See something you'd like to read? Send me an email at kyletwilson at gmail.com. You can also check out my page on New Play Exchange here.

SELECTED FULL LENGTH PLAYS:

YUCCA CORRIDOR

Jonathan has just settled into his new condo in L.A.'s legendary Yucca Corridor when he's confronted by Mary Christ, a queer performance artist who refuses to let anyone forget the city's disappearing history. Meanwhile they both pursue Denny, a washed-up hustler who's on the verge of disappearing altogether.

• Finalist, 2018 National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center

• Semi-Finalist, 2018 PlayPenn Annual Conference

• Semi-Finalist, 2018 Blue Ink Playwriting Contest

• PlayLabs Selection, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Omaha, NE, May 2017

• Rehearsed reading, Ensemble Studio Theatre Los Angeles, directed by Roger Q. Mason, February 2017

• Semi-Finalist, National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, January 2016

• Workshop readings, Naked Angels Tuesdays@9, Atwater Village Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, 2015

AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL

Stewart is finishing up the worst day of her terrible school year as a special ed teacher-in-training in central Los Angeles. It will all be over as soon as she gets through a detention period for her most defiant student, Frankie. Since she wouldn’t let Frankie get on the bus home, he wants her to track down his mother to come get him but she’s nowhere to be found. AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL is a tough-hearted comedy about the challenge of giving and receiving help across social, racial, and hierarchical divides.

• Reading, Theatre of NOTE Ink & Drink Festival, March 2020

• Reading, La MaMa Experiments 18: Parts for Meryl Streep, directed by Illana