre, l986; Chinook Theatre production, Edmonton, Canada, l985; Equity Showcase, Open Space Theatre, TOMI, NYC, l984; Upstart Stage, Berkeley, CA, 1989

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STRIP TALK ON THE BOULEVARD:
This jazzy comedy focuses on the developing relationship between MARTY, a high school English teacher, and SALLY, a high school dropout and crossword puzzle devotee who manages a drugstore on Hollywood Boulevard. MARTY's woeful story of her former marriage to a dentist is interrupted by the entrance of MORGAN, a.k.a. RAW SEX, a musician and SALLY's "word dealer." A battle of the sexes, embellished by wild word play and a reenactment of the "real version" of the Adam and Eve story, is finally diverted by the entrance of JEREMY, a Cal Tech math major and closet poet who is MARTY's former student. Both JEREMY and MORGAN help MARTY to realize that SALLY could be a true friend.

2 f, 2 m, single set

Staged readings: Lark Theatre Company at the Chelsea Theatre, 1996; Win Atkins Memorial Play Reading Series, Hoboken, NJ, 1994; Waterfront Ensemble, 1993

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MANHATTAN TRANSITS:
Based on a true story and structured loosely on the Demeter-Persephone myth, this play is about JOSE CARTELLO, a 14-year-old runaway, who lives in Manhattan under Port Authority Bus Terminal, pictured here as various levels of the Underworld. JOSE is an angel of mercy to LOWANDA and DALLAS, two bag ladies, who are also her often humorous angels of death. SGT. FRANK BIAGGI, a detective and, like Hades, guardian of this nether world, tries to make LANI THOMPSON, JOSE's mother, take responsibility for her rebellious daughter. But JOSE falls in love with CARLOS FAVA, a crack dealer who leads JOSE into a dangerous and ultimately tragic life.

4 f, 2 m, single set

Semi-finalist in Beverly Hills/Julie Harris contest and the Chesterfield Writer's Film Project
Shortlisted for the BBC World Service/British Council Playwriting Competition

Staged readings: Medicine Show, NYC, 1999; Passage Theatre in Trenton, NJ, 1992;
Contemporary Theatre of Syracuse, NY,1990; Players Theatre, NYC,1989

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NOT FOR THE FERRYMAN:
A love story that takes place in a nursing home in New York's Catskill Mountains, this play is about the meeting of two cultures, Crete and Appalachia. It is here that two older women, THEA and ORIAH, meet, and as their friendship develops, so does the unexpected love between THEA's son NIKOS and ORIAH's granddaughter, TROUT. Interwoven through the real time and place of this story are enacted folktales from these two cultures, folktales that tell of a journey to the Land of the Dead, where TROUT and NIKOS fall in love.

3 f, 2 m, single set with scrim or area for the folk tales

Spetses Theater at Anagyrios College, Greece, 1994; Pickup Styx Production with a grant from
the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, 1993; International Center for Women Playwrights
& Buffalo Ensemble Theatre, 1993; staged readings at Princeton University theater, 1991,
Playwrights Theatre of NJ, 1992

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DEMENTIA:
DEMENTIA is a comedy/drama about an improvisational theater troupe in Berkeley, 1969, era of the Vietnam War, a theater troupe that wanted to save the world but couldn't save itself. More specifically, the play is about MAYA, director, actor and manager, who tries to keep her unruly, idiosyncratic troupe focused on pacifist ideals both in the scenes they create and in their working together. When a musician who calls himself LEONARDO DA VINCI joins them and becomes MAYA's lover, he galvanizes their political and creative impulses. But the violence of the war and the local violence that erupts over People's Park is gradually reflected in their lives and their work. Ultimately, MAYA too must recognize her own potential for violence.

3 f, 3 m. All action takes place on a bare stage.

Staged reading, Harbor Theatre, NYC, 1998; scenes performed at Producers' Club, 1999

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SEDUCTIONS:
In this comedy based on the Persephone myth MORT kidnaps PIA and takes her to the Underworld. What MORT wants from his brother ZEKE in exchange for PIA are: a section of sky where he can put celebrities and an admission that MORT is more powerful. But when PIA discovers the adults are using her, she becomes a feminist who makes her father humble, her mother ecologically sensitive and MORT a New Age sensitive guy.

