Neo-Futurist Plays
PLAYS WRITTEN BY AMY LANGER FOR THE SAN FRANCISCO NEO-FUTURISTS FROM OCTOBER 2013 - JULY 2021, UPDATED PERIODICALLY
a list of titles, with links to selected plays and a couple of videos
2021
week in the knees
a window, of time
the surface of the moon, seen from a distance
hivemind
2020
war play
The specter of death moves closer every day and I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. (OK, I'm in my mid-thirties, but the point still stands)
vanishing point
smurfette
chicken
My dad, Ozzy Osbourne
hey guys
a play for the salt marshes & the tiny mice that live there
oral fixation
American Horror Story: Berkeley Bowl; or: if my internal soundtrack actually matched my experience trying to exit the supermarket
we. us.
send noodz; or: for a good time, text 415-903-4595
Cloud Play, a one act with no words
Distance
The libraries are closed, but I do have this book, found on the ground -- a great gift, a divine intervention -- to help us in our bedtimes of need Or: Amy Langer reads the scripts from the first season of Seinfeld to help you fall asleep
What's in the Fridge? (a choral piece for six)
The screaming into the abyss helpline
In which Amy Langer enlists acclaimed musician John Pierson (Screeching Weasel, Even in Blackouts) to help her, since music has really never been her bag, but this is a momentous occasion and needs to be celebrated through the power of song
Gogo and Didi, 2020
Chain (mail)
The Sofa Taxonomy Project
a brief pause to feel yourself in your body, to let you muscles loosen before you (and you must) tense them again in service of the fight
A play called “In which you are who you are, where you are, and you’re watching Dr. Cornel West say ‘We are witnessing America as a failed social experiment’ on CNN.“
"Thoughts and Prayers"
picture them, smiling
The theoretical size and shape of a dog named George
dress rehearsal for the eventuality of when we get to do this again
coming out
The Queer Fantasy Line
A pen. A journal. A six-sided die.
You Should Be Asleep TV
persistence of vision
right now, I am sad
Distanced learning
A year ago, Amy and Willie had a day out: an audio tour
dial-up download (a digital re-enactment)
Smaller (or: how you were going to watch this monologue anyway)
TikTarchitecture
A new tiny fear, added on to the ever-growing pile (a re-enactment)
an exercise in tension & escalating suspense
home maker: a ghost story (after Shirley Jackson)
how I'd normally get to know you (adjusted for this new world)
Digital Footprint: a live reading of Amy's high school LiveJournal as an anthropological study into aughts teenhood
a brief report on the American flag
'Tis the Season
Shrek has a surprisingly good soundtrack
2019
moving house
a partial synopsis of the movie Splash (1984), starring Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks, based on my increasingly faulty memory and not much more
prometheus and her eagle
Shaina has some opinions about things
and over pad thai, I said, "if i could be any olympics athlete, i think i'd be a synchronized swimmer"
the loneliest duck has died
crepuscular
A quick spell for when your body feels tight and you wanna feel light
it was Amy's birthday on Monday and, even though she's about 3,000 miles away from her hometown, she was delighted to find that it gave her a gift anyway
Brand Recognition
a room of one's own
laws of attraction
I eat the pepper (habanero), just so you know
a spot
mom loves chairs!
The Greek Chorus of Adulthood doesn't care about you or your plans
this one minute
Amy isn't the best at ukulele, but some things demand to be said, regardless
Hivemind
That's a moray!
Outside, just before the sun comes up
sturdy boy
Butterball Hotline
'Tis the Season
2018
Low-budget James Turrell (ii)
"game shows touch our lives"
swim practice
Walnut/Time/Tooth: a spell
Amy & Shaina have some facts about Connecticut
skin care routine
into the unknown
Who knows? Maybe he's onto something.
Our youth is slipping away
The Mechanics of Making Friends
_, _, _, _, _, _, _, _, _, _, _, _, _, _, _, _, _.
why it's good we're not all cats (pianofight edition)
RELAXXXATION: domination for this, the year of our lord, 2018
tell my mom what i do
you're gonna wanna sonuvabitch
if this play ended like every single Marvel superhero origin story movie. Or: YOU THERE. once this play starts, ask me what my name is.
