The Playwrights Database
KARLA JENNINGS
(1956 - )Nationality: USA
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Karla Jennings is a former newspaper reporter whose plays often (but not always) deal with science, technology, and personal identity. She's also really funny. Recent honors include a 2008 Chicago Dramatists public reading, a 2006 Hermann Kesten fellowship for a conference in Germany, a 2006 ensemble Studio Theatre Sloan new play commission, and a 2006 Magic Theatre Sloan rewrite commission for the Ruby Vector, which received the National Arts Club 2005 Playwrights First award, was in the Lark Theatre Company Playwrights' Week 2005, and was an O'Neill Playwrights Conference 2006 semi-finalist. She co-founded Working Title Playwrights, Atlanta's premiere playwriting organization, serving as founding artistic/managing director for three years. Atlanta's Creative Loafing rated her Images in Smoke (essential Theatre) among Atlanta's top 15 productions in 2000; she received their 2003 People's Choice award for Best Local Playwright. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Playwrights' Center. Her freelance has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, Cosmopolitan, the Japan Times, the Journal of the American Medical association, Atlanta Magazine, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and elsewhere.
Research: Member of the Dramatists Guild of America (as at 2015)
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below is a list of Karla Jennings's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
7 Nights At Jay's (Journeys In Ordinary Love) Children Like Us Clay's War Compassion Paradox Demons Dish Babies Elizabeth Has Certain Hobbies Free Heart2Home Images In Smoke In the Blood Into the Water Land Of the Freefall Monstrous Beauty Nellie Bly Ravens & Seagulls Ruby Vector, The Smiles, The Under the Bridge Virtually Perfect7 Nights At Jay's (Journeys In Ordinary Love)
Synopsis:
Pursuing ordinary love -- simple respect, passion, affirmation, belonging -- lures patrons at Jay's Spirit Emporium to unexpected destinations that spiral back into each other as people ricochet off each other's lives, altering each other's directions, desires, goals, and destinations. Strangers we usually pass by pull us into their journeys and the hopes, beliefs, and fantasies we employ in our struggle against Time and mortality.
Notes:
Recognition: Lark theatre Company Playwrights' Week 2004 finalist; underwent Artistic Associate workshopping At the Lark under the direction of Linnet Taylor. A funny, fast, kinda weird play. Structure: A two-act full-length play in eight scenes. Set: A few tables And A booth in A bar. Time: from 1986 to the present.
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Genre:
Comic Drama Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageChildren Like Us
Synopsis:
confronts society's definition of "disability" in an age where technological advances make previous handicaps into mere inconveniences. It asks: What right does our culture have to define our worth? And when the "facts" that form us turn out to be illusions, what do we become?
Notes:
a finalist in this year's InterAct theatre's 20/20 New Play Commission program in Philadelphia. the play, was also a finalist in the 2012 O'Neill Conference
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageClay's War
Synopsis:
Atlanta highway construction supervisor Clay eccles struggles to survive America's second civil war, fought over genetic engineering and what constitutes the "genetically pure." Clay is a clone living under Georgia Populus Dei dictator Titus Burnstone, who considers human clones and other minorities a contamination of the "right natural" human gene pool and operates murderous genetic cleansing squads. Betrayed by his clone brother, who's seeking legal human status, Clay goes from Populus Dei prisoner to human "chop shop" inmate to resistance fighter in a play exploring the fluidity of identity and the malleability of hate, whose scenarios echo racial/ethnic conflicts including American slavery, the Holocaust, and the Yugoslavian war. Clay's War asks, "What makes another person 'the Other?'" "What constitutes 'human?'" and "at what point can the fight to survive turn a survivor into a murderer?"
Notes:
Recognition: Awarded the biannual Hermann Kesten Fellowship for A July 2006 international writers' conference in Germany. Lark theatre Company Playwrights' Week 2003 finalist. NYC Reverie Production's 2007 Next Generation Playwrights contest semi-finalist. Structure: A two-act full-length play in nine scenes. Set: A cot-like shelf fit in with other shelves, All of which can be draped closed, A table, chairs, wastebasket, filing cabinets, A frame representing A television/"Vid" screen. Time: the year 2166.
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Genre:
Futuristic suspense Drama Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 5 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageCompassion Paradox
Synopsis:
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Notes:
Atlanta's One Minute Play Festival
1st Produced:
Actor's Express 10 Jun 2012
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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
short play
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageDemons
Synopsis:
It's 1874 near midnight in the Great Northwest, and the spirits are loose. Paul Dunai, a smug 25-year-old priest who converted to Catholicism in rebellion against his minister father, is on a mission to succor the frontier families of the Great Northwest. When he ends up alone and forsaken in the wilderness, he discovers that neither his learning nor his ability can protect him. His faith is challenged by demons that force him to question his belief in himself as a priest, a friend, a man, and a human being. Dunai must find a reason to choose faith against despair, or he'll become a demon himself.
