Terry Glaser is a playwright, translator, stage director, actor, and acting teacher. She has worked both in academia and the professional theatre for over 30 years. She has taught at the University of San Diego, UCSD, USC, CalArts, Earlham College, the Michael Chekhov Studio-USA West, Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company, the Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia Conservatory, and the Old Globe Theatre. Her writing includes original scripts and translations of classic plays and operas, including "Pardon My Greed!" (selected to be performed Off Broadway at the Red Bull Theater’s 2019 Short New Play Festival and published by Stage Rights in 2021), "The Trojan Follies" (Semi-Finalist in the 2021 Shakespeare's New Contemporaries Competition at the American Shakespeare Center), "The Dentist," (premiered in 2021 at Virginia Commonwealth University),"The Frogs," "A Flea in Her Ear," "The Surprise of Love," and "Orfeo." Her original solo shows include "The Mysterious Dwarf," and "Chekhov, Live!" Ms. Glaser has served as stage director for over 50 professional and university productions across the country and has performed her solo shows and conducted master classes at the University of Virginia, the University of Kansas, Syracuse University, Point Loma Nazarene University, and Mesa College. Ms. Glaser holds a B.A. in Playwriting from Brown University and an M.A. in Theatre (Directing) from Syracuse University. She has specialized professional training in the Michael Chekhov Technique, Richard Schechner's Rasaboxes™, period style, Commedia dell'Arte, red-nose clown, and Lecoq. In 2012, Ms. Glaser became the first recipient of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education/Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Region 8 Award for Innovative Teaching.
Plays
Who has not struggled with the ambition of finding true love, of daring to act – even though it might lead to a terrible mistake – and of finally taking the plunge into the unknown territory of commitment? Is it possible to trust in love again after your heart has been broken? This is the critical question for a group of college students struggling to forge their identities as they teeter on the cusp between adolescence and adulthood. Fern has been jilted by her boyfriend Zach; Oliver’s heartthrob, Angela, has left him to join an ashram; Cooper’s trying to tame his libido; and Luna just wants to pass her final exams. Although Fern and Oliver have both sworn to never love again, they find a common bond through their shared experience of loss. When their friendship threatens to overstep its bounds and turn to love, however, romantic chaos ensues. It’s all complicated by the bumbling attempts of Cooper and Luna to bring the two together, and obstructed by the passionate Damien, who has designs on Fern, himself. Throw in a brilliant but clueless doctoral candidate who manages to confuse things even more, and you have all the ingredients for a light-hearted yet touching exploration of love lost and unexpectedly found.
Love, vengeance, and slapstick are scrambled together in crazy combinations of youthful romance, aging lust, clever servants, foolish masters, and a host of zany townsfolk, all skewered to reveal the foibles that bind us in a common humanity. It all begins when Pantalone, the town's most powerful citizen, stirs up a hornet's nest of unrest. He woos his son's sweetheart, bites his servant on the arm, and pits himself against friend and foe alike, including a tango-dancing soldier and a bogus academic. The aggrieved citizens hatch a plot to get revenge on Pantalone and save the young lovers by enlisting the services of the local baker, Pulcinella, a dental-guild drop-out with a bagful of terrifying tools. It's a collision course of physical stunts and verbal fireworks to make Pantalone fall for the ruse and allow the lovers to wed – or does Pantalone sense the scam and take his revenge in return? THE DENTIST revels in its blatant theatricality and audience participation, as we come together as strangers, only to discover all the things we have in common – the desire to right wrongs, achieve justice, find true love, and live happily ever after.
Is it possible to trust in love again after your heart has been broken? Marivaux answers this question in his comedy of 1727, given fresh life in this sparkling new adaptation by Terry Glaser. Flaminia, newly widowed and in mourning, and Dorante, abandoned by his lover who chose a convent over marriage, have both sworn to never love again. They find a common bond through their shared experience of loss, but when their friendship threatens to overstep its bounds and turn to love, romantic chaos ensues. It’s all complicated by the bumbling attempts of their servants to bring the two together, and obstructed by the passionate Eraste, who has designs on Flaminia, himself. Throw in the resident philosopher Hortensius, who manages to confuse things even more, and you have all the ingredients for a light-hearted yet touching exploration of love lost and unexpectedly found.
