NEWS
Scot attended the Sewanee Writers' Conference two years in a row, most recently as a Tennessee Williams Scholar in Playwriting, and also appeared as Ryan in Riverside Theatre's production of Samuel D. Hunter's A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.
CURRENT PLAYS
MA GOTTA GUN
It's Groundhog Day in tiny Blueball, Ohio and PA, former mayor of Blue Ball, OH (self-appointed) and groundskeeper of the local ballfield is dyin'. He'll die within the week- if he can stop hangin’ on. Before he goes, he charges MA with an unexpected death-bed wish: that she “learn. to. shoot.” MA enlists the help of her grown son, BABY, her other son OTHER BROTHER, and sister-in-law AUNTIE HISTAMINE to figure out the exact meaning of his mysterious instruction and see if there's some way to wriggle out of his death-bed wish. Meanwhile, PA refuses to die- he just keeps hangin' on…. 3-5 characters, small-town grotesque, Mountain Dew, antihistamines, refrigerator door wisdom
THE UNDERNEATHY
After his small town floods, a child named Banjo finds himself on a decomissioned whaling ship searching for his mother. With the help of an old sea captain, a crow, a hermit, and a foghorn, Banjo discovers the vastness of the ocean, charts the changing borders of the world, and gives himself over to the cruel and kind rules of nature. 5-7 characters, redundant maps, missing parents, soggy apocalypses
PETER RABBIT
A small-town Middle-West librarian on the run from her would-be rock-star husband finds herself at odds with the local town council about which books should or should not be on the school's bookmobile. Dog mayors, potato salad, pop rocks and soda pop abound in this weird American carnival.
full-length, comedy/drama, Pere Ubu-plus-corn pone
7f, 10m, flexible casting, doubling
BUBBLE
It's 1876 in Iowa, and an aging abolitionist & an upstart rabble-rouser working on a Voter Drive argue about how best to achieve True Freedom as they hurtle toward the New Century. With passenger pigeons, talking donkeys, ghost presidents, small-g god, corn, beards and shit people. full-length, 19th Century Freak-Out, American Dream Space, Reconstruction Fever Dream, Post Civil War Acid Trip, 8 characters, super-flexible & diverse casting.
When Dick and Belle's Chicago neighborhood is taken over by suits & fakes, they each choose their own manner of coping: Belle turns to civil disobedience & graffiti, while Dick chases virtual turtles until he can arrange to ascend to the abstract plane.
full-length, funny-sad comedy, gentrification, body rights, neo-Luddism, paranoia, analog formats, virtual turtles, supposed & theoretical babies
3f, 2m, flexible casting
bitches in the future(or, the men are gonna ruin everything)
Tonite I'm Gonna Break (your heart)
Stevie, a young aspiring singer-songwriter, tracks down Lou (one-hit-wonder/ cult figure/ recluse) to a bar in rural New Mexico where no digital technology is allowed so she can argue with him about music and art in the 21st Century- and to find out if this song she has in her back pocket is a Real True Song.
full-length, drama with music, no robots, 'Hot Stuff', i ain't your jukebox, dirt room
2f, 1m
unproduceable
In 1978, the New York City Film Critics Circle (Downtown Chapter, Below 14th Street- Alphabet City Branch) convenes for their Annual Vote of the Best Film of the Year: arguments ensue, thumbs are employed, whiffle bats are waved about, and nobody can leave the building a winner is declared.
full-length, dark dark DARK comedy, everything but the kitchen sink realism
17-117+ (yes, 117) characters, flexible casting, doubling-tripling-quadrupling or more
BIO
Scot West is a playwright based in Cambridge, MA, formerly of Chicago and Iowa City. He writes weird and ridiculous plays about working mothers, deadbeat dads, precocious children, make-shift families, and all sorts of folks who live on the margins. He has studied playwriting in courses at Primary Stages, Chicago Dramatists, and Ohio University and his plays and monologues have been performed in Iowa City and Minneapolis.
As an actor, he has worked on over forty plays in Chicago in productions, workshops, and readings with such companies as Victory Gardens, Griffin Theatre, Jackalope Theatre, Sideshow Theatre, Raven Theatre, Teatro Vista, and many, many others.