BAL’S ONE ACT SLAM! 2024
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 28th – 2:00 PM
AT THE UNITY CENTER. 213 WEST 58TH ST (between 7th & 8th Ave)
Be Part of the Action – VOTE for your Favorite Play (Playwright receives a cash prize)
Admission FREE | Open seating | $10 Donations Suggested
Featured Plays:
Deepfake by Alisa Zhulina
Directed by Peter Burford
Synopsis: a journalist’s assignment to investigate AI dating takes a surprising turn.
Bio: Alisa Zhulina is a playwright and Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies at NYU Tisch Drama. Her full-length plays include Algorithm (available on Spotify, finalist for the Blue Ink Playwriting Award), Killjoy, and Thea. One-act plays include Riptide and Sublet.
Wedding Reception Rewards Program by Peter Dakutis
Directed by Jaye Hunt
Synopsis: The Markham-Cheatham wedding is definitely pay-to-play. Gretchen is there to enforce the Wedding Reception Rewards Program protocols. What you spend determines what you get to enjoy at the reception. Unfortunately, Jeralynn gave the bride and groom a homemade quilt. Will she even be allowed in?
Bio: Peter Dakutis (he/him) lives in the Atlanta metro area and nourishes his soul through playwriting. His plays have been performed in numerous local productions, around the US, and in England, Ireland, Canada, and Australia. His work has been included in several publications, including three Smith & Kraus Best Ten-Minute Plays anthologies.
After Family Feud by Jessica Moss
Directed by Valerie Adami-Juhlin
Synopsis: The Coleman Family just played on Family Feud, but the feud amongst the family is just beginning.
Bio: Jessica Moss writes, performs, and produces. Some of her plays include Instagirl (2023 Neukom Prize Winner), Funnie (2022 Leah Ryan’s FEWW Prize, O’Neill finalist), Our Play (2023 Lanford Wilson award), A Girl Lives Alone (SafeWord New Play Contest winner), Cam Baby (Toronto Fringe New Play Winner, Weissberger finalist), Polly Polly (Ed Mirvish Award for Entrepreneurship), Next to Him, We’ll Make it Together, and more. Her TYA show, The Worries of Wesley (Or, How I Learned to Stop Having Anxiety, or not really, but I am Trying), premiered in January at the Contemporary Theatre of Ohio, and Our Play, an ensemble piece for high-school and university students, premiered at Southeast Missouri State University in February. Training: Juilliard.
Well Enough Alone by Kevin Curley
Directed by Valerie Adami-Juhlin
Synopsis: An unlikely encounter at Newark International Airport between two strangers, male and female. leads to a further revelation about the woman’s sister’s death and a bizarre tale about 9/11.
Bio: Kevin Curley’s one-act Your Place or Mine? was chosen for the 15th Annual Samuel French Short Play Contest. Improv is a finalist in Durango Art Center’s 2021 (Colorado) ten-minute play contest June 18, 2021. Daddy, his ten-minute was read in April 2017 by Plays and Pizza at Lucky Jack’s in New York City. Possessions, his one-act play, was selected by The William Inge Festival 2016 (declined because of expenses). His short play, Brothers was produced by Stage Door Productions in Fredericksburg, VA in 2014. His ten-minute plays Improv was heard in 2013 and Proposition in 2012 on Spokane Radio Theatre. Another, Friendship, was performed in August 2012 at the Lebanon Community Theatre in PA. He has studied acting and holds a master’s degree from NYU. Five of his one acts were produced during the 1990’s by Love Creek and by Riverside Theatre Workshop a playwrights’ group he was a member of in NYC. Four of his full-length plays had readings at the Jefferson Market Regional Library in NYC during the 1990’s. Kevin is a member of the Dramatists’ Guild.
Choices by James McLindon
Directed by Peter Burford
Synopsis: A debtor burdened by crushing student loans is offered a way out … but is the deal too good to be true?
Bio: James McLindon’s plays have been produced or developed at theaters across America, Ireland, the UK and the world, including the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Lark, PlayPenn, hotINK Festival, Irish Repertory, CAP21, Samuel French Festival, Victory Gardens, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Hudson Stage Company, Abingdon, New Repertory, Lyric Stage, Detroit Rep, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Seven Devils, Telluride Playwrights Festival, Ashland New Plays Festival, Boston Playwrights Theatre, Colony Theatre, Theatricum Botanicum, Circus Theatricals, and Arkansas Rep. They have been published by Dramatic Publishing, Smith & Kraus, and Applause Books.
Animals Switching Into Servants… Collective Bargaining 101 by Matt Hanf
Directed by Valerie Adami-Juhlin
Synopsis: When fairy godmother helps Cinderella—not everyone is happy. Cinderella may get the fancy shmancy dress but what about the poor mouse who is turned into the footman? What about him? Nobody thinks about the mouse/footman…except his union rep.
Bio: Matt Hanf is an nationally and internationally produced playwright. He started his career as a musical comic but moved into the world of theatre when he realized that when you write plays you get the luxury and honor of having others find ways to make you funny…not bad….He currently works as a high school teacher teaching students a subject that they already speak (English) which reduces his work load and raises his success rate. He would like to thank the director, cast and crew for bringing their vision and creativity to bring this piece to life.
Jack the Stripper by Lindsey Brown
Directed by Valerie Adami-Juhlin
Synopsis: When your part time job is a little risqué, it’s only natural to want to keep it under wraps. But what happens when your mum finds out and you’re forced to lay the truth bare?
Bio: Lindsey Brown is an award winning New Zealand playwright whose passion for the performing arts started at a young age. Initially a keen musical theatre and improv performer, she then moved into the world of playwriting. She has had plays performed around the world, including London, New York, Hollywood, Florida, Houston, Atlanta, Sydney, Dubai, Queenstown and Auckland. Successes to date include being the winner of the Chameleon Theatre Circle 24th Annual New Play Contest 2023, Mixing It Up Productions New York One Act Competition 2022, Winner of the Long Beach Playhouse New Works Festival 2022 and winner of Show Off 2022 for Camino Real Playhouse, California. Lindsey often favours comedy in her writing, believing that when we laugh, we are most open to learn. It’s also more fun to write! Her plays contain strong roles for women that like to challenge those themes that are universal to us all.
Kaylee and Adelyn by Elizabeth Shannon
Directed by Peter Burford
Synopsis: A set of identical twins explore what their life is like together until a sudden act of violence rips them apart.
Bio: Elizabeth Shannon (ELLIS) is an actor, playwright, and director. She attends Marymount Manhattan College, working to obtain her BFA Acting and BA Writing for the Stage degrees. She got 2nd place in the full length category in the Downtown Urban Arts Festival in New York City this past summer. She has completed a residency with Young Playwrights Theatre of DC and is a four time winner of The Blank Theatre’s Young Playwrights Festival. She was an inaugural winner of ENOUGH! Plays to End Gun Violence in 2020, having her play “Loaded Language” produced in 47 places across the world and counting. She has worked with Baltimore Centerstage, South Coast Repertory, Olney Theatre of DC, and many other theatres. Instagram: @_elizabethshannon