All scenes--the garden of DOLORES' and PIA's home in Vermont, a NYC subway station, the Underworld (a junk shop), ZEKE's Manhattan office and a bar in the sky may be suggested by a single piece of furniture or a few props

4 f, 2 m

Staged readings, Lark Theatre, NYC, in Festival of New Plays, 1996; William Mount-Burke
Theatre, NJ, 1996; Playwrights Theatre of NJ, 1996; George Street Playhouse, NJ, 1995

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THESE ARE MY ADULTS:
In this comedy/drama two teenage girls look in the Personals columns to research the question "What has happened to the American family" for their history class. Believing that adults are incapable of real love, the girls find four intriguing ads for people who seem to come alive. As they become involved with the adults, the teenagers discover that vulnerability and the longing for love know no age limits.

Four f, two m, single set

Finalist in Beverly Hills/Julie Harris & Mill Mountain Theatre contests
Staged reading, Playwrights Theatre of NJ, 1996

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DANCING WITH STRANGERS:
In this full-length comedy/drama five women in their 60's and 70's try a communal living experiment-before they are too old to make such decisions-as an alternative to ending their lives in nursing homes or burdening their families. Disparate types, they experience the difficulties of adjusting their daily living patterns and their views of life and death in order to be compatible with each other. Some of these "adjustments" naturally generate humor, while others take a more serious turn.

5 f, single set
Semi-finalist in the Chesterfield Writer's Film Project

Staged readings, Wings Theatre, NYC, 2001; Playwrights Theatre of NJ, 1999

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HANGING WOMEN:
How long will three women wait for one man? What will finally push them over the edge?
HANGING WOMEN, a comedy/drama is about three women--ALICIA and her daughters CELANDINE and PEONY--who have put their lives on hold until the man they loved returns to them. When they finally realize this man, like their lives, was a fantasy, they exorcise the forces that limited their potential as women and free themselves.

3 f, single set

Production at California State University, Hayward, 1998; Staged readings: International Women Playwrights Conference, Galway, Ireland, 1997; Playwrights Theatre of NJ, 1996;
Summit Theatre, NJ, 1995; Playwrights Harbor, NYC, 1995

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MISSING FAMILIES:
ARIEL MILLER, guest of honor at a Malibu dinner party because of the play she wrote about the homeless, has high expectations of her liberal hosts. But they are all elegant name-droppers who eat sumptuous food and drink expensive wine. ARIEL finally explodes. Suddenly they all want to produce her play because she insulted them. When Ariel's son and mother enter, a comic brouhaha ensues.

4 f, 3 m, single set

Semi-finalist: Mill Mountain Theatre Contest; Bloomfield College Theatre, 1993;
staged reading: Playwrights Theatre of N.J., 2000

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CAUGHT IN THE ACT:
In this 90-minute comedy-drama ANNE and MARIE, two New York City actresses, rehearse a folk play about two older women from the Caucasian Mountains. As they become enmeshed with their characters, they are literally "caught in the act," as they turn into older women who have the same concerns and fears as their younger selves.

2 f, single set

Showcase, Players Theatre, NYC, 1988; Warwick Lake Playhouse production, 1987

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ONE-ACT PLAYS

A SENSE OF MOVEMENT:
This trilogy of one-act comedy-dramas (WAITING, RUNNING and FALLING) focuses on the vicissitudes of relationships in contemporary New York City.

WAITING: ARLENE, a sensuous woman in her 40's, meets CLAUDE, a 50-year-old Frenchman, in an Upper West Side market in August. Unhappily married to STEFAN, who has affairs with other women, ARLENE is drawn to CLAUDE's loneliness.

