| Christine Rusch
(K. Biadaszkiewicz)
PO Box 202, Wyandotte, Michigan 48192 USA Isoperhaps@yahoo.com
Member, Dramatists Guild, Authors League
Guidance/Education:
John Ford Noonan; Arthur Giron; Bill Hardy; Harvena Richter.
M.Ed. Temple University
Activities/Honors
Co-Founder: Human Values in New Plays program (NC Humanities Committee)
Best Lunch Theatre Ever; Greenville Museum’s New Works Theatre;
Southeastern Playwrights’ Conference; Playwrights’ Fund of NC
Building Bridges (SC Community discussion group about racial issues)
CONTACT (SC community action group);
The People’s Theatre Darlington, SC;
Power Point (Series of programs for at-risk teens)
Founding member, Greenville (NC) Friends Meeting (Quakers). Member, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting
Editor, Milestones, Friends Journal
Fellow in Drama, SC Academy of Authors
Instructor of Fiction/Playwriting, UCLA (1998-2001)
Drama honors PAST ANGRY (play), First Place, Judith Siegel Pearson Award (Wayne State University). POTATO GIRL (play), Best Play (Institute for Southern Studies).
Selected one-acts, Special Collections, Green Library, Stanford University.
THE MAN WHO BURIED…Producer’s Choice Award, Turnip Theatre Festival
HE CAME HOME ONE DAY… Letter of Recognition, O’Neill Theater Center; Finalist, The Mercy Plays; Honorable Mention, 2005 New Works of Merit Playwriting Competition; Selected for Best Short American Play Anthology (Applause Books).
A BOZZA FOR GAZA, Award from Oxford International Institute for Documentary & Drama in Conflict Transformation. For additional drama awards, please see List of 38 Selected Plays (SEE BELOW)
Prose honors "Pan Stickies” (story), First Place, Buffalo Bones Competition
"Chickens" (poem), Finalist, Abiko Quarterly International Poetry Contest, Nagasaki, Japan
"The Man Who Buried..." (story), Finalist, Mississippi Review Fiction Competition
"West Randolph Street" (story), Hon. Mention, “Short-Short Story Competition”, Florida State Univ.
"Wing Night Afternoon" (story), Finalist, Pacific Coast Journal Competition
Fellowships Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Sweet Briar, VA; Dorset Colony House, Dorset, VT; Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre, Mars Hill, NC; The Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences, Rabun Gap, GA; Artist-in-Residence, Poinsett Park, Poinsett, SC; The Millay Colony for the Arts, Austerlitz, NY
Administration: Founding Artistic Director, Playwrights Fund of NC & Southeastern Playwrights’ Festival
ScriptWriters Board of Directors, Columbia, South Carolina
Task Force and Board of Directors, Building Bridges, Florence, South Carolina
Board of Directors, Friends School in Detroit (current)
Publications:
POTATO GIRL, Changing Scenes, Institute for Southern Studies, Southern Exposure Magazine & One-Act Plays for Acting Students (Meriwether). Selections from MUGGINS and THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PERSIMMON T. HOPEWELL, The Actors' Scenebook: Great Monologues and Dialogues from Classical and Contemporary Theatre (Meriwether); Wade's Monologue, Spring Poets Theatre/Cafe LaMama Issue of Lamia Ink!; "Buffalo Girl" (story), Thema,; "Chickens" (poem), Abiko Quarterly,; "The Young Woman in the Green Dress" (story) & "The Invisible Wish" (story), Pavement Saw; "Scars" (Poem), Mediphores,s; "Working in Tobacco" (story), Happy,; "Woodrow Carries On" (Story), A Room of One's Own: A Canadian Journal of Literature and Criticism; "The Silver Collection" (story), Potato Eyes; "December Sunlight" (story), Wordplay Magazine; "Rendezvous in a Clean Place" (story) Quantum Tao Anthology; "Wing Night Afternoon" (story), Pacific Coast Journal; "The Man Who Buried..." (story), Mississippi Review, & Breakfast in Bed (UK); "Pan Stickies" (Story), Silver Quill Anthology (The Scriveners); PAST ANGRY (play), This Month on Stage (Holvoe); "The Goldfinch" (story), Freedom's Just Another Word Anthology, Outrider Press; "Picasso n Me 4-Ever" (story), Feathers, Fins, & Fur Anthology, Outrider Press, & Alkali Flats; "Vestige" (story), Sweet Annie Review; "The Wrong Bus out of Dallas" (Story), Spectacle (Pachanga Press); SARAJEVO (one-act play), Cauchemar; “…Supposed to Sit and Knit” (story) Knit-Lit Anthology; “The Madman” (story, “PT Hopewell”), Colere, Coe College); DANCING WITH ALL THE COOL KIDS (play), Brooklyn Publishers; Monologue from LEMONADE LAGOON in anthology Young Women’s Monologs from Contemporary Plays, SUNY Potsdam (Meriwether); POTATO GIRL (play), Heuer Publishing; THE MAN WHO BURIED HIS DOGS IN THE FRONT YARD (play), Heuer Publishing; “Why I Hate Guns”(story) Out of Line; “Pessoa Poems” in anthology In the Footsteps of a Shadow, ed. Cutler (pending, 2009); “Where Stories Go” (poem), Margie; “On the Invasion of Iraq, 2003” (poem), The Gihon River Review; “Me & My Brother & the Skunk”(story), Solace anthology; "Not Far to Cascais" (poem) Natural Bridge
Selected Theatre Scripts
by C. Rusch
(K. Biadaszkiewicz)
Isoperhaps@yahoo.com
full length scripts
1. JINNISTAN (aka A BOZZA FOR GAZA)
(full-length farce)
6 women, 6 men
New York University's Tisch School of the Arts HotINK! program
Ann Arbor Friends Meeting (workshops)
Award: Oxford International Institute for Documentary and Drama in Conflict Transformation
Selected for Columbus (Ohio) Fringe Festival
Highly theatrical, humanistic tale about Israeli/Palestinian tragedy. Slapstick, satire, physical comedy rampant in the tale of a Holocaust survivor who helps a young Palestinian couple escape to safety.
2. VANISHING POINT
(full-length love story)
4 women, 2 men
Honorable mention, New Play Project, Southeastern Theatre Conference
Honorable mention, NC Arts Council Fellowship Competition
NC Playwrights Festival, UNC-Greensboro Workshop
Works by Women, Greenwich Street. Theatre, NY
East Village Experimental Theatre Company Workshop
The story of a famous artist and the women who love him.
3. EPHEMERALS
(full-length drama)
4 women, 3 men (with multiple casting)
Reading (informal), Berkeley, CA
Finalist, Theaterwork Competition (New Mexico)
Finalist, Phoenix Theatre Competition (Indianapolis)
Finalist, Trustus Competition (South Carolina)
Finalist, Theatre Conspiracy Competition (Florida)
Poignant story of a young woman's relationship with her foreign-born grandmother. Nonlinear style, simple set, contemporary.
4. BOSTON ’49…
(full-length romantic comedy)
1 woman, 2 men
Staged reading at Nat Horne Theater, NY, Love Creek Productions
Finalist, TheatreWorks Competition, Univ. of Colorado
Presented at Centerpieces (lunch theatre), Roanoke, VA
Finalist, Playwrights Theatre of Baltimore Competition
Finalist, Kernodle Playwriting competition
Honorable Mention, Writers Network Competition (Beverly Hills, CA)
New Ensemble Actors Theatre, NY
Stormy romantic relationship between a visual artist and a scientist. Contemporary New York City.
5. BEAUTY SECRETS
(full-length drama)
3 women, 4 or more men
The story of Eva Braun’s struggle with self deception.
Multi-level set.
Major part for a mature actress.
6. SEPTEMBER 12TH
(full-length family comedy)
6 women, 5 men
College of Charleston (SC) workshop (early draft, different title)
Two brothers compete in love, life, and careers in the
highly charged and fearful atmosphere of terrorism.
Good roles for a variety of ages, teens through seniors.
7. TRANE: BEYOND THE BLUES
(Jazzy, full-length biographical drama)
Minimum cast: 1 woman, 3 men
Mostly African-American cast
NC Black Repertory Theatre, Winston-Salem
The Performance Network, Ann Arbor
Published by the late Palmetto Play Service
Nordic Black Theatre, Oslo, Norway
Soul Rep, Dallas, Texas
University of Louisville (KY)
The story of jazz legend John Coltrane.
This play has been translated into Norwegian.