Notes:
a good Halloween play. Structure: A two-act full-length play in eight scenes. Set: All scenes occur in the wilderness of the Great Northwest. Two scenes occur in A cabin, one in A cave, And the rest in the forest or on the trail. Time: October 31 - November 1,1874.
1st Produced:
Dramatech Theatre, Georgia Tech 1997
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Genre:
Supernatural suspense Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 4 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageDish Babies
Synopsis:
Megan Bloom and her patient but not quietly suffering husband David ride infertility's exhausting roller coaster. Megan's dreams take stage alongside her reality: her fantasy of perfect children conducting Nobel prize-winning research in the Institute for the Investigation of Just about anything; a pregnant Greek Chorus singing about pregnancy's indignities; mad preachers, and studs in black leather jackets. Dish Babies explores primal urges, medical miracles, joy, frustration, acceptance, defiance, and enduring love. It's a play about the borderline between hope and desperation, about birth, the future, personal extinction, and playing the hand that Fate deals you. It's about obsession and the dreams that drive us, a cry of desire from someone facing oblivion. It's a human experience.
Notes:
Recognition: 1998 Do Gooder National New Playwright Award. Rochester Playwright Festival/Midwest theatre Network 1998 New Play Competition semifinalist. Structure: A two-act full-length play in nine scenes. Set: the set consists of three Areas: "office" (chalk board, desk, three chairs), "bedroom" (bed, dresser, rocking chair), And "empty space" (two stage blocks). Time: the present.
1st Produced:
La Workshop Production, Two Roads Theater 2001
Organisations:
DoGooder Productions, Inc.
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Genre:
Comedy/Drama Comedy
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageElizabeth Has Certain Hobbies
Synopsis:
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Notes:
Karla Jennings' short plays Elizabeth Has Certain Hobbies and Nellie Bly will be presented in Theater Emory's "Inside Voices" and invites a look at historic women's stories through a modern lens, retelling narratives that formed the world's interpretation of events and individuals. The question of "What if?" will be explored in these and other plays, including "What if the first vampire was a woman?" as part of Theater Emory's Breaking Ground series.
1st Produced:
Theatre Emory, Emory University. Atlanta, GA 28 Jun 2015
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Genre:
short play
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageFree
Synopsis:
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Notes:
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1st Produced:
Stageworks/Hudson In Play By Play: Rendezvous 27 Jun 2012
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageHeart2Home
Synopsis:
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Notes:
Atlanta's One Minute Play Festival
1st Produced:
Actor's Express 10 Jun 2012
Organisations:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
short play
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageImages In Smoke
Synopsis:
During an Atlanta apartment party one summer night, strangers, friends, and former lovers pit past hopes against present bleak realities. Friendships break, new ones form, illusions crumble and fresh hope is born. the characters discover that the past shapes us, but the truth of our past is impossible to know.
Notes:
aWaRDS: essential theatre's 2000 Georgia Playwright Award. the Jan.-Feb. 2000 production was ranked by Atlanta's Creative Loafing As one of 2000's top 15 Atlanta productions. Structure: A two-act full-length play in two scenes. 90 minutes without intermission. Set: An Apartment stairwell one hot Atlanta summer night. Time: the present.
1st Produced:
Essential Theatre, Atlanta 2000
Organisations:
essential Theatre
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Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 4 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageIn the Blood
Synopsis:
a geneticist at an infertility clinic faces off against a couple who want to pass on their physical attributes to their children; not unusual, except that one's deaf and one's a Little Person. ethical questions become murky when the geneticist discovers personal secrets that challenge what it means when something's "in the blood." Several roles are gender-neutral and casting-dependent in a play exploring how personal identity can be shattered when the factors that make us what we are turn out to be illusion.
Notes:
NeW PLaY with A cast designed for gender-switching the gender-neutral roles As part of how the work plays with the idea of personal identity And how society decides what we Are And what we're worth. Structure: A full-length play in 13 scenes. No intermission. Running Time: About 95 minutes.
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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
comedy Drama Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 2 Other: 2
Further Reference:
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Top of PageInto the Water
Synopsis:
an American family stranded in a coastal junkyard fights to survive global warming's potential endgame, paralleled by a Classic Mayan family struggling against their own ecological collapse. their intertwining stories converge in the year 2012, when both the Mayan calendar and the Kyoto Protocol end. the Mayans saw 2012 as the end of the world, but perhaps the beginning of a new one. What does 2012 -- and our response to our own ecological crisis -- mean for us? Can a few people make a difference?
Notes:
NeW PLaY: this play was written under A Sloan New Play Commission granted by ensemble Studio theater And was workshopped in early draft At the Alliance theatre in Atlanta in July 2007. Structure: A two-act play in 19 scenes, intermission optional. Running Time: About 100 minutes.
