Emma Goldman-Sherman identifies as an Audhd, queer, trans/nb, feminist whose plays have been produced on 4 continents and published by Applause, Brooklyn Publishers, Smith & Kraus and Next Stage Press. Abraham's Daughters is available as a podcast at TheParsnipShip.com. Other podcasts at PlayingOnAir.org and elsewhere. Their plays have been finalisted at BAPF, Henley Rose, Bridge Initiative, Campfire, Unicorn (3x), Waterworks, and Cutting Ball (3x) and semi finalisted at the O'Neill and JPP. More about their plays at https://newplayexchange.org/users/1088/emma-goldman-sherman. Emma holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and teaches for the Dramatists Guild Institute. They support writers and artists at https://www.bravespace.online/ and write about wholeness and creativity at https://goldmansherman.substack.com
Plays
In Abraham's Daughters (finalist Waterworks, Henley Rose and Cutting Ball's Risk is This), although Abraham is a Jew from Flushing, and he only has one daughter, Maxine, and her only daughter Racie is a lesbian, Abraham still believes he'll be the Father of Nations. He moves to Tel Aviv in search of his first love, Haajar. When he discovers Haajar's daughter has five Palestinian Muslim sons, he goes to Nablus in the midst of the first Intifada to claim them as his own. Abraham's Daughters is a mythic play about colonialism and identity. 1 man, 4 women, 90 min, unit set
You can hear it as a podcast with incidental music by Aya Aziz, directed by Dalia Ashurina here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/abrahams-daughters-by-emma-goldman...
After a devastating storm, Grace tries to rebuild, but Mary is desperate to escape. This is my deconstruction of a kitchen sink play with the sink torn from its pipes. This highly physical piece runs in real time as a comic tragedy or a tragic comedy - audience gets to choose on this emotional ride. Why Birds Fly is a mythic play about the primal human instinct to survive.
Risk is This (Cutting Ball) and Unicorn finalist.
Photo is of a reading at the Dramatists Guild with Lynn Cohen and Shauna Bloom.
Live Girls in Pop-Soil! Lark is helped by her 2 friends to present her thesis for her gender studies class on how girls grow up today with social media, pop music, racism and rape culture. A confrontational Tragi-Comedy with very dark roots.
Ismene looks back on Antigone's tragic life and reconsiders her own actions. A feminist ensemble piece for a cast of 5-8 women (many also play men) in verse with circus elements and collective action.
Unit set. Antigone's Sister runs 90 minutes without intermission
A large cast romp through a fairy tale circus world where the princesses must learn to deconstruct their anti-feminist icons to navigate the realities of love. With swordfighting and lesbians!
A memory play where Angie's memories compete with her daughter Sarah's memories. Sarah's need to control her mother's death causes her to berate Denise into understanding her own mother's life in a new way.
5 women, 3 generations, all struggling with loss take a train from Philly to NYC. Angie and Lois get on in 1963, Sarah and Denise get on in 1993 and Isabel gets on in 2003. The train passes the Twin Towers in 1993 but they weren't there in 1963. Only Isabelle in 2003 mourns them, and only she understands loss as a child can, and when she meets her grandmother, Angie, who is mourning her own mother in 1963, Isabelle might be able to save her own future.
A play concerned with our shoes and our souls, a comedy with (t)issues.
90 min no intermission unit set
2024 O'Neill SemiFinalist, WINNERS is a quirky, queer comedy about a clueless, competitive family. With Mom in Limbo and Dad absent the past 8 years, Fran and Cali fail to connect until a late diagnosis of autism changes everything. WINNERS celebrates the possibilities of queer, nonbinary/trans and autistic authenticity!
Successes
MAN & WIFE, a Bi-Partisan Marriage under a 25 year Trump administration, was read at Dixon Place, directed by Kim Gambino with Amanda Ladd and Dan Shaked, 4/17, NYC
TAMAR, The Two-Gated City, my adaptation of two Bible stories about rape culture was performed as a staged reading at First Astoria Presbyterian Church in Queens NYC in April 2017, directed by Keisha Kogan, with Adrienne Williams, Lori Minor and Malikha Mallette in the 3 roles.
Worked as a dramaturg on ten scripts at the Tenth Annual Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha, Nebraska! And went back to dramaturg more at the Eleventh Annual Great Plains Theatre Conference. Love it there!
Named a Risky Playwright second year in a row (2015) by Cutting Ball Theatre in San Francisco for the play Abraham's Daughters.
Named a Risky Playwright in 2014 by Cutting Ball Theatre as a runner-up to the Risk Is This Festival for Why Birds Fly.