A full repertoire of Alyssa’s active full-length and one-act plays may be found on New Play Exchange. Available ten-minute plays can be found here.
The Lark and the Nightingale
Co-written with Mindy Mawhirter
Adapted from the works of William Shakespeare
Directed by Melody Erfani
Photos by Marvin Walder
DESDEMONA: I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.
JULIET: Madam, came nothing else along with that?
The Lark and the Nightingale is a queer retelling of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Othello. Juliet and Desdemona, two characters canonically destined for tragic endings, break away from their scripts and attempt to find happiness in each other. Desdemona battles duty with love while Juliet struggles to let love consume her entirely. When confronted with their scripted ends, they must advocate for one another and prove that their love is worth fighting for.
Happy Pills (full-length)
After nuclear attacks on U.S. cities, happiness and other emotions can no longer be produced naturally by humans; their brain chemistry has been severely altered due to nuclear fallout. The Integrated Borders Union, a new government near former Washington, D.C., works with local drug designers and manufacturers to produce chemically-created emotions; these pills are part of the mandatory Pill Program for all citizens residing in the IBU. To those unlucky enough to be wandering the wasteland, they must survive the terrain and hungry groups of hunters.
We go back and forth in time between young drug addict Fern’s present, in which she resides in the Integrated Borders Union one year after the fallout, trying to get back to her old life with her boyfriend Jon and her mother and follow the rules of the Pill Program; and Fern’s past, or what happened to her on the road a few months directly after the fallout, where she meets and deals with both withdrawal and her feelings for the mysterious traveler Kerouac after the two were chased by a group of hungry fallout survivors.
Expat-ations (one-act)
Trigger Warning: Discussion on sexual assault and rape culture.
Two American expat English teachers in China butt heads in their new friendship, further exacerbated by an incident that leaves them stuck in understanding how rape culture operates in America vs in China.
Presented as a staged reading directed by MaKenna Lockhart for Heartland Theatre company’s New Plays from the Heartland Festival (July 2019, Bloomington-Normal, IL).
“I Love China/我爱中国” (solo show)
Inspired by Meng Jinghui and others’ I Love XXX/我爱XXX. Semi-autobiographical, semi-not, “I Love China/我爱中国” is a solo show which explores a young white American female-identifying experience as a foreign teacher and temporary resident in the People’s Republic of China (pre-COVID-19).
This piece was originally written as a creative final project for the seminar Chinese Performing Arts in Global Perspectives at Shanghai Theatre Academy, to fulfill requirements for the MA in Intercultural Communication Studies. It was presented as a staged reading at YUZ Museum for the event SURGE in collaboration with PAN Shanghai and STA in December 2019.
This piece is still in development and will be expanded to speak to the COVID-19 era. Seeking future collaborators to make it an ensemble piece.
Savior (one-act)
An amnesiac girl named Lana wakes up on an empty ship captained by the mysterious Sal, who pulled her out of the water. As Lana integrates herself into the ship’s routine, little pieces of her memory return as she begins to question who Sal is, why they have a ship, and where their ship is ultimately heading. Presented as a developmental workshop production for a local one-act play festival in Iowa City, IA (2017).
Alyssa 