Christine Kallman is a playwright, lyricist, poet and musician. Much of her work for stage treats crisis points in community, often within an historical context. Her plays The Intruder and A Falling Out employ fictional characters in historical settings, employing music, dance (The Intruder), and projected images (A Falling Out). Six of her full-length plays have received support from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council, three of these for full production. Kallman has served as director, teacher and playwright for the Young People’s Theater Workshop in Northfield, Minnesota for nine seasons. She is a member of the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. To learn more visit www.christinekallman.com.
Plays
Is love of a duck enough to get someone committed? As we hear the clock strike eleven, we learn that 78-year-old Eleanor, a feisty and irreverent retired businesswoman, has until noon to come up with evidence that will keep her daughters from moving her into a memory care unit. In flights of memory that may or may not indicate senility, Eleanor builds her case, reliving her attempts to prove her husband wrong when he claimed she “has never loved anyone or anything and never will.” But when she chooses to love a duck, it’s not as easy as she had thought. And when a sudden oil pipeline leak threatens her beloved and the entire lake habitat, the equations she had worked out for proofs are washed away. She is left to defend herself in a world where love seems impossible and her actions make us ask what sanity really means.
Run time: Approx. 35 minutes
Successes
Christine Kallman's short play DUCK will be read at Renaissance Theaterworks in Milwaukee on November 4 & 6, following performances of The Drowning Girls. In this one-woman play, Eleanor, a feisty and irreverent 78-year old, has until noon to come up with evidence that will keep her daughters from moving her into a memory care unit. Her story brings us face-to-face with an environmental disaster. The part of Eleanor will be read by Flora Coker. Directed by Marie Kohler.
Kallman's monologue DUCK was a winner in the Theatre du Mississippi 5th Annual Short Script Contest.