Selected as a semifinalist for the 2024 Dramatist Guild Virtual Playwriting Fellowship.
SYNOPSIS
The State has taken control. The people are divided, living in fractured communities. There is little to no water, and the deserts are expanding. A father makes a wicked deal - his daughter in exchange for water. Liana, taken away at just 5-years-old, is locked away in a tower where she must become a lady before her 18th birthday. Visited only by her captor, an Old Woman she calls Mother, and a set of twin brothers, cursed so that they can only speak half-truths and lies, Liana knows little of the world. But the view from her window, through which she converses with the Sun, the Moon, and all of the natural world, gives her strength to seek her truth and plot escape. The fairytale is framed by a present telling of the story by Liana’s future granddaughter, a land healer named Rain.
I Am Not A Lady, a dark fairytale (for adults) told in 13 scenes. At less than 80 pages, the play moves swiftly, telling a highly theatrical, feminist story that plays with both the lady in the tower trope and the myth of St. Barbara, Patron Saint of towers, thunderstorms, and explosions.