New & Upcoming
PREPAREDNESS
World premiere at the Bushwick Starr, May/June 2020.
Alternately horrifying and hilarious, this dark comedy follows the faculty of a moribund theater department at a state university, as they are forced to undergo self-defense training in order to maintain their funding. Award-winning theater scholar Miller teams up with director Kristjan Thor, who brings his immersive horror expertise to Preparedness, examining the effects of fear on professional communities.
UPDATE [MARCH 2020]
Preparedness is on PAUSE as the creative team and theater collectively grapple with the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak. In the meantime, check out Episode #3 of the Bushwick Starr’s podcast, Starr Talk— my conversation with the Starr’s Creative Director & Co-Founder, Sue Kessler, and director Kris Thor, recorded at the end of our Hubbard Hall residency for Preparedness. You’ll hear about the show, and the dramaturgical work we ended up doing during our residency after adjusting plans due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Other topics include teaching theater and multigenerational music sharing. Enjoy!
Selected PAST Projects
• Jimmy Carter’s Compromise
During a domestic summit in the midst of an energy crisis, President Jimmy Carter secretly visits an American household, leading to a dangerous collision between his administration and two working-class families. (Commissioned by the NYC-based DreamLab, dir: Niegel Smith. Semi-finalist, National Playwrights Conference, O’Neill Theater Center, 2014.)
• Sylvie Ann
When Sylvie Ann is fired after years of dedicated service to her job, she takes aim at the bureaucracy that took her down, with the help of her disenfranchised co-workers and dysfunctional son. Sylvie Ann is a dark comedy about a woman at the end of a career, fighting for a new beginning . (Finalist, Leah Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Writers, 2010.)
• Gay Pierrot
A clown seeks the cure for cancer in a commedia look at art, queerness and economy, with Tracy Hazas and Amanda Gates-Elston. (2008 HOT Festival at Dixon Place.)
• The Hovering
“[The Hovering] reveals a side of warfare that is rarely explored: the daily struggle of the wives and loved ones who are left at home to wait while their soldiers are deployed overseas. Miller skillfully blends magical theatricality and stark realism to illuminate the limbo that these women find themselves thrust into.” –Marina McClure, director
(Semi-finalist, 2007 O’Neill playwrights competition and the Reverie Productions Next Generation Playwriting Competition; 2007 Capital FRINGE Festival, dir. Marina McClure)
Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot (co-producer)
A site-specific performance in collaboration with the Diocese of Brooklyn and the Church of St. Joseph; directed by Alec Duffy, music by Dave Malloy, 2010.
Widows of Troy
A collage poem adaptation of Euripides’ The Trojan Women, in collaboration with the Syrup Room (dir. Kristjan Thor), 2006.
