PLAYS
How to make sense of all these plays?!
All I know is I tell stories I'm moved to tell about the world I'm in: I began with history - to remind my city (in crisis) how poor and weak America was to start. Next I told theatre stories, then politics and cross-cultural - of nations, races, religions, sexes… Then theatres commissioned plays they wanted.
Most are full-length, a number published & e-books, solo plays, radio plays, 10-minute plays… Farther down, I'll group them.
They are for you. That's my feeling about what I write, so I'll help you. Don't hesitate to email me. To perform, you need a license from me or from a publisher. Reading is free.
All PLAYS are conceived for a bare, or one set, stage.
For more info about a play or screenplay, click TITLES in the column at right >>>>>
PUBLISHED PLAYS:
In PLAYS BY KAREN SUNDE are
HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM (Tikkun Olam) A boy and girl with every reason to hate find they can't help but love. Bomb-wounded Israeli soldier encounters fleeing Palestinian refugee. 1m,1w (+ 2 off-stage voices).*
TRUTH TAKES A HOLIDAY. 24 Hrs when a White House sex scandal breaks. 2m,2w.*
IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA. Kidnapped "cowboy" Marine serving UN (true story) in Lebanon's maze of rival Muslims drags America into the new world as the mystery of his capture unwinds. 6m,1w.*
SINGLE PLAYS, PUBLISHED:
THE FASTEST WOMAN ALIVE. Aviatrix Jackie Cochran with buddies Chuck Yeager, Amelia Earhart, Eisenhower, LBJ, the WASP, Mercury 13 secret astronauts... 2m,3w (or many more).**
DARK LADY. Shakespeare's tempestuous, star-crossed affair with Italian composer/ poet, Emilia Bassano--a woman dark, tempestuous, musical. Delicious?" 4m,3w. **
HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM (Tikkun Olam) A boy and girl with every reason to hate find they can't help but love. Bomb-wounded Israeli soldier encounters fleeing Palestinian refugee. 1m,1w (+ 2 off-stage voices).*
TO MOSCOW. Breathlessly romantic true story of the theatre--Chekhov, Stanislavski, and the amazing women who made them possible. 2m,4w (+ 2 company).**
KABUKI LADY MACBETH New lyric text, twist on Shakespeare - Lady's metamorphosis, defying Yin and Yang balance, MacDuff gains pure warrior power Macbeth sacrificed - severed heads, dance, demons. 2m,2w,4company. **
KABUKI OTHELLO. Othello, a Caucasian Ainu, becomes a demon of jealousy. Iago's wife Emilia weaves the story of a precious lost fan, winding karma, violent ends. 3 m,2w + chorus.**
BALLOON. Ben Franklin "Papa", departing France and his greatest love, relives his heart-wrenching battles with his bastard son. 5m,1w.*
In FACING FORWARD:
HAITI: A DREAM. Starvation flight, voodoo dreams, a young family's wild voyage toward America. 2m,2w. (also radio version) *
In ROWING TO AMERICA:
OH WILD WEST WIND. (10 min) Indian woman with pregnant daughter-in-law forced onto the Trail of Tears. 1m,2w.**
* indicate plays available from Broadway Play Publishing
**indicate plays available from Dramatic Play Publishing
To acquire all other plays CLICK here to contact karen
E-BOOK PLAYS & TRILOGIES:FREE Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes&Noble or here.
LIBERTY (produced Off-Broadway as The Running of the Deer). Ragged Continental army-chased from New York, down New Jersey, and vomited half-naked at the Delaware-turns...and becomes America. 12m3w.
WHEN REAL LIFE BEGINS. Passionate romance of producer & dying husband whose acting become greater as he weakens, until she embraces her calling. 1w.
ME & JOAN (of Arc) (produced in Philadelphia as La Pucelle). Burned out female comic meets Joan of Arc, wars "the fathers of the church." 1m2w+ company.
ANTON, HIMSELF: First & Last Chekhov the morning-after disastrous opening of The Seagull & the day before final triumph: The Cherry Orchard. 1m.
In AMERICA FINDING HER WAY - includes:
TRACKING BLOOD WHITE. Indian girl healer, vicious bear on mountain vs. red-neck town. A magic tale of America, now. 4m,6w,1 girl-child.
NATIVE LAND. Rebirth of family to serve crumbling nation via its rebel child's dream. 2m,3w,1 boy.