8. THE MAKE-BELIEVE MIRACLE
(aka THE ABSENCE OF FELICITY; or
THE DEVIL AND EDWARD DE VERE)
(full-length drama)
1 woman, 5 men
South Carolina Playwrights Conference, Beaufort
Festival of New Theatre in Scotland, Edinburgh
Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival PlayLab
The story that shows clearly and simply why Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain and other famous thinkers insisted that Edward deVere, 17th Earl of Oxford wrote the works attributed to "Shakespeare”. The “devil” in this play is Lord Burghley, young Edward’s ward, later father-in-law and Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth I. The story incorporates scenes from plays and sonnets that relate directly to events in Edward’s life. Major part for mature actress.
9. GONE GOOSE IS LOOSE & THE SCUPPERNONG'S TURNED
(full-length drama)
5 women, 4 men (multiple casting possible)
A young white trash girl confronts her past.
10. UNIVERSAL IDOL
(or THE CARNIVAL OF THE WHISTLING SHRIMP)
(full-length)
(2 women, 4 men, extras for crowd)
A lively carnival on the theme of war. Garish costumes, improvised music and sets.
heroine quartet
Three alternative comedies, each standing alone or as a full evening of theatre, each following the adventures of a young heroine in her quest for hope, love, and ballroom dancing:
*11. A SAMBA FOR WANDA
(comedy)
2 women, 2 men
Initial reading, NC Playwrights Conference
Featured at the Festival of the Avant-garde,
Coastal Carolina University, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
A young woman runs into a sports car and alters the destiny of a university physics professor. Involves some once-popular dancing.
*12. MISS RAVINA DEVOIR…
(comedy)
2 women, 3 men
A slightly surreal comedy about a young woman who, in a desperate
attempt to keep her carnival going, enters a contest, and wins.
*13. THE CHARITY FISH FRY TINIKLING SHOW
(comedy)
2 women, 4 men
Finalist, MultiStages Playwriting Competition, New York.
A lively comedy about a young woman's search for respect
from her father.
Structured around a traditional folk dance.
*14 THE UNSPEAKABLE DEBUT…
(2 women, 3 men)
A young woman treads the thin line between passionate altruism and the deepest, darkest blasphemy.
one act scripts
15. IN PRAISE OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
(one-act comedy)
3 women, 3 men
Theatre-Studio, New York (using earlier title)
A wacky ensemble's fund raiser goes well until one of them snaps, but
Myrtle saves the day.
16. THE MAN WHO BURIED HIS DOGS IN THE FRONT YARD
(one-act comedy)
1 woman, 2 men
Heuer Publishing
Producers Choice Award, Turnip Theatre Festival, New York. Two lonely people find each other in the rural American South.
17. PALO ALTO
(one-act romantic comedy)
1 woman, 2 men
Studio-Theatre, New York
Saint Aiden's Better Entertainment League, Malibu, CA
The story of a young couple and the intruder who changes their lives.
18. THE MAN WHO CAME BACK AS A BALLROOM DANCER
(one-act drama)
2 women, 2 men
American Globe Theatre, New York
Studio-Theatre, New York
A down-on-her-luck singer recognizes a former lover in the audience.
19. THE NEW SIGN
(one-act drama)
2 men
The Present Company Theatorium, New York
Ten by Ten Festival, ArtsCenter, Carrboro, NC
American Theatre in Higher Education Conference, San Diego
The ID America Festival, New York
Finalist, The Mercy Plays, New York
Two laborers ponder the September 11 attacks on the US.
20. THE CHRISTMAS BRIDE
(aka THE BRIDE WHO DREAMED OF ROCKEFELLER CENTER)
(one-act Christmas comedy)
3 women, 2 men
A newlyweds' first Christmas together is in trouble when the bride's meddling sister stops in for a visit.
21. “NOTHING” SOUP
(one-act drama)
4 women, 2 men
The day a Polish immigrant girl changes her religion. Takes place in 1920s Milwaukee.
22. POTATO GIRL
(one-act drama)
2 women, 1 man
Heuer Publishing
Best Play, Southern Exposure Magazine Competition
Published in Southern Exposure Magazine
Anthology One Act Plays for Acting Students
Best Lunch Theatre Ever, Greenville, NC
Octoberfest, Ensemble Studio Theatre, NY
Theatre-Studio, New York, March, 2002
Women-Center-Stage Festival, New York, July, 2002
Actors Theatre Santa Rosa, CA, Spring, 2003
A young woman uses her imagination to survive.
Unusual but simple set calls for 20 lbs. potatoes.
