Joan Kufrin

Playwright

I was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, graduated from the University of Colorado with a B.A. in English Literature (cum laude) and returned to Chicago to begin my writing career in the city of Ben Hecht, a writer I deeply admired. My first byline appeared in the great, now defunct, Chicago Daily News. And it was in Chicago where I wrote my first play.  It was worse than awful but I learned two things: I loved writing for the theater…and I didn’t have anything worthwhile to say. It would take years to find out.

 

By-lines as a journalist followed: in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and Chicago magazine, New York, Saturday Evening Post, Christian Science Monitor and New York News magazine. By now I was married and a mother of two, and suddenly found I had a lot to say to and about the world.

 

That’s when I returned to writing plays. Two of them were finalists in the Eugene O’Neill Playwright’s Conference. I became a Steppenwolf Theatre New Playwright winner in 1991 and was commissioned to write The Good Friday Project, later produced by the Illinois Peace Action Committee. That play has now morphed into a screenplay, The Trial of Jean Gump, which was a semi-finalist in the 2014 CineSctory’s screenwriting awards.

 

My plays tell stories of ordinary characters who take extraordinary journeys-- within themselves, within their families, or into a hostile world-- where they stand up for what they believe even if it means hurting those they love most. Characters who try over and over again to get it right.  Characters bound by the horrible, beautiful ties of family that can’t be broken, even by death.

 

Three plays of mine are set in private places--the home and the heart. Dinner at 1800 Hours, The Test and The Messenger.Two plays take characters into a terrifying world that shows us-- and them --what they’re made of The Trial of Jean Gump and Here Lie the Demons. The latter had its world premiere and a three-week run in February 2006 at Fould’s Theatre,  Fort Myers, Florida.

 

I believe that plays ought to express an idea of the truth.  Not the truth, but what is true for these characters, at this time and in this place.   So that, for an hour or two, we understand something new about ourselves and the strangers who share our world.
 
Member: Dramatists Guild of America, Inc., Chicago Writers Bloc, and the Society of Midland Authors.

 

 

Highlights

DINNER AT 1800 HOURS
POLITICAL DRAMA, 3W/3M
A play in one 90-minute act.  One set.

Sparks fly when the peace activist parents of corporate lawyer Meredith and the second-generation military parents of Marine 2nd Lieutenant Bill meet for the first time at the couple’s engagement dinner. A delay in the meal --promised for six p.m. -- prompts a second, and then a third round of drinks.

Soon, words spoken not even to friends are being hurled at each other by the potential in-laws. Cut and run. 911. Peace Corps. Traitors. Vietnam. Iraq. Draft card burners. My Lai.  The evening that begins so politely escalates into heated argument and allegations until only one question remains:  can these six adults, of frozen mind-sets and hardened hearts, lay down their weapons of words long enough to engage in family-building?

Dinner At 1800 Hours resulted in Joan Kufrin  receiving an Individual Fellowship ($5,000) in playwriting from the State of Florida.  Dinner At 1800 Hours  also received an Oxford International Institute prize for Documentary and Drama in Conflict Resolution (OXDOCS).

HERE LIE THE DEMONS

Drama,  2W/3M*
“Cutting edge theater,” “A memorable night of theater,” “Alive and compelling,” “An ending to ponder, discuss and debate.”**
*3M (2 are double roled.)    One open set, chairs, tables and a couch.

Lili Learned is a sexy, delectable woman, who, during the course of the play, becomes the wide-eyed innocent she is at 18, the angry wife and anguished mother she is at 45, and the single, strong-willed business owner she is at 68. Throughout these years, the Korean, Vietnam and Iraq wars impact the decisions she makes, determining the course of her life and those of the men she loves.  In the end, she must make one more critical decision (which compels some audience members to shout out advice).  Can she? Or will she miss a final chance to find the peace that’s been eluding her all her life?

**World premiere production, 4 week run.  Fould’s Theatre - Theatre Conspiracy, Fort Myers, FL.  Reviews on request.

THE MESSENGER
Comedy, 3W/2M

Unmarried and slightly disabled, Angie, caregiver for her eccentric, retired show-biz parents, falls in love with Claude, a smooth-talking, good-looking stranger her father’s age. From the outset, Angie’s older sister and parents peg Claude as a fraud and do all they can to thwart the whirlwind romance. Will love triumph? Not before the cherished lies that all five characters hold close to their hypocritical hearts are exposed.

One open set

Production: Lake Wales Theatre – 3 weeks – Lake Wales, Florida
Contact Dramatic Publishing, (815) 338-7170 for further info

THE TEST
DRAMA – 4W/2M
“Seriously considered for production.” Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference
 
How the absolute truth of pure mathematics and the truth that is the opposite of lying affect a working-class couple when their 18-year old daughter, a mathematics genius, inadvertently cheats – and wins -- a critical competition for a four-year scholarship to M.I.T.

 

 

THE TRIAL OF JEAN GUMP

Drama.  Based on a true story.

3W, 6M, multiple roles for 5 of them.

Recipient of Steppenwolf New Plays Project grant (then titled Not In My Name!)

Production: Illinois Peace Action Committee. It is also a screenplay, a semi- finalist in the CineStory 2014 Screenwriting Awards. Recipient of the Oxford International Institute Annual Festival of New Work Prize.

 

It’s dawn. March 28,1986. Illinois peace activist Jean Gump, mother of 12 and grandmother of 2, without the knowledge of her family, friends or priest and with the help of two young cohorts, breaks into and trashes a U.S. nuclear missile silo in Missouri to protest the 400+ nuclear missiles then planted in America’s heartland. Knowing a prison sentence is inevitable, the three sit down and wait to be arrested. 

 

This action ignited international attention--and acclaim--but nearly destroyed Jean’s marriage and her family. It wasn’t until her trial, where prosecutors portrayed Jean Gump and her cohorts as willful conspirators who had harmed the U.S. Government, that her family and supporters finally understand the dire reasons that caused Jean to choose eight years in prison rather than pay the government $424.48, the amount of destruction each conspirator owed. The young men paid their damages and were released.  Jean refused to pay and served 4 years and one month in Federal prison for her defiant act of conscience.

 

3W, 6M,  multiple roles for 5 of them.

Set and Special Requirements: One multiple use open set with stairway for minimal representation of five locales; A screen for large-scale projection of TV images.Previous Productions/Readings: Readings: Writers Bloc New Plays Festival, Victory Gardens Readers Theatre.

 

 

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