SWEET LAND OF FIRE. (1970) The 24 hours before "the house on 11th street," inhabited by "Weathermen," explodes. 3m,3w.
In CHEKHOVS AT HOME - includes:
PLEASE GOD, NO WEDDING OR SHOOTING AT THE END. Chekhov struggling to write The Seagull, while characters from it, his own life, and Hamlet swim in his head. 9m,6w.
ANTON, HIMSELF. Writing an impotent love story after The Seagull flops, Chekhov's mind darts between passion, family, art, & disaster. 1m. (Published in monograph Actors Theatre of Louisville)
MASHA, TOO. Irrepressibly seized by love, Chekhov's sister struggles over whether to leave her brother's work & the care of him, to marry. Tender, funny, passionate. 1w (optional Act One before ANTON, HIMSELF.)
In KABUKI-WEST - includes:
ACHILLES. His war-prize concubine narrates his rage, his sea goddess mother, fighting the river, flames & Hector of Troy to find peace in an enemy's embrace. 4m,
3w + chorus.
KABUKI MACBETH. Severed heads, a hanging sword, a temple bell, ghostly spinners of fate. 6m,4w + chorus.
KABUKI KING RICHARD. Richard III as Shiva, god of creation & destruction. How all those women turn on him. 5m,5w + company.
In RADIO PLAYS Trilogy includes:
THE SOUND OF SAND The Sound of Sand: A blind boy's mighty dangerous venture from sand-castle beach out onto the sea. Bob Hope Award winner.
HAITI: A DREAM Voodoo to Paradise: Tropical night, starvation voyage when mysterious wooden boat-load casts off for America. An NPR, WNYC, WHYY broadcast of WNYC Radio Stage production.
HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM Enemies trapped in no-man's land make it their paradise. Adaptation of oft-produced, twice-published play. Full House Productions preview excerpt at www.abrahamfilm.org
ONE-PERSON PLAYS:
WHEN REAL LIFE BEGINS. Passionate romance of producer and dying husband whose acting becomes greater as he weakens, until she embraces her calling. 1w. E-book.
ANTON, HIMSELF. Writing an impotent love story after The Seagull flops, Chekhov's mind darts between passion, family, art, and disaster. 1m. (Published in monograph.) In CHEKHOVS AT HOME & in ANTON, HIMSELF: First & Last E-Books
ANTON, HIMSELF: First & Last. A 2nd act for Anton, Himself - 8 years later at a crisis in rehearsals for The Cherry Orchard when Chekhov resolves to refuse to let it be performed. (E-Book)
MASHA, TOO. Irrepressibly seized by love, Chekhov's sister struggles with whether to leave her brother's work and the care of him, to marry. Tender, funny, passionate. 1w. (Can serve as Act One before ANTON, HIMSELF.) In CHEKHOVS AT HOME E-BOOK
UNPUBLISHED PLAYS:
A BABE IN BOY-LAND Expose patriarchy, then? 2w,1m
DEBORAH: THE ADVENTURES OF A SOLDIER (screenplay Undercover Patriot) 6m,6w, 1 child.
2020 SEXCARE. (10 min) Universal Sexcare worker & boyfriend grilled by psychologist 1m,2w.
THE FAST LIFE Tour de force: Locked in solitary. 1w,2m
OPERA
SPA, A Joy of Woman's Desiring - Love, betrayal and all things male, as revealed at the Spa. 6w: 2 Latina, 2 non-Latina principals, 3+ chorus. (Composer Michael Dilthey)
TRANSLATION:
PHILOCTETES by Sophocles. Wounded hero archer marooned by Achilles, tricked by Achilles' son. 2m+chorus. Produced Jean Cocteau Repertory, New York.
MUSICAL:
QUASIMODO.Rock-opera version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. 5m,3w + chorus. Co-written with Christopher Martin; Composers Bob Jewett & Jack Maeby; produced Woodstock's Byrdcliffe Festival and Finnish State Theatre at Lahti, Finland.
CONTEMPORARY DRAMATISTS Sunde entry 643-645
"With a voice both poetic and theatrical, (Sunde) dramatizes historical epochs in epic scope, making hers a distinctive, even unique, contemporary American drama, more akin to European than to other US plays. ... No matter how sweeping...she chooses personal canvases upon which to paint her funny, thrilling, searing, moving scenes. In inquiring about our past, Sunde remarks upon our future. That she does so with a sure histrionic sense is a guarantee that her work will endure in the American theatre after our more commercial fare has proven ephemeral."