23. PAST ANGRY
(one-act social justice drama)
6 women and 11 men (or fewer with double-casting)
Brooklyn Publishing
Finalist, TheatreWorks Competition, University of Colorado
Initially presented at the NC Playwrights Center
First place, Judith Siegel Pierson Award, Wayne State University
Honorable Mention, Jane Chambers Award, Wright State University
Myriad Film & Theatre Festival, Greenwich Street Theatre, New York
First Place, Women's Playwrights Festival, Sumter Opera House, Sumter(SC)Little Theatre
Multiracial cast.
Unconventional "Operetta" about a North Carolina industrial fire.
Workers' rights.
24. TEA GIRL
(one act comedy)
3 women, 1 man
Playwrights Publishing, UK
Honorable Mention, Old Opera House, W. VA. (using earlier title)
A young factory worker is asked out for her first date.
25. HOW TO MEASURE HALF AN EGG
(one-act romantic comedy)
1 woman, 2 men
Studio-Theatre, New York
Hot couple, smokin’ restaurant, and the dorky waiter who changes their lives.
26. HE CAME HOME ONE DAY WHILE I WAS WASHING DISHES
(one-act drama)
1 woman, 1 young man
Letter of Recognition, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center.
Honorable Mention, New Works of Merit Playwriting Competition
Finalist, The Mercy Plays.
***Best American Short Play Anthology (Applause Books)
A young man races home to tell his mother the news she dreads.
27. SARAJEVO
(one-act drama)
1 woman, 1 man
Semi-Finalist, Drury National One-Act Play Competition
A dancer determined to advance her career confronts an AWOL soldier as the bombs fall "in a country that no longer exists".
28. GOING AFTER
(one-act drama)
1 woman, 3 men, and voices
Semifinalist, Actors Theatre of Louisville One Act Competition
Disillusionment transforms a peace-loving young man into a
mass-murderer.
29. THE DANCE OF SNOWY
(one act comedy)
6 women, 6 men
A young man realizes just in time that he is about to marry the wrong woman. Seasonal: winter holidays.
30. WAY KEWL
(one act melodrama)
5 women, 2 men
The hero, the damsel, the villain, and the take-out delivery person. Love, loss, and reunion on a snowy corner on a cold winter day.
31. COTTONMOUTH JUBILEE
(fifteen minute drama)
3 women
On the porch during the great flood of 1927, three white Mississippi women sip lemonade. When the conversation gets awkward, one of them murders another. But the third will never tell.
32. CHRISTMAS IN AMERICA
(dark comedy)
2 men, 3 women, a choir, mannequins/masks
Theater IMB/SW Annex, Phoenix, AZ, Angry Santa Festival (Regional
Alternative Theatre)
An “all-American family” celebrates Christmas in a culture of violence.
33. FOUNDING MOTHER'S LUNCH (aka Detour Daddy at the Wheel)
(10-minute political satire)
2 actors (2 men or 1 man, 1 woman)
Origin of the American Revolution, which in fact began in this very dining room.
This play has been translated into German by Doris Martin.
34. JEBOIS
(drama)
2 men, 1 woman
The Best Lunch Theatre Ever, Greenville, NC
Two men at a party wait for the stripper to show up.
35. THE WOMAN WHO LOVED CASTRO (aka ZunZun)
(20 minute drama)
3 men, 5 women
The romance of Celia Sanchez and Fidel Castro.
36. KISS MY PACZKI, MR. KING OF THE WORLD
(10 minute drama)
0 men, 2 women
American Globe Theatre, New York
In blue-collar Detroit, a daughter tells mom she has enlisted
37. DINOSAUR PARADE
(30 minute comedy)
0 men, 4 women
A mother and her 3 adult daughters prepare for the annual
Cruise Parade picnic in contemporary Detroit
38. SNACKS IN THE MOTOR CITY
(romantic drama)
1 man, 1 woman
When his girlfriend is late coming home, a laid-off autoworker assumes the worst. But all is well. She was only finishing up a little industrial espionage.
youth theatre
39. DANCING WITH ALL THE COOL KIDS
(one-hour drama for a classroom of young teens)
Brooklyn Publishing
Robots avert ecological disaster.
A lively, large-cast adventure for youth actors.
40. ALL ABOARD!
(one act drama)
(2 women, 3 men)
Historical adventure on the early Reading Railroad.
41. SCIENTIA, SCIENTIAE
(comic treatment of the wonderful world of science)
3 women, 4 men
Physics, chemistry, even Einstein himself:
a fresh look at scientific progress.
K. Biadaszkiewicz
PO Box 202
Wyandotte, Michigan 48192 usa
(734) 552-8973 (cell)
Isoperhaps@yahoo.com |