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Genre:
Drama w/surrealistic elements Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageLand Of the Freefall
Synopsis:
Times were complicated enough when you had to decide between a lava lamp or fiber optic light to go with your Hendrix poster. then the '90s hurled into the Millennium, triggering revolutions more radical than those naughty black leather pants peculiar to S&M clubs that now sell at Sam's Club. We're a nation of constant change, with technology transforming our world faster than we can transform ourselves. This techno-trilogy's about living when the ground beneath our feet blurs like sand dunes in a hurricane: Mother: While eschewing Giggly Snigglys at the Pancake Palace with his dangerously affectionate stepmother, young Matthew learns the disorienting answer to the question, "How many mothers can one boy have?" avalanche: Companies expand and contract explosively in corporate survival's violent universe, shedding employees like chunks of dead matter. This department's final survivors desperately fight to hang on to their jobs. acceleration Nation: this non-musical musical ode to the car celebrates what ripped through our social fabric, shooting sparks of freedom, adventure, personal fulfillment, and environmental and community disintegration. Is our car-addicted nation messing itself up? Hell yes. are we about to give up our cars? Hell no.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Theatre Decatur, Decatur, Georgia 2003
Organisations:
Working Title Playwrights
1st Published:
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Music:
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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 4 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageMonstrous Beauty
Synopsis:
Can art be amoral, corrupt, ruthless, and still beautiful? Yes. Can an artist be amoral, corrupt, ruthless, and still admirable? That question would never occur to the great filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, who was too busy getting ahead to bother with paradoxes. This play about the shamelessly brilliant and energetic director explores the often-cozy relationship between Power and art, and the discomforting fact that the genius we admire can be the opportunist we loathe. Co-starring Marlene Dietrich as the good twin.
Notes:
NeW PLaY: Structure: A two-act play in 26 scenes. Time: From 1926 in the Weimer Republic to 2003 in hell. Running Time: About 110 minutes
1st Produced:
Workshop Presentation In The Blank Theatre's Living Room Series 12 Nov 2013
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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
absurdist Drama Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageNellie Bly
Synopsis:
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Notes:
Karla Jennings' short plays Elizabeth Has Certain Hobbies and Nellie Bly will be presented in Theater Emory's "Inside Voices" and invites a look at historic women's stories through a modern lens, retelling narratives that formed the world's interpretation of events and individuals. The question of "What if?" will be explored in these and other plays, including "What if the first vampire was a woman?" as part of Theater Emory's Breaking Ground series.
1st Produced:
Theatre Emory, Emory University. Atlanta, GA 28 Jun 2015
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
short play
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageRavens & Seagulls
Synopsis:
In this comedy/drama, when the youngest sister falls ill, three estranged sisters arrive to care for her, plunging into a journey where love, loss, life and spirit converge.
Notes:
won The 2014 Essential Theater Playwriting Competition
1st Produced:
West End Performing Arts Center. Atlanta, NY 30310 23 Jul 2014
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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
comedy drama
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageRuby Vector, The
Synopsis:
What makes a rational, educated man toil to create means of mass death? What might make him a terrorist? What are the consequences for us all? the answers lie in a clash of wills between two biowarriors that will determine the fate of thousands as an American bioweapons defense researcher interrogates a former Soviet bioweapons scientist to determine if he's an unjustly accused defector or a terrorist. the Ruby Vector explores United States geopolitical history, the Stalinist legacy, the seeds of terrorism, and the tension between treachery and trust.
Notes:
National Arts Club 2005 Playwrights First Award; Lark theatre Co. Playwrights' Week 2005 participant; 2006 Magic theatre Sloan rewrite commission; O'Neill Playwrights Conference 2006 semi-finalist. Structure: A two-act full-length play in five scenes. Running time: Approximately An hour And forty minutes without intermission. Set: the nondescript second-floor living room of A federal safe house in Virginia. Time: A few days After Demyan Arrives in the U.S., And A few weeks later.
1st Produced:
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Organisations:
Under first production option with the Magic Theatre, San Francisco.
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Genre:
Suspense/thriller Thriller
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageSmiles, The
Synopsis:
When a minister brings a junkie home for personal rehabilitation, the results are anything but redemptive
Notes:
Structure: A two-act play in 17 scenes. Time: From 1984 to 1990
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageUnder the Bridge
Synopsis:
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Notes:
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1st Produced:
In Essential Theater's "The Local" Jul 2012
Organisations:
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Genre:
short play
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageVirtually Perfect
Synopsis:
When we're lost, when reality hurts and illusion pleases, which is more dangerous to desire -- a person or a virtual world? Which is more likely to explode in violence? Virtually Perfect fuses reality with virtual reality in exploring isolation, love, lust, and games -- computer and otherwise.
Notes:
awards: honorable mention, 2002 Riva Shiner Full-Length Play Contest. Structure: A two-act full-length play in 17 scenes. Set: Upstage is A frame large enough for Actors to walk through. It represents A computer/video game/television screen And mirror. the spotlight behind the frame is called the "screen light." the main set is A generic Apartment for Toto, Fred/Nicki, And Mimi/Happy. It Also serves As A cafe And dance club. Time: the present.
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
Comic Drama Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 4 Other: 1 m/f
Further Reference:
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