"Pardon My Greed!" takes as its inspiration “The Pardoner’s Prologue” and “The Pardoner’s Tale” from Chaucer’s "The Canterbury Tales." In this adaptation, Chaucer himself is a character who introduces the Pardoner, who explains his lucrative business of selling papal pardons for sins (indulgences). The Pardoner denounces greed as the root of all evil and illustrates his point with a play about three wastrels who set out to kill Death but, through their avarice, end up killing each other instead. With ribald humor and poetry, "Pardon My Greed!" exposes the hypocrisy of the Pardoner’s actions, and the greedy Pardoner as the epitome of a man who practices what he preaches against.
With its mixture of transcendent poetry, scatological slapstick, and sharp satire, THE FROGS makes the case for the arts, particularly theatre, as a means of salvation for our war-prone society. The god Dionysos and his slave Xanthias travel to the underworld in order to bring the great tragic poet Euripides back to earth so that mankind may benefit from his counsel. On the way to hell, the travelers encounter a variety of gods and demi-gods eager to either help or hinder them. Once in Pluto's realm, Dionysos judges a contest between Euripides and Aeschylos. In a virtuoso display of literary satire, Aristophanes pits the two poets' writing styles and visions of society against each other, coming to a startling and enlightening conclusion for the best way to save a civilization imploding under the weight of its own achievements.
Raymond Chandler meets Ovid in this madcap noir version of the story of the abduction of Persephone and the origin of the four seasons. Jaded gumshoe Phillipides joins forces with Persephone’s mom, the goddess Demeter, and a host of denizens of Greek mythology, including a babbling fountain and a whiny Apollo tired of toting the sun around the cosmos, to find Persephone and bring springtime back to earth. It all hinges on a stoned satyr, the fastidious King of the Underworld, and a pomegranate...
Taking its inspiration from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Bath Time opens with Chaucer sitting in the Tabard Inn with a bad case of writer’s block. Enter the Wife of Bath, seeking shelter from the springtime rain, as she makes her way to Canterbury on pilgrimage to atone for her lusty sins. To pass the time, she tells Chaucer a story about an ignoble knight who is transformed into a man of honor with the help of a wise old crone. With ribald humor and poetry, she not only solves Chaucer’s writer’s block, but she also answers the age-old question: What do women really want?
THE TROJAN FOLLIES immerses the audience in the world of the Trojan War, as seen through an absurdist lens that intermingles poetry and prose, vulgar jokes, pratfalls, and passionate explorations of fundamental beliefs. THE TROJAN FOLLIES starts with the genesis of the war as Zeus’s plan to rid Earth of excess humanity, continues with the Judgement of Paris, includes events from all ten years of the war, and culminates in the destruction of Troy and the fate of Helen and the Trojan women who are left alive after the war is over. With the women of Troy reclaiming their narratives, THE TROJAN FOLLIES mirrors our own world in its depiction of the devastation and futility of war, and in the ironic overturning of traditional views of honor, chivalry, patriotism, loyalty, and truth.
Successes
I'm delighted to announce that my short play BATH TIME, based on the Wife of Bath's Tale from The Canterbury Tales was chosen from over 300 entries to be performed at The Actors Studio of Newburyport, MA, Fourth Annual Short Play Festival. Performances will be live and outdoors August 20-22, 2021.
Terry Glaser
Correction to previous post: My full-length Commedia dell'arte farce, THE DENTIST, will have its world premiere at Virginia Commonwealth University, April 8-16, 2021. The production will be directed by Jeff Darland, and the performances will be live and outside.
My play PARDON MY GREED! was selected to be performed at the Red Bull Theater's 2019 Short New Play Festival, Lucille Lortel Theatre, New York City, in July.