“Entertaining and absolutely hilarious. Emily McDermott is a talented writer for one so young”
- Carolyn Chivers on Hillary’s Kicthen, 2018
HILLARY’S KITCHEN
(EDINBURGH FESTIVAL, 2018)
Hillary Clinton drinks chardonnay and commiserates the 2016 election results with famous women from history, including Virginia Woolf, Eve (of Bible fame), Dido Queen of Carthage, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Frida Kahlo and a midwestern lady named Pam.
Packed with discussions of everything from thrush cream to gendered language to a communist model for lovemaking, the play explores what happens if we remove socialised gender roles, or even reverse them. Their wine-induced hallucinations produce short sketches that interrupt the action and give funny takes on how disruptive, political women have been treated in history. Join these women as they encourage Clinton to dust herself off and continue to fight for women’s rights. And to have a goddamn shower.
(7F; 0M)
Hillary Clinton commiserates the 2016 election results, with Eve (left), Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (right of centre) and Frida Kahlo (right).
Virginia Woolf addresses the audience.
Frida Kahlo (left) and Dido Queen of Carthage (right).
In rehearsals for Edinburgh Festival, July 2018.
Rehearsals for Dark Matter, February 2020.
Poster for New Works Festival, June 2020.
Playwright Talkback (on Zoom) after performance.
DARK MATTER
(NEW WORKS FESTIVAL, CHICAGO, 2020)
Three workers at an office building become trapped in a storage room when an active shooter storms the building. While they lie in wait, they must decide whether to escape the room and rescue their colleagues (knowing they’ll probably die as a result) or stay safely in the room knowing they’ve willingly allowed the deaths of their friends. Ultimately paralysed by choice, they conclude that the only way to avoid the moral consequences of either action is to blow up their world entirely. To rid themselves of choice and live on their own terms. Loosely based on the Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015, this is a story about the challenge of Free Will and the burden of choice.
(1F; 2M) (FULL-LENGTH PLAY) (DRAMA)
IMPROV: THE MUSICAL
(WIRTZ CENTER, CHICAGO, 2020)
Improv: the Musical tracks the trajectory of six young improvisers who rise through the ranks of Chicago’s famed Second City theatre in the hopes of being hired for Saturday Night Live.
There’s something Godlike about the world of improv; some omnipresent pull that draws you into it, and you can’t explain why. Improv: the Musical is therefore told as a Greek Epic: high above the action, on a cloud, sit Nine Muses, making judgements at whim about the fate of these performers.
(17F; 15M; 1T) (FULL-LENGTH MUSICAL) (COMEDY)
Rehearsals for Improv: the Musical, February 2020.
Staged reading, Improv: the Musical, Wirtz Center, Chicago, March 2020.
LES PASSERELLES
(CHICAGO, JANUARY 2019)
Passerelles begins in 1930s at the heart of Parisian cultural life as the greatest writers and existentialist thinkers of the age congregate in the Cafe Deux-Magots. We follow Léonard, a man paralysed by his own desperation to number among the greats and Lydie, who is prevented from the same ambition by her gender and her Jewish faith. We follow them through history as the Second World War, 1968 riots and changing philosophies ravage the streets of Paris and witness how their love for each other and desire for greatness is tampered with by history.
This is a play that messes with form. It is rich in metaphor; a joke is made of the never-ending card game between the barflies of the cafe, as a German, a Frenchman, a Russian and Englishman and an Italian vie for lebensraum over the table (Europe). The play's look and structure follow the same fluid philosophies of its characters. Different historical periods are laid over each other at the same cafe which forms the focal point of the piece. The characters perform cabaret, compose limericks in front of us and misremember parts of their own story and must apologise to the audience.
(1F; 8M) (FULL-LENGTH) (ROMANCE) (HISTORICAL)
First performance of The Man in the Moon at iO Chicago.
THE MAN IN THE MOON
(iO THEATRE, CHICAGO, 2019)
Danielle puts away laundry in her son’s old childhood bedroom that is still preserved as it was, filled with glow-in-the-dark stars, toy rockets and astronaut bed covers. Her 21-year-old son Charlie appears, sitting on his toy chest, and makes her jump.
They talk over life after his death, argue over her decision to unplug his life support machine and rekindle his childhood ambition to land on the moon.
(1F; 1M) (SHORT) (DRAMA)
THE LETTER OF THE LAW
(CHICAGO, FEBRUARY 2019)
The English Language is undergoing some cutbacks. A, E, I, O and U (the Official Vowel Council) hold high court on the Scrabble Board and call consonants into the court room one-by-one to defend why they should be kept in the English Language. Any letters found to be no longer necessary to the English are taken away by the guards (two parentheses) and exterminated (removed from the alphabet). The Letter of the Law is a timely satire about both the decaying of language and the horrors of living under a dictatorship.
(5F; 4M) (SHORT) (DARK) (COMEDY) (POLITICAL)
FOR THE LOVE OF BRIAN
(CHICAGO, MARCH 2019)
Marjory drags her husband along to a middle-aged swingers party in an attempt to revive their stagnant marriage. Amid swapping partners and Marjory’s self-discoveries about her increasingly-fluid sexuality, Brian and the other men at the party sit uncomfortably downstairs, not wanting to join in. Initially feeling pressured by his wife, Marjory eventually reveals she only dragged Brian to the party in order to spice up their stagnant marriage. They end up going home with each other in the spiciest sex scene of the play.
By reversing the genders, For the Love of Brian is a comic satire on getting consent from your partner.
(4F; 3M) (SHORT PLAY) (COMEDY)
SOME BIRDS FLY WEST
(CHICAGO, DECEMBER 2018)
A woman struggles on a bitterly cold Christmas Eve after
her husband is released from hospital after having a stroke
and she has to cope through her first Christmas as a carer for
her husband and figure out how to maintain a marriage
with someone who can no longer speak.
Some Birds Fly West is an examination of how women are put
under pressure to care for men who have failed them.
(1F; 1M) (SHORT PLAY) (DRAMA)