We are gathered here today
I'm 99% sure it's nothing, but it's still a long 3 minutes
wall
that summer feeling, from an ice cream summer long ago and many miles away
Reverse Smurfette (video)
ft. this screaming pile of garbage (video)
how to get into cold water
Bay Area Beckett (or: yes, let's go) (video)
a play for the bell, in a way
moment of femme
a song, which we wrote for my cat last week that I will now share with you
two arc trajectories
2017
(Gerri Santoro in a hotel in Connecticut, 1964.)
Ghost in the Wires
begets (2)
breath/water
Adam Smith has a new skill
Joke Play
Every once in a while, flights to Paris are pulled up on a laptop, bank accounts are checked, and available vacation time is cross-referenced. And then the feeling passes, or the available flight disappears, or the funds aren't there, or vacation time has been used up to attend the sudden funeral of a family friend. Que sera, sera (a saying which isn’t French, but a combination of Spanish and Italian, superimposed on a English structure. Or so they say.) France might be far away, but what is a memory but a view through a foggy glass? And what is any meaningful journey besides a change in a state of mind? And what are we but strangers in a strange land? So. Maybe you and I will never get to France, but we’ll always have this.
I've been trying to figure out if I want one or the other, but I think I might need both
que sera, sera
It's my birthday and nothing has changed
Let's take a minute for a Mom update
Sound, gender, and the wailing: a brief manifesto on reason
four women and Siyu
progeny
nostalgia play
Wallflowers
death & taxes
things she would not want me to say, but I am her watery daughter
An article called "How to De-Escalate Angry Behavior in Children" where "your child" is replaced by "Donald Trump.”
(When everything feels like too much, like so much, it’s important to remember that we’re just a bunch of weirdo bipedal animals who, sure, learned to make music and create governance, but who also feel a certain gut-pull towards the) smallest pleasures
a new light
grapefruit, and the parts inside
hypocritic oath
aversion therapy
Paternal/Signage
you too can have a body like mine
the unveiling of a new national monument to the beauty of impermanence
when we go
510-900-9831: Phone Play #3
I've started wearing men's pants and I'm never going back
this place will never be my home. (Or: New England glottal stop)
a faraway disco
Raffi makes the big point
loom large
Americana Cowboy
you didn't know but now you know
2016
A Short Narrative of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbets (video)
Oscar Bait (video)
Romeo & Juliet
Our Bodies Ourselves for the Postmodern Era, pt. 1. (If someone had told me to do it like this earlier, I would have avoided a whole heap load of UTIs.)
Man on the Street, Or: how I assume news gets made
Art & Craft
Theatre as McGuffin
We're just a bunch of slowly rotting meat sacks when it comes down to it, so let's just have this one moment of joy, shall we?
Donald Trump Takes a Shit (colon) a working theorem
Just Girly Things!
Election Season Lesson in Language: use of simple vocal inflection to create doubt & suspicion
begets
One story, told three ways: three men of Sudanese origin
I've never seen "Sliding Doors"
Histrionics (for Ana Mendieta, after Silueta)
An exercise in collective knowledge
happy mother's day, Mom. I love you.
A Short Piece for Jessie + Sasha
How I Imagine You See Us, in my darkest moments
Spear Carriers
I want to be the girl with the most teeth
The Whale: a guided meditation
Means/Ends
a field recording made from inside my room on 8/15/16 of my housemates and their children, whom I love, but who sometimes feel like are representations of the struggles of dealing with the Bay Area housing market; or: this is what $1,300 a month gets you, these days
VHS tape
Riding the 2016 “Immersive Theatrical Experience” bandwagon off into the sunset. (If we could afford it, we'd get you all Oculus Rifts, but this will have to do.)
Donald Trump Takes a Shit: a working theorem; pt. 2: the sequel no one wanted
510-900-9831: Phone Play #2 (Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.)
