The Jack Plays

This trilogy is about an American family's personal relationship to 9/11 and how that ripples forward 10-15 years.

"These plays stand alone beautifully, with no diminution in their impact by seeing or reading them alone or in any order. … The polestar character of the trilogy, Jack, who remains an elusive offstage mystery, [haunts] all three plays. The plays all share an exploration of [an] extended and unusual family and their journeys to reconnect or escape one another. … Three generations are united and separated by loss—loss created by divorce, death, dementia and the dislocation of self both geographically and psychically."  (Janet Allen, Executive Artistic Director, Indiana Repertory Theatre)

In The House That Jack Built (2m., 3w.), a family Thanksgiving in Vermont is the setting for a clash of old traditions and new love; empty chairs and the people who threaten to fill them; and a family who prizes open arms, the sweet pursuit of happiness and the mysterious heartbreak that comes with getting what you think you want. Appoggiatura (3m., 3w., 1 or more either gender.) Three closely related Americans find themselves lost in Venice, Italy, and spend a day wandering through that City of Dreams in this play about longing and grieving and ghosts and heartbreak, all set against the funny and tender path toward healing. Miranda (2m., 3w.) is the mind-bending, existential crisis of a CIA operative who goes by many names. This is a play that humanizes the CIA while not sugarcoating the moral ambiguity in which it does its job. Miranda weaves a taut, layered story of what happens as operatives become emotionally intertwined in the intimate lives of their assets against the high stakes of the agency’s work.