Village Playwrights Present LOVE IS QUEER

The Village Playwrights present Love Is Queer, staged reading of 10 minute plays to celebrate Valentine's Day, on Monday, February 10 at 7 pm at St. John's, 81 Christopher St., NYC. Suggested donation $10. For reservations email villageplaywrights@gmail.com.

The plays and playwrights are:

"Leap" by Elliot Keloff--1998. Pre-Grinder, pre-Scruff, pre-Growlr... Two gay men try to find love through the Village Voice Personals... if only they can get past each other's answering machines.

Elliot Kreloff is a member of The Protagonists Union writing collective, and the Dramatists Guild. His one act play, LEAP, was chosen as a semi-finalist for the 2018 O'Neill Playwriting Conference. TWO BROKEN TAILLIGHTS was performed at The Landing Theatre in Houston, as part of its Redemption Series. UNDER MY SKIN and THE DOG DIED were featured in The Playwright's the Thing, an evening of short play readings, produced by the Protagonists Union at The Barrow Group in NYC. LICENSE & REGISTRATION was selected for the 2018 Pittsburgh New Works Festival. Most recently, THE DOG DIED was selected for the Last Frontier Playwriting Conference in Valdez, Alaska. This past summer, he participated in the LaMama Umbria Playwright's Retreat, with Lisa Kron, and studied with James Hindman at The Art Workshop International, in Assisi.

"Love is a Blue Jay (Beautiful and Mean)" by Merryn Johns--Reeling from her lesbian divorce, Jane tries to embrace life again through one of her favorite activities - bird watching. But nature has a couple of lessons for her.

Merryn Johns is a journalist, magazine editor, and playwright based in New York City. By day she works as editor-in-chief of Curve magazine and as a digital news producer for a multinational news corporation. After hours her passion for playwriting takes over, and she is delighted that Village Playwrights have showcased her shorts After Carol, The Succulents, Oyster Season, and Night of Broken Glass. Merryn is originally from Sydney, Australia where she obtained a diploma in playwriting and a PhD in theater.

"Love Potion Tango" by Karen Howes--a film noir re-enactment of the 1963 song "Love Potion Number Nine" in which a love potion gets a down-on-his-luck-good-for-nothing-dancing-man into a heap of trouble.

Karen Howes is a member of the Dramatist Guild and Antaeus Playwright's lab in LA. Several of her plays have been produced, published, and have received multiple awards including The Maxum Mazumdor New Play Award, The Science Driven Play Award, and the Women's Playwright Initiative Award. She was nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, has an MFA in writing, teaches film and theatre history, and has created Devised theatre under a Kennedy Center grant. She is currently working on a commissioned musical about the women's rights movement. You can see her work and bio on New Play Exchange and The Playwrights Center https://newplayexchange.org/users/3575/karen-howes

"Milk and Cookies" by William Mullin--A play about honesty in the age of gay marriage.

William Mullin is a playwright, storyteller, and performer. He divides his time between New York City and Provincetown. He has performed stories on The Moth, Risk, and the Mosquito Story Slam, where he is a regular host. He has performed stand-up comedy all over New York City, including Caroline's, and Gotham Comedy Club. He has written for numerous performers including actor Jane Lynch. William has trained at the William Esper Studio and performed at New York's Upright Citizens Brigade, The Pit and the Royal National Theatre in London.

"Powder the Flush" by Olivia Elizabeth Hunt -- Legendary vocalist Billie Holiday calls legendary actress Tallulah Bankhead to meet in the Harlem stomping grounds of their wild youth, in an effort to convince her to go public with their long lost love affair.

Olivia Hunt is a writer and actress from Downingtown, Pennsylvania- a questionable suburb of Philadelphia that offers, if nothing else, a lot of material. Olivia is an undergraduate student of Dramatic Writing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she is also the director of Bechdel Test: NYU's only all-female Sketch and Improv comedy group. She aims to write family and relationship driven narratives all of kinds for the screen and stage, and is thrilled to have her play presented at Love is Queer! Contact: oeh212@nyu.edu.

"Something about the Eyes" by John Barrow--A retired gay man in Ft. Lauderdale hires his first hustler. What develops is a surprise to both of them.

John Barrow's play Lillian Paula Carson, about Carson McCullers' surprise visit to Lillian Smith and Paula Snelling at their home in Georgia in 1953, was named winner of the 2017 Southern Playwrights Competition. Richard Nixon's Neighbors, a one-act comedy, was broadcast by Shoestring Radio Theatre in 2018 and will be performed Feb. 15-16 at Seat of Our Pants (SOOP) Theatre in Pelham, NY.

"Valentine Shrugged" by Wayne Paul Mattingly--A Valentine's Day Wedding: Two lost and empty members of the wedding party toast the hollow sounds of ice clinking in their celebratory glasses. And so is music made?

Wayne Paul Mattingly is a multi-award-winning playwright whose work has been staged in various theatres nationally, incl. Valdez, Alaska & Kauai, Hawaii; as well as a few in London, England. Winner of The Tennessee Chapbook Prize; recipient of Can Serrat residencies in Barceleona, Spain; Disquiet Literary residency in Lisbon, Portugal; Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Fellowship in Taos, NM; and others. Founding member/dramaturg of Misfits Ensemble, L.A. & founding A.D. of Tiger's Heart Players, NY. Multiple publications with Smith & Kraus "Best of.." series and Applause Theatre & Cinema books.. AEA. Dramatist Guild. Available work can be found @ NNPN. www.waynepaulmattingly.com

"Walls Like Curtains" by Emma Goldmans-Sherman--Julie is always walking into walls. Now she's in love with Leah, hoping not to get hurt, hoping the walls she's always walking into might be soft this time, like curtains.

Emma Goldman-Sherman's plays have been produced on 5 continents and include Wombshot and Perfect Women (Jane Chambers Award, student division). 2 recent podcasts: https://www.theparsnipship.com/#listen-now and https://playingonair.org/new-releases/counting-in-shaab. Emma has an MFA from the University of Iowa and is the founder and resident dramaturg of the 29StPC where she runs the WriteNow Workshop. She is currently under commission by Experimental Bitch, and FUKT will be workshopped 3/27-4/5 with New Circle Theatre Co. Member: Dramatists Guild. Work available at newplayexchange.org