The PlayFinder™

A simple silver bracelet travels through the lives of ten bold and desperate lovers, giving us a glimpse of the intrigue and heartache left in its wake. AMERICAN LA RONDE is a provocative and fully contemporary re-imagining of Schnitzler’s notorious play Reigen, known as its French translation, La Ronde. Sexy, literate, emotional, and highly theatrical.... Read more

Have you ever been tempted to flee your own life? Becky Foster is caught in middle age, middle management and in a middling marriage—with no prospects for change on the horizon. Then one night a socially inept and grief-struck millionaire stumbles into the car dealership where Becky works. Becky is offered nothing short of a new life…and the audience is offered a chance to ride shotgun in a way that most plays wouldn't dare. BECKY'S NEW CAR is a thoroughly original comedy with ... Read more

Robert returns to Dublin to reunite with Cait, the woman who captured his heart during a James Joyce literary tour thirty-five years ago. Dancing backwards through time, the older couple retrace their steps to discover their younger selves. Through young Robbie and Caithleen, they relive the unlikely, inevitable events that brought them—only briefly—together. This Irish time-travel love story blends wit, humor, and heartache into a buoyant, moving appeal for making the most of ... Read more

"I want your fear. For your fear, like a current, rushes through your body. Your fear makes your heart pound, it renders your veins rich and full. Your fear hemorrhages deliciously within you." This new adaptation restores the suspense and seduction of Bram Stoker's classic novel to the stage. As Count Dracula begins to exert his will upon the residents of London, they try to piece together the clues of his appearances—in a valiant attempt to save themselves from a hideous fate... Read more

There is an alternate version of Steven Dietz’s Dracula that requires fewer actors and may be performed without an intermission. It is only available in manuscript.

This spirited variation of Steven Dietz’s widely-produced adaptation moves Dracula’s intended bride, Mina Murray, to the very center of the story. While retaining all the theatrical elements and narrative sweep of his original, Di... Read more

A play of extravagant romance and combustible desire, FORCE OF NATURE brings together the "perfect couple" —Edward and Charlotte—with two persons from their past: a beautiful young woman and an older man, Edward's best friend. Beneath the placid exteriors of their lives, a storm is awakening—a rush of dangerous passions which shall alter their lives forever. Freely adapted from Goethe's Elective Affinities, FORCE OF NATURE is a lush, eloquent drama about the consequences... Read more

In 1983, against the backdrop of the tragedy in Beirut, the most powerful nation on earth invaded the smallest country in the western hemisphere: The United States invaded Granada. This deviously dark comedy takes us behind the scenes of this incredible invasion. This behind the scenes world is not on the island, however, it is with the speech writers and spin doctors who won America's first "public relations" war.... Read more

A haunting and hallucinatory drama about the making of art, INVENTING VAN GOGH is the story of the final van Gogh self-portrait, painted just before the artist's death, which has never been seen…until now. Patrick Stone, a contemporary painter, is hired to forge this final masterpiece—and finds himself squaring off, across the years, with van Gogh himself. The result is a compelling mystery about the obsession to create and the fine line that separates truth from myth.... Read more

Ben and Jeeter fought in Vietnam, and for thirty years they have remained united by a war that divided the nation. Joined by Jeeter's new girlfriend and her off-the-grid whiskey-drinking mother, these friends gather at Ben's remote trailer for one final hurrah. As the night deepens, the past makes a return appearance, and its many ghosts come flickering to life. This is a fierce, funny, haunted play about a friendship that ends—and a war that does not.... Read more

Jody is in his forties and runs a map store. Not one for the outside world, he stays in his store all the time. His friend, Carl is in his late thirties and has been bringing chairs of dead friends into Jody's store and leaving them there. When Jody needs to take an AIDS test, Carl tries to convince him it is not only okay to leave the store but also that he must take responsibility for his life. If he doesn't, he will join the set of chairs that Carl has taken great pains to p... Read more

