Nora Douglass
she, her, hers
Auburn, WA
MFA Playwriting, University of Washington School of Drama. Old dog enjoying an Act III energy spurt.
Biography

Nora Douglass holds an MFA in Playwriting from The University of Washington School of Drama. Playwriting awards include three Kennedy Center ACTF Awards, including the National David Library Award for the best play about the American Experience, first place in the Drury College One Act Play Competition and a Shenandoah International Playwrights Retreat fellowship. Four of her plays have been chosen for development by Theatre 33, a new play development company in Salem, Oregon and short plays have been included in numerous theater festivals including Love Creek’s One-Act Festival: Women’s Voices in New York, several Seattle Fringe Festivals, the Topanga Theater Short Play Festival in California and has been commissioned byTheater Company of Lafayette in Colorado to write several short plays for their themed festivals. In addition to writing, Nora has served new plays in the roles of director, designer and dramaturg. She has taught drama to students from 3rd grade through senior adults and has served as Artist-in-Residence at three colleges. A member of the Dramatist Guild and The New Play Exchange, full texts of Nora's plays are available at https://newplayexchange.org

Plays

by Nora Douglass

CLAIRE, a young woman ostracized from her village is unceremoniously dumped on the edge of LENA's arid field which straddles long-contested boundaries. LENA begrudgingly takes her in and disruptor Claire soon has her eye on LENA's boy, AUGUST, who is sent out to work for the women in town who have all lost their men to the long-standing war. Secrets, hidden motives and survival tactics are held long after their benefits have expired as the two women vie for the soul of the young man whose own secrets are forced into relief and call for action.

Cast:
Lena, a woman of indeterminate age, somewhere between forty and sixty; burnt and old from too much sun and toil. A deep reservoir of stubborn strength and a survivor's sense of humor - wily, irascible and capricious - accompany her. CLAIRE, a young woman, early to mid twenties, recently ostracized from her town for fraternizing with the enemy. Divides her life into two categories, lucky and unlucky; takes what comes. AUGUST, a boy caught between youth and manhood. Large, muscular and handsome. In contrast to rawboned LENA, he looks amazingly well-nourished for his mean circumstances.
by Nora Douglass

Plagued by big thoughts in a little town: It’s 1909 in Winlock, Washington, “The Egg Capital of the World” and Martine Small must find a way to direct this year’s EGG DAYS pageant. It’s easy to bamboozle the town boosters and she enjoys shocking her mother’s friends. She doesn’t mind terrorizing the tableau actors who are more interested in this year’s Easter bonnets than rehearsing, but having to fly against her grandmother’s unruly chickens may be the one obstacle to her epic quest.

 

Chosen for development by Theatre 33, Salem, Oregon; included in its 2018 3X3 Summer Festival

Cast:
Cast of 8-10; 24+ roles. Large Cast version available for school and community theater groups.
by Nora Douglass

A Father’s Impossible Dreams, A Mother’s Destructive Love: An Immigration Story: Johanna is a mother caught between wanting her children to get ahead and realizing that she may have to lose them to a foreign culture for them to do so. Jonas embraces all that is new and American. Johanna refuses to learn English. Their four daughters are caught between his fantastic dreams and her crippling fears. These family stories of high hopes and unfulfilled dreams are the stories of many immigrants, reflecting much about life in the west at the turn of the last century.

“Is this our Sacrifice to the new land? Our love for each other?” – Jonas, Act II

Kennedy Center ACTF Regional Playwriting Award

 Winner of the David Library Award for Best Play About the American Experience

Cast:
7 Women, 3 adults and 4 children; 3 Men
by Nora Douglass

A Comedy About Dying: A woman near the end of her life finds her voice and takes on the machinations of an absurd and indifferent medical bureaucracy with the help of an imaginary friend. Teetering between comic satire and family drama, UNBUTTONING VIRGINIA is a journey of discovery, reconnection and reconciliation for a woman who thought her life was over.

Chosen for development by Theatre 33; included in its 2021 3X3 Summer Festival

Cast:
4 Women, 3 Men
by Nora Douglass

A surreal romp in eight scenes: Set in a formal ballroom, this romp in eight scenes follows the comic and often painful adventures of Lucy, a stranger in a strange land growing up the awkward daughter of beautiful, charming and eternally young Cecelia and Edward, who frequent the ballroom to pick up fleeting friends and lovers. Born on stage, brought on in a red wagon, Lucy has to get her parents’ attention between dance sets. The play, which takes place during the course of one evening in the lives of Edward and Cecelia and throughout the years of Lucy’s life, is written from the point of view of a child struggling to make sense of the often incomprehensible world of adults where confusing codes of etiquette and dictates of style – decrees only they seem to understand – appear to rule over honest emotions and common sense.   

Kennedy Center ACTF Regional Playwriting Award

Shenandoah Playwrights Retreat Fellowship

 

Cast:
3 Women in their thirties; 3 Men in their thirties.