Ama
double parenthetical
Maybe, on your deathbed, holding the hand of your beloved and surrounded by your friends and family, you will cast your mind back to a moment, and this will be the memory that ushers you into--like an old friend--into the warm darkness. (video)
maybe not the Marla Maples who is, but the Marla Maples we hope to be
a feminine touch
I'm sorry I'm not better at this
an announcement
things I wrote about this year instead
2015
my Dad, Michael J. Fox
Lady Ghirardelli
the memory (never totally out of sight, never completely out of mind)
CAROLE KING, THOUGH
This Play Probably Won't Get Me Killed
We Can Do It!
You Make Me Feel Like Danson: an ill-advised fantasia
l(lay(layers)ers)s
Long Journey Home
The History of the World, relative to me and you and no one else. Or: Happy Valentine's Day
pop music disappointment feminist killjoy funtime jamboree: a dramatic reenactment of a time I spoke before I thought, and the hand-wringing that resulted.
Scripted "conversations" "between" "friends"
Practicing If/Then Statements, three months after the fact
Comedy + Time = Tragedy (a simple misunderstanding)
Be Good to Them Always (Trigger Warning)
I'd like to think that the ghost of Zelda Fitzgerald is looking down and cackling
Unsex me here
A Sophomoric, But Nonetheless Cathartic, Anthem for Adulthood
510-900-9831: Phone Play #1
Craigslist Open Mic Night: casual encounters, mm4w
they say you just have to put yourself out there
Tune-up
One blank: for we reader of stories like Purvi Patel's
Just a Few Lists Concerning How to Hold
giving you what you want
Women's Work, or: how fairy tales came to be
Mythbusting the Classics: Chekhov
CLICK TO SUBSCRIBE: a desperate attempt to sell out on Youtube
Genital Opinion
The woods, at night
Kramer, Inversed
Olive Adulthood; Or: an allegorical fever dream in which Amy is herself, Ryan Patrick and Olivia are Adult Archetypes, and olives are olives
/like we're too young/to know to smile
Nuclear Family
You Find Yourself in a Room
Or: a short piece in memory of the five Russian space sex geckos, and the others
a topical joke, told implicitly to me by the US government
a very short story, for a summer, five years ago
Trying to get work done at the Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library is always distracting for the same reason.
It's a metaphor; Or: You'll Get It When You're Older
company
The Future is Now
2014
Maya One
getting to know a new Space
On a Certain Level, a Betrayal
Toothless
Supervising Women Workers, 1944 (2014)
I triple dog dare you, Samuel Beckett Estate
I'm 60% Certain That I'm Not Poisoning Myself with My Home-brewed Kombucha: an SF tale in 3 embarrassing acts
canvas sky, cardboard sea, paper moon
A reenactment of the exact moment I realized that the future of humanity is in good hands, and a dramatization of my feelings therein
Childish Games for Adults #1: Chubby Bunny
anxiety.gif
Don't let 'em see you sweat; Or: 3 simple steps
234 girls: and object lesson on ____________
Family acceptance via party tricks 101, Lesson #1: the cold [one] open
That key change, though, it melts the hardest of hearts, Or: Honest Emotions #2
Cosmo Sex Tips: Anglerfishing
10,000 Year Play
Mom, I’ve decided to become a full-time performance artist. Oh, Mom. I’m OK. I’m fine. I promise.
let's make this about me
You meatsack. You bag o' bones.
Schrödinger's Boner
Not for the faint of heart, my friends!
Kinesthetic Sympathy. Or: And the piano was never lonely again
How to Hold a Baby
For yOur Viewing Pleasure
Memory Play: Your Brain as That One Relative Who Invites You Over to Look at Slides of Their Vacation
This isn't about Her
Knot I: overcoming intimacy issues
"Wash Him Out, Dry Him Out." Or: Steve Santigati, et al., can go lick a toad
Scene for Two Men and One Woman: a reductive and unscientific exploration of prescribed gender roles in one and a half minutes. Starring: 3 Neofuturists, 3 scripts found on the internet that they have never seen before, and 1 timer.
In this city, anyone can become a (goddamn) performance artist; Or: the demonstration of a proper New York sneeze, with apologies to Laurie Anderson
Starting Shit With Beyonce
2013
Exorcising Ghost
Such a Pretty Me
Mom always said crying wouldn't get me anywhere, Or: Honest Emotions #1