HIDE TOWN                                                                      5M, 3W
A Full Length Play in One Act

Three days and nights in what might be the last saloon on the edge of an arctic Texas.

"Apocalyptic, strange and wonderfully entertaining, Lisa D'Amour's Hide Town, created with company members from Infernal Bridegroom Productions, is everything experimental theater should be. Thoughtful and funny, the one-act speeds across a futuristic landscape covered in snow and darkness. No matter that this is Hide Town, Texas -- all the sweltering heat and bright sunshine the Lone Star State is so famous for seems to have vanished. Memories and a lonely, rough-hewn bar in the middle of nowhere are all that appear to be left of that mythical world.”
-Lee Williams, Houston Press, Nov. 30, 2006

Read an excerpt HERE.

THE CATARACT                                                                                     2M, 2W

Set in Minneapolis in 1883, this sparse, poetic drama explores one week in the lives of Cyrus and Lottie Finch.   They take in a vagabond couple from the South, who have come upriver looking for work and safety.

Produced by Perishable Theater/Theater of a Two Headed Calf, Providence, RI, 2004, The Women's Project, New York, NY, 2005.

"About halfway through Lisa D'Amour's "The Cataract," we see a woman pull an iris out of her eye. Not the eyeball iris, mind you, but the flower, long-stemmed and purple. It's a fantasy moment, sure, but the woman's screams as she yanks the plant free sound painfully true. And that's just where "The Cataract" lives, caught between symbolism and reality. By refusing to relinquish either style, it taps the potential of both."
— Variety

Read an excerpt HERE.

 

ANNA BELLA EEMA                                                                               3W
A ghost story to be spoken and sung.                                                                

A chamber piece for three women in three chairs. What's a mother to do when her little girl makes her own girl out of plain, wet earth?

Produced by New Georges, NYC (2003), Blue Theater/Physical Plant, Austin, TX (2001), Ten Thousand Things, Minneapolis, Gas and Electric Arts, Philadelphia, PA (2005), Crowded Fire, San Francisco, CA (2006)   Winner, Best New Play, Austin Critics' Table (2002).

“Its beauty and depth are almost beyond language other than its own…”
— Wayne Allen Brenner, The Austin Chronicle

“A skillfully stylized…wise comment on identity, the violence and inevitability of separation, and the value of both adaptation and detailed self-awareness.”
– The New York Times.

Read an excerpt HERE.

 

RED DEATH                                                                   3W, 3M

Jane Whithers is searching for the origin of evil, the root of denial, and the basic human weakness that causes us to fear death.   Her quest takes her to the beaches of Florida, the sewers of Texas, the center of the Adriatic Sea, and beyond, as she pursues her childhood friend, Prospero Albright (who might be the key to everything).   A twenty-first century riff on Edgar Allen Poe's Masque of the Red Death .

Red Eye Collaboration, Minneapolis (2001), Clubbed Thumb, NYC (2002).

"Quest stories are big on linear plot, of course, but what makes Red Death crackle for 70 minutes is D'Amour's spare and sinister language, which twists and tangles the traditional narrative line….a cunning play."
– Alisa Solomon, The Village Voice, May, 2002.

Read an excerpt at http://www.playscripts.com/play.php3?playid=364

 

TALE OF A WEST TEXAS MARSUPIAL GIRL                                  2M, 3W
Children's Musical                                                                                          

A dreamy adventure through the desert sands of West Texas with Marsupial Girl, not quite a girl and not quite a kangaroo.   A children's musical with music by Sxip Shirey.

Commissioned and Produced by Children's Theater Company, Minneapolis, MN, 2006.

“Idiosyncratic and imaginative…..Is “Tale of a West Texas Marsupial Girl” an ever-resonant old lesson wrapped in a bright, unique and toe-tapping package? You bet your ten-gallon hat it is.”  
— Dominic Papatola, St. Paul Pioneer Press

 

16 SPELLS TO CHARM THE BEAST                                                       2M, 2W
16 Spells in 17 Scenes                                                                               

Lillian Davis, a metropolitan housewife of great regard, sets out to write her last will and testament in her apartment on the 27 th floor of a respectable, rent-controlled building. As she inventories her possessions, she feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up. There is a beast watching her every move, you see. He spies on her through a telescope from the window of his crappy apartment halfway across town. Oh, don't be silly Lillian, there is no such thing as a beast. She goes to the window. She admires her “view.” She sings a little song. The beast approaches.

Clubbed Thumb workshop production, NYC (2001); Salvage Vanguard Theater, Austin, TX(2003).

"Regarding matters of the heart, [16 Spells to Charm the Beast] describes the pain and beauty of our lives with a lyricism bordering on enchantment."
— Robert Faires, The Austin Chronicle

16 Spells to Charm the Beast is now available in Funny, Strange, Provacative: Seven Plays from Clubbed Thumb, available at Playscripts.com.

Read an excerpt HERE.