1 f, 1 m, single set

RUNNING: When CARA meets STEFAN as they are jogging in Central Park in October, they spin webs of semi-believable lies to lure each other. CARA is married to JOHN, an angry Vietnam veteran, and STEFAN is married to ARLENE, but both pretend to be single. CARA is a secretary but says she is an astrologer and dog-walker who delivers singing telegrams. STEFAN is a short-order cook who says he's a lawyer. By the end of the play they reveal their truths and their loneliness.

1 f, 1 m, single set

FALLING: From his wheelchair in Midtown Manhattan on Christmas Eve JOHN tells indifferent shoppers the way war caused the disintegration of his marriage and of all love as lonely people fall endlessly through the smoking city.

1 m, single set

Miranda Theatre Company (NYC), 1996; Creative Theatre Group production, with a grant from
the New York Council for the Arts, 1987

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THE GRAY BOMBERS:
In this one-act play MAMA, LOUELLA and MYRTLE, former political activists now in their 80's, decide to become terrorists. They pick as their targets New Jersey shopping malls, symbols of the sterility and indifference of our culture. MAMA's daughter LOTTA is outraged, as are her son-in-law BILL, a female T.V. REPORTER and a local CHEERLEADER. A bumbling mayor comes to the Big Home Town Mall to reason with MAMA, who is sitting on the roof with her terrorist gear. MAMA, LOUELLA and MYRTLE tell MR. MAYOR to turn the malls into parks with artistic and intellectual centers for the elderly. When he refuses, the older women clear three malls and blow them up. Then, in "heaven," when they meet artists and political activists they admire, they decide they made a wise choice.

Six f, two m, single set

Staged reading, Playwrights Theatre of NJ, 1997

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10-15 MINUTE PLAYS

THE CHURCH OF EMPIRICAL HUMAN CARTOLOGY:
A thinly disguised satire of Scientology, this short-short play focuses on CLAIRE WELLS, 50, who comes for an introductory session with JOHN THOMPSON, late 30's, who promises she will ultimately become a "translucent."

1 f, 1 m, single set

Harbor Theatre at Grove St. Playhouse, NYC, 2000; Drama West, L.A., 2000

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SHORT-TERM AFFAIRS:
In this satirical exploration of contemporary relationships MARK FANBERG, 34, comes to the Bureau of Short Term Affairs in Midtown Manhattan, where he meets DENISE DELANEY, 32, who interviews him as a prospect for a short-term affair. During the course of the interview they discover a mutual aversion so strong they decide to begin a limited affair of their own.

1 f, 1 m, single set

Drama West, L.A.; Gallery Players, Brooklyn; Actors on the Verge, NYC; all in 2001

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PASSING FANCIES:
In this short-short comedy GEORGE, early 30's, meets LIANA, late 20's, in a gloomy Greek restaurant in Pasadena, California. Although they have been corresponding by email, GEORGE has no idea how bizarre LIANA is, but he soon finds out.

1 f, 1 m, single set

SASi Productions' One Act Festival, NYC, 2000

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THE CRYSTAL BALL:
A psychic/fortune-teller in the West Village of Manhattan learns to deal with her domineering ghost mother.

3 f, 1 m, single set

Harbor Currents Production, NYC, October, 2001

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THE KITCHEN-SINK DRAMA:
In this satire of terms used in playwriting and theater classes to define the nature of a play, the Director and his two actors, Fred and Alice, play verbal badminton over whose play it is, who has the best arc,who is the real hero and why.

2 m, 1 f, single set

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STAN BOLOVAN AND THE DRAGON:
This children's play based on a folktale is about a clever hero who discovers, under the mighty dragon's bravado, a nebbishy nature and a wimpy devotion to his mother.

3 f, 4 m, single set

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THE MAGIC TREE:
In this children's play, also adapted for radio, King Alexander lives a charmed life, indifferent to the problems in his kingdom until he meets Sophia, a beautiful and wise peasant girl.

Bare stage, and, except for King Alexander, Sophia and the old gardener, the other 5 roles may be played by men or women. Music composed by Carolyn Margrete.

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CONTACT INFORMATION

Donna Spector

115 Blooms Corners Road
Warwick, New York 10990

Tel.: (845) 986-7718