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| Artist's Statement |
| My goal is to write stories which are full of raw, muscular humanity; stories which inspire and elevate, with juicy, scenery-chewing characters actors will die to gobble up. I make it a priority to create stereotype-busting roles for women; ones which I feel are infinitely more complicated than the standard leading lady or ingénue. I’m fascinated by the extremes of humanity, the dark & twisted, the psychologically unexpected, and the quirky underbelly. I write about both the intimacy of family and the magnitude of the world at large. And I believe that a play or a film at its best should be a challenge to the mind, a revelation for the heart, and a raw, joyful collision between human beings. |
| BIO |
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Until now, I’ve only lived in cold places. I grew up in Rochester, NY, and then moved to Chicago to go to Northwestern University. At Northwestern, I studied acting with David Downs, performance studies with Frank Galati, playwriting with John Logan, and solo performance with Mary Zimmerman. During Zimmerman’s class, I developed my one-woman show, Clearing Hedges: Babe Didrikson Zaharias, in which I snap swiftly between seven different characters (including Babe, her lesbian lover, and her 400 pound Greek wrestler husband). After graduating, I backpacked solo across Europe for a year, until I found a home at the International Theatre of Vienna. I stayed on for a while as a company member, performing Clearing Hedges during the week, and acting in the now-and-forever-masterpiece The Mousetrap on weekends. In 2002, I took Clearing Hedges to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. After some great reviews and a crash course in what it means to be a producer, actor, and playwright all at once, I continued touring the show to Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. When my backpack grew too heavy, I settled back in Chicago. For six years, I worked as an actor at Steppenwolf, Court Theatre, Collaboraction, Live Bait, and others. I taught acting at Piven Theatre, Court, and Apple Tree, taught playwriting with Pegasus Players, and taught an absurd amount of pilates and spinning classes across the city. But eventually, I found it more rewarding to shift my focus to playwriting and headed west to get my MFA in Playwriting at UC San Diego. My first ensemble play, The Human Capacity, was given a staged reading at Steppenwolf in their First Look Festival of New Works. The Human Capacity and my next play, Plunder, were developed through readings and workshops across Chicago at Piven, A Red Orchid, Northlight, Breadline, Stage Left, and American Theatre Company. Freedom, NY was produced in UC San Diego’s Baldwin New Plays Festival 2007, and was co-produced by Teatro Vista and Remy Bumppo at Victory Gardens in Chicago. The Attic Dwellers was produced in UC San Diego’s Baldwin Festival 2008, and won 2nd place in the Kennedy Center’s National Science Play Contest. My play, Eat It Too, has been read in St. Louis and NY City. My play, Red Helen, will be workshopped this spring and summer in San Diego and DC. My newest play, Obscura will be produced at UC San Diego in April as my thesis production. My writing for film and TV includes the screenplays Prank, The Fontaines, The Human Capacity, Freedom, NY, and several spec scripts. I’m currently developing two new romantic comedy screenplays and a TV pilot titled Flesh & Blood. My work has taken me to writing residencies from the hills of Virginia to the backcountry of Scotland. While living and writing in Scotland’s Hawthornden Castle, I met the English writer Andrew Newsham who wrote me love poems and took me on walks along the North River Esk. We got married and moved to San Diego where I just recently completed my MFA in Playwriting at UC San Diego, studying under Naomi Iizuka. I am currently the Playwright in Residence at the Tony-award winning South Coast Repertory, and am enjoying the surreal southern Californian life where, on my writing breaks, I can go lie under a palm tree in the sun by the pool. For a full list of credits, please see Jennifer’s resume. |
CURRENT |
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 OBSCURA |
In an apartment building feverish with yearning, neighbors eavesdrop on neighbors, the government sends menacing letters and the past won't stop knocking. And through all the noise, Ned weaves a love story for his upstairs neighbor Salvia, luring her off to a land far far away. |
 THE ATTIC DWELLERS |
As a natural disaster ravages LA, two strangers find refuge in the attic of an abandoned house. But inexplicable noises rumble from below, the radio has a split personality, and the only exit has been sealed shut. A dark and twisted comedy about a toxic past that just won’t stay buried. Dark comedy. 2 M, 2 W, 1 M/W. 90 minutes. |
FREEDOM, NY |
In the year following a brutal school shooting, Justice Mayflower keeps her 12-year-old granddaughter, Portia, safe at home in their garden. But then enters their new neighbor: a joyful young Mexican, carrying a coffin. Gabriel encourages Portia to break free from Mayflower’s tyranny of fear and celebrate Dia de los Muertos. Productions: Teatro Vista/ Remy Bumppo, UC San Diego Baldwin New Plays Festival Drama. 1M, 1W, 1 girl. 70 minutes. MORE about Freedom, NY |
EAT IT TOO |
Brett, a thriving Hollywood actress, is finally ready to return to her hometown… And she is dead set on the most horrific kind of her revenge. Eat It Too is a dark and twisted comedy that explores the fine line between the American dream and the American nightmare. Dark comedy. 4 W, 1 M. 120 minutes. |
PLUNDER |
In Plunder, a hostage, an amnesiac, and a zealous psychologist fight for the right to own the identity they need and the memories they want. Robey has made a discovery: you can rewrite your past. Simply repeat more favorable memories over and over until, in your reprogrammed mind, they become fact. His goal? Marriage fights: eliminated. Brain-damaged patient: reinvented. But the patient has methods of her own and kidnaps Robey’s wife so she can steal her memories. In the midst of this captivity, the two women develop an exquisite friendship. Plunder rips into the dirty baggage that follows each of us into relationships, and weighs the pure beauty of a white lie against the stark reality of the truth. Plunder has been read and workshopped at: Piven Theatre, American Theatre Company, and UC San Diego. Dark Comedy. 1M, 2W. 90 minutes MORE about Plunder |
THE |
Set in East Berlin before and after the fall of the Wall, the play follows the journey of a Stasi officer as he seeks redemption from the woman whose life he shattered. Both torturer and victim find themselves caught in a struggle to reconcile the horrors of their past with their hopes for the future. The Human Capacity is a searing look into a society and a family in turmoil, and an exploration of the human capacity for cruelty, perseverance, and forgiveness. The Human Capacity has been read and workshopped at: Steppenwolf Theatre Company (First Look Festival of New Works), Stage Left Theatre, Piven Theatre, A Red Orchid, Northlight Theatre, and Breadline Theatre Group. Drama. 3M, 2W. 90 minutes. MORE about The Human Capacity |
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Jennifer has been awarded playwriting residencies at The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, and Hawthornden International Writers Retreat in Scotland. As a Hawthornden fellow, she spent the summer of '05 living in the castle you see pictured to your right. That is where she met the love of her life Andrew Newsham. |
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