In this funny, fierce and heartbreaking homage to The Seagull, Steven Dietz puts Chekhov's star-crossed lovers in a room and doesn't let them out. In forty-three variations on their famous final scene, Nina (a young actress) and Treplev (a young writer), pit their vibrant wit and soaring passions against one another in a fast-paced tour de force of romantic entanglement.... Read more

It is 1926 in the American heartland, and the famed "healing waters" of Paragon Springs have been mysteriously poisoned. Now, the town's foremost citizen-crusader, Dr. Thomas Stockman, is determined to know the truth behind this tragedy, no matter the cost. In this vibrant, often funny, and highly theatrical re-imagining of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, Steven Dietz puts the lure of capitalism and the greed of small-town self-interest squarely on trial—laced with Dr. S... Read more

PRIVATE EYES is a comedy of suspicion in which nothing is ever quite what it seems. Matthew's wife, Lisa, is having an affair with Adrian, a British theatre director. Or perhaps the affair is part of the play being rehearsed. Or perhaps Matthew has imagined all of it simply to have something to report to Frank, his therapist. And, finally, there is Cory—the mysterious woman who seems to shadow the others—who brings the story to its surprising conclusion. Or does she? The audien... Read more

RANCHO MIRAGE is a bitingly funny black comedy about what happens when the fictions that hold our lives together are exposed. In this sharp and surprising sojourn into the psyche of modern-day America—where affluence is perhaps our greatest mirage—three couples, long-time friends, find themselves at a dinner party where everyone finally decides to tell the truth. RANCHO MIRAGE asks what connects us when our youth, our dreams, and our last bottle of wine are gone.... Read more

ROCKET MAN is a serious comedy about the road not taken. Donny Rowan has placed everything he owns on his front lawn, along with a sign that reads: "Here's my life. Make an offer." He has cut a skylight into his attic and placed his E-Z Boy recliner underneath—where he can sit, staring at the stars. Somewhere in the universe, Donny believes, is a place where all the roads we never chose converge. ROCKET MAN explores one man's obsessive desire to find this "parallel world" —and ... Read more

The world's greatest detective has seemingly reached the end of his remarkable career when a case presents itself that is too tempting to ignore: The King of Bohemia is about to be blackmailed by a notorious photograph, and the woman at the heart of this crime is the famous opera singer, Irene Adler. With his trusted companion, Doctor Watson, at his side, Sherlock Holmes pursues first the case, and then the affections of Miss Adler—and in doing so, marches right into the lair o... Read more

Snowed in overnight at a middle-America airport, college lovers Elena Carson and Reed McAllister have an unexpected and life-altering reunion. Elena has stayed true to her hippie-ish, counter-culture path, while Reed has gone predictably corporate and conservative. As the night gives way to laughter, banter, remembrance and alcohol, Elena and Reed revisit a past that holds more surprises than they imagined—and a present that neither of them could have predicted. Filled with lau... Read more

We want to believe that serendipity brings us together, but is that just a myth? Mining the comedy of missed connections, THIS RANDOM WORLD asks the serious question of how often we travel parallel paths through the world without noticing. From an ailing woman who plans one final trip, to her daughter planning one great escape and her son falling prey to a prank gone wrong, this funny, intimate, and heartbreaking play explores the lives that may be happening just out of reach o... Read more

This is a contemporary dramatic comedy set against a backdrop of the rock music scene. In a world ruled by love, lust and lying, a spiral unwinds. Cody is a rising star musician. Becca is his fiancèe. Gretchen is a dressmaker, fitting Becca for her wedding dress. Leah is a rock star past her prime who Cody meets while on the road. Roy is a public radio announcer smitten with the young bohemian, Holly. As the lives and loves of these people continue to intersect, attraction give... Read more

Just when you thought you'd heard every crazy 9/11 conspiracy theory, a stranger walks into the Yankee Tavern. There, inside the walls of this crumbling New York tavern, a young couple finds themselves caught up in what might be the biggest conspiracy of all. Steven Dietz's acclaimed and already widely produced dramatic thriller—a selection of the National New Play Network's Continued Life Project—is a fierce, funny, and ultimately mind-bending work of theatrical power that gri... Read more