Braddon Mendelson is the author of several original full-length plays, including: Rembrandt Perfected, which he also directed onstage at The MAIN in Newhall, California, in January 2023. It won Best New Play, 2022, at the Long Beach Playhouse New Works Festival. The play is a farcical take on a historic meeting between Samuel Morse and Louis Daguerre as they scheme to identify the first human ever depicted in a photograph; The WaterWay, a musical that recounts the rise of Los Angeles from small Spanish pueblo to world renowned metropolis; Gallows Falls, a ghost story set in Vermont; and Resisted Living, a comedy about aging parents and their aging children.
An alumnus of California State University, Northridge and the prestigious Warner Brothers Writers Workshop, Braddon has one son and resides with his wife in Stevenson Ranch, California.
Plays
On a spring day in 1839, American artist and telegraph inventor Samuel Morse and scenic artist Louis Daguerre -- whose daguerreotype ushered in the new world of photography -- meet for the first time at Daguerre's studio in Paris. While demonstrating their inventions to one another, they notice a silhouetted figure in one of Daguerre’s pictures and devise an outlandish scheme to identify the individual, the first human ever depicted in a photographic image.
When two roommates discover the identity of the craftsman who built an 18th century French game table, the audience journeys backward across the ages to witness its provenance. With each preceding generation, from ordinary citizens to the rich and powerful, the table is integral to the stories of its owners, whose essences coalesce into the table.
Successes
"Gallows Falls" was one of three finalists to receive a directed, staged reading at the Vintage Theatre New Play Festival, in Aurora, Colorado, Oct 6-8.
The World Premiere of "Rembrandt Perfected" was produced January 2023 to mostly sold-out houses. I attended every performance. How joyful it was to hear the laughter from the audience at each performance. Still riding the high.
My play "Rembrandt Perfected" won the Long Beach Playhouse New Works Festival. On March 26th, they presented a terrific staged reading, which exceeded my expectations. The director was very clever in how she handled the physical humor, and laughter resounded at all the appropriate moments. It was a reaffirming evening, and I look forwad to getting a full production up in the near future.