R.W. SCHNEIDER is the author of A Play of Angelic Visitation in the 2023 Queens Short Play Festival. Lunch at the Akropolis and We Seem to Be Conversing were produced earlier at the Emerging Artists Theatre in Manhattan. His dramatization of editorial problems in Emily Dickinson, Zero at the Bone, received a reading at Dutch Kills Theatre in Queens. Sanctuary, North was a finalist at the National Playwrights Conference and the Headwaters New Play Festival in Creede, Colorado. It received readings at Dutch Kills and Headwaters. A Play of Angelic Visitation was also shortlisted this year for the International NEEM Award (turquoise) for Improper Dramaturgy, an award for "a play no one would want to produce."
He teaches at Northern Illinois University. https://newplayexchange.org/users/6841/r-w-schneider
Plays
The central conceit (borrowed from a Japanese anime) is this: before reaching puberty, young girls discover that each contains the soul of a warship of the Imperial navy. With training, they learn to don the armor, guns and aircraft of their titular ship and so become that ship. Enrolled in the naval academy, the Fleet Girls are molded into an elite force pledged to defend the emperor at any cost. In other ways, they’re just like high school girls anywhere. Morale is high until one day, northeast of Midway Island, things go terribly wrong. When asked to make the ultimate sacrifice, the young women must assess the value of their civilian lives in practical terms.
Playwright Jaq steers her newest project through a minefield of obstacles: the holders of underlying rights won’t let her use their properties; an eager actor jumps the gun; a naval historian tests her research, and a literary manager offers too many suggestions. Some of the biggest problems are posed by people who truly want to help. At intervals, two of her characters pursue their own drama even as their creator labors over hers. When Jaq hits a wall, the characters intervene.
Dutch Kills Theatre “Loose Leaf Series” reading directed by Jean Randich, November, 2015. Finalist, 2016 National Playwrights Conference.
Equity reading at Headwaters New Play Festival, Creed, CO, directed by Kate Berry
Nyssa met Thaddeus when she took his freshman survey course in Western Philosophy. A professor and a student with unusually compatible minds, they found themselves embarked for a multi-year cruise on the deep waters of philosophic conversation. In Nyssa’s final semester, however, the tone of the voyage changed abruptly. Like the brave sailors in Moby Dick, they encountered a topic that sank them utterly. Months later, the wreckage is still floating.
The second act is an alternative to the first. The characters leave from the same port, but the wind carries them to different destinations.
A shape-shifting angel visits a Bible college in search of fresh meat.
And earlier version was played by the Saint Sebastian Players, Chicago. June, 2018 Directed by Peter Giessel.
New Works Festival, Nov, 2018 Directed by Zohar Fuller
The elephant in the room is that we'll never really connect with anyone.
A researcher at a top theatre school encounters a street woman with perfect diction who recites passages from old plays for tips. He sets about trying to find out who she is and how she became homeless. He ends up making discoveries about himself.
Northern Illinois University, directed by Chris Markle, February, 2003. Semi-finalist, 2004 National Playwrights Conference (as The Flaubert Project).
Dutch Kills Theatre “Loose Leaf Series” reading directed by Hondo Weiss-Richmond, October, 2016. Semi-finalist, 2017 National Playwrights Conference
The play is situated in six contiguous apartments at the rear of a century-old building in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. Events in each apartment are related in the corresponding column of the performance text. A blank cell indicates that the previously-described action continues. Actors can and should supply additional bits of behavior -- like grace notes -- within the framework provided. To take just one example, there’s scarcely any limit to the number of times that someone who’s getting ready to go out will cross in front of a window.