Rosemary Parrillo (she/her) is a New Jersey playwright, screenwriter, and journalist. Her play The New Normal Trilogy was selected as a semi-finalist in the 2017 Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference.
Grind City won first place in the 2017 Dubuque One-Act Contest and Festival in Iowa. She has also been a three-time finalist in the Tennessee Williams One-Act Play Contest in New Orleans.
Shelter received a festival production at Freedom Theater in Philadelphia.
Parrillo also has written the screenplay Bella Vista, inspired by the true story of how noncombatant seamen from a luxury Italian cruiseliner were interned by the U.S government in a prison camp in Missoula, Montana, for the duration of WWII.
Plays
Olivia Forte is losing patience -- with her failing newspaper’s threats to fold, her head-strong mother’s delay tactics over selling the family’s decrepit pizzeria and ICE’s stalking of their lone undocumented employee. But her father’s sudden death has brought Olivia much more than a litany of aggravations. It’s also handed her an unexpected gift. And now is the time to deliver on her father’s American Dream deferred, even if she has to confront the abomination that is the Texas-Mexico border wall to make it happen.
The New Normal Trilogy is set in a Hoboken, New Jersey, dining spot that has three different proprietors over the course of 15 years following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
This fast-paced, 90-minute play takes place in real time as the neighborhood transitions, with new owners and new customers.
The all-night diner in 2001, Lou's 24/7, becomes the Oasis Cafe in 2009, following the country's economic collapse and the election of President Barack Obama. The business changes owners once again in 2016 when it transitions to a hipster coffe shop in the now-gentrifying neighborhood. Through all the changes, however, one constant remains: fear of "the other."
Jo Jo is searching for a safe home for her three children, away from their father and the unforgivng street life they have too often known. But those she turns to for help are the least equipped or inclined to lend a hand. Shelter, inspired by a true story, shows how desperation can send a young vulnerable mother down a dark path to perverted salvation.
Elderberry Senior Living Center is preparing to celebrate the 100th birthday of a beloved resident during a dedication ceremony for its new residential wing. The local newspaper is covering the event, but the reporter assigned to the story is not having a good day. Neither is the centenarian birthday girl, who would much rather spend her time listening to her favorite opera, Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. Meanwhile, the center's unyielding communications director is determined to put on a show for the press.
There will be spectacle, but not the kind she expects.
Two women, one young, with an early-stage cancer and one old, with a late-stage cancer, navigate fear and uncertainty in their own way while waiting for radiation treatments in an oncology center.
Grind City is set in a hipster coffee shop in Hoboken, N.J., in 2016. Dexter is excited about the new venture and is especially jazzed by his state-of-the-art brewing equipment. But at the moment Dexter flings wide the door to prosperity, Adira arrives with a proposition that threatens to profoundly alter the character of the neighborhood, Dexter's fortunes, and his progressive sensibilities.
Three cousins gather at the South Philadelphia rowhome of a recently deceased great aunt to comb through her possessions in search of hidden wealth. But the payoff is way more disturbing than anyone could have imagined.
Successes
My play The New Normal Trilogy was a semi-finalist in the 2017 Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference.,
Grind City won first place in the 2017 Dubuque One-Act Contest and Festival.
I also have been a three-time finalist in the Tennessee Williams One-Act Play Contest, New Orleans.