BRETT D. WOLFE
Brett
(he/him/his)
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Either write something worth reading
or do something worth writing.
-Ben Franklin
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Brett is a multi-faceted playwright, screenwriter, dramaturg, and arts manager. He has worked with or presented original work through the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Chaotic Merge Magazine, Lower East Side Play Festival, Post Theatre Company, Imaginarium Theatre Company, and Wonderstruck Uncut, among others.
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ARTIST
playwright
I find myself writing at the crossroads of artistry and survival. As a playwright with a rapidly evolving life, my work experiments within the regressive extremes of the human spirit and the hidden abscesses of our culture, asking questions that few would like to admit exist. I perform this through forging stories that are both visceral and intellectual to experience; in other words, I prefer to leave my audiences with questioning minds and open hearts.
Dogs of Peace at Post Theatre Company, dir. Alex Keegan. Photography: Kenedi Chriske.
Throughout the broad fluidity of my writing portfolio, my aim is constantly bent towards evoking a breath-shattering, soul-shaking experience. I commonly deconstruct many of the schemas, systems, and ideologies that we hold close to our identities, in the same way that a farmer may shuck corn. Nevertheless, my work is equally parts painful as it is hopeful for the future.
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As a result of my experiences with OCD, personal life difficulties and extreme solipsism, I challenge current forms of storytelling that fail to ask the crippling questions I am filled with via creating experimental imaginative circumstances in my plays that are unlike anything else written. I view myself as a “physical playwright,” in that I write poetry through the vessel of the human body as a channel of storytelling.
full-length
(70+ minutes) *musical
Dogs of Peace:
A Fantasia on the Hardship of Being
(Cast: 10-19) A dysfunctional and predatory church, struck in grief from their pastor’s unexplained suicide, is affronted by a woman in a psychiatric ward claiming to be Jesus. In the unraveling of their livelihoods, these people grapple living in a world without any light to lead them.
I, Lachrymose*
Coming soon...
These Hands
(Cast: 5) Penn Nash, one of the great pianists of the 20th century, must prove his love for his daughter at her funeral with the same instrument that stole love from his life in the first place.
Thus Spake Zarathustra
(WORLD PREMIERE ADAPTATION)
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Coming soon...
one-act
(30-70 minutes)
my sorrybird
(cast: 2-3) Two people who are one in the same struggle through conflicting doubts and compulsions on the island of Kaua’i to locate a bird that has been extinct for 35 years.
demigod
(Cast: 4) What came of the ancient Greek mothers who told their fatherless sons that they were the descendants of demigods, and what power did they give to them for the rest of their life? In verse.
The American Guide on Harvesting Half a Million Blueberries
(Cast: 4) Ryella's friends fall away from her at her birthday dinner, though all are unaware that it is the eve of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Unexpected goodbyes turn to permanent endings.
Tumor
(Cast: 3-5) Progressing forwards, backwards, and inwards into himself all at the same time. Efman discovers something inside himself that is continually growing beyond his control, and must take matters into his own hands to give him what he ultimately desires.
ten-minute
(1-15 minutes)
Simulacrum
(Cast: 2) Amantha and Kate writhe at one another in a surreal underground train station over if there is anything “real” in reality, and ultimately, existence itself.
Lobo Wolf
(Cast: 5) A verse adaptation of Monzaemon's Love Suicides of Sonezaki displaying the work of Paulo Paulino Guajajara, a Brazillian environmental activist, who was killed by illegal loggers while defending the Amazon from being cut down.
Oscar Wakes
(Cast: 2) A 1-minute play covering Oscar Wilde's spirit finally getting to view the massive amounts of lipstick stains on his tombstone—a thought, to an artist who believed he was irrelevant, that changes his entire life.
Spit.
(Cast: 4) White blood cells spend their entire lives working to protect us. What would a cell feel if it realized that its Being spat it out into an ocean?
I don't
(Cast: 2) An unending loop between a writer and a psychologist about the nature of writing a play. Why did Chekhov, Sarah Kane, Jonathan Larson, and so many other writers pass away just before they created the most significant plays of their canons? The writer here must decide if this play is ever to end.
The Unbearable Heaviness of Remembering
(Cast: 1) USS remembers. It might be a minute, it might be an hour. But USS will remember.
Paralyzation
(Cast: 1) A person wakes up paralyzed in the middle of the night, though they don't know what—or who—is the cause.
Dogs of Peace at Post Theatre Company, dir. Alex Keegan. Photography: Kenedi Chriske.
dramaturg
My Dramaturgy grafts the visceral, sensual, and kinesthetic impulses of the human body, psyche, and morality as a means of analysis rather than intellectual, a priori "objectivity." This allows a deeper understanding of what a play does, rather than just what it is.
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My Dramaturgy is founded on collaboration and is devisive at heart. No one person has all the answers—even a playwright.
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My Dramaturgy sows curiosity and unending questioning into directors, performers, designers, audiences, and myself.
production dramaturgy casebook:
Love & Information by Caryl Churchill
dir. Maridee Slater
Post Theatre Company, 2022
pre-show lobby video
lobby display
script analysis samples
dramaturgy note
content disclosures
Experienced in:
New Play Development, Production Dramaturgy, Literary Management, Script and Production Criticism, Script and Scene Analysis for Dramaturgs and Actors, New Play Programming, Dramatic Aesthetics, Theory Development, Script Sample Review, Artistic Season Programming.
theatre manager
As a theatre and arts manager, my passions lie in supporting and fostering communities, companies, and productions that are invested in telling bold new stories and discovering new artistic voices.
Whether working in literary, company, or general management, the breadth of my managerial strengths allows me to support the development of powerful theatre at any point of the production process.
To see more of my managerial qualifications, please see my resume below.
the art of making art
happen
that's all for me.
You can reach me at my email below, or through the form to the right.