I'm the most frequently produced female playwright in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is my infrequently updated website.
Plays by Megan Cohen. Script info, production history, and excerpts.
Recent Thoughts & Upcoming Events. What I'm thinking about & doing. Ok, it's a blog.
Megan Cohen's Bio. Who I am, and which Megan Cohen this site belongs to. There are a fair number of us around.
my email is: meganATmegancohenDOTCOM
Friends, Allies, Associations
Cutting Ball Theater, where I am the literary manager, which means I read-n-talk-about scripts, run talkbacks-n-audience-discussions, produce the "hidden classics" reading series and "risk is this..." new works festival, and generally hang out digging the scene.
American Conservatory Theater, my once and future artistic home in San Francisco, CA. To discover the shocking truth about my time there, read my dramaturgy post on the A.C.T. blog.
Stanford University, where yes, yes, I went to school, and now because of it everyone who asks me where I went to school thinks I'm a snob.
The San Francisco outpost of the flying-monkey blockbuster musical "Wicked," where I assisted in the Company Management office.
The Discovery Channel's Planet Green, where I worked as a blogger about green living and sustainability.
The Blue Cat Screenplay Competition, where I was a reader for the 2008 contest, judging screenplays and giving detailed feedback to authors.
My profile page on Yelp.com, the thunderously hip website that employed me to create content for their New York launch. Several of my pieces, including personal favorites on The Strand and Murray's Cheese Shop, have been featured in the site's "review of the day"spot. You can browse my 100+ reviews, scan my 20+ compliments from readers, and surf my 50+ lists...
Canio's Books, where I am a lifetime shopper, and a onetime employee. This small independent bookstore in Sag Harbor, NY specializes in new & used poetry, photography, memoir, literary fiction, and has some awesome rare editions.
Blue Bottle Coffee, the reason I get out of bed in the morning, when and if I ever do.
Having Jessica Holt, the Artistic Director of the epic BOA X Festival, choose and direct my half-hour script "A Three Little Dumplings Adventure" as her piece, her personal project within the festival that she helms, was so good it almost hurt. Like, literally. About a week before the close of the show, I started having anxiety dreams due to my (not unfounded) fears that I would never have a production where my work was done this well ever again. It was, friends joked with me, "a perfect storm," wild and precise, upsetting and fun; several told me they'd never seen anything quite like it. As the stage emptied after the last performance, I felt like I was getting ready to dig a grave for a unicorn.
Twenty minutes later, Jessica stopped me in the doorway of the theater, on my way home. She told me she'd talked with the cast, and everyone was game; not only were Jessica and her amazing actors (Cooper Carlson, Siobhan Doherty, Ryan Hebert, Molly Holcomb, Sarah Moser, and Megan Trout) on board for reviving the piece at a future date, they wanted to go a step further. Would I be interested, they wondered, in writing a companion piece, and expanding this world to an evening-length experience? Would I be able to tailor it to this particular cast? Maybe by next summer, maybe we could do it then, as a full-length, in the summer of 2012?
The dumplings aren't dead. They're just resting. I'm already drafting scenes and monologues, getting ready for our first night of looking at snippets of the new material together, over wine and supper, in early July. It will be a reunion for the cast, a casual party in a living room, and the beginning of life-after-death for this show.
Keep an eye out for my as-yet-untitled project with Threshold, directed by Jessica Holt, currently slated for production in Summer 2012.
"It's Good To Know..."
At Woman's Will Playfest, June 3 & 4, 2011, at the Phoenix Theater, SF CA. 15 minutes. {A drama with jokes.}
"Megan Cohen's James Joyce's Ulysses"
At San Francisco Theater Pub, June 20 2011. Cafe Royale, 800 Post st, SF CA. Free admission, 8pm.
{a breathless half-hour adaptation of the 265,000-word modernist epic that is quite widely accepted to be the most important English-language novel of the last hundred years}
"How To Love"
At Performers Under Stress.
Oct-Nov 2011, exact dates TBA. 90 minutes.
{A lively romp inspired by Plato's "Symposium." Kidnapping, philosophy, a food fight, sonnets, and more, in a genuine attempt to really answer the titular question.}
"Joe 'Orion' Ryan"
At the San Francisco Olympians Festival, Oct 7, 2011.
Staged Reading, Oct 7 2012
90 minutes, 2 female, 3 male
{a san francisco cop hunts his criminal prey in the city streets. inspired by "Dirty Harry," greek myth, and the stars above.}
"Untitled Megan Cohen Project"
Commissioned by Threshold.
Slated for production in Summer 2012.
90 minutes.
{a three-act fantasia built around my one-act play "A Three Little Dumplings Adventure," and custom-tailored for the cast who performed "Adventure" in the 2011 Bay One Acts festival.}
Oh golly, I'm on Facebook, like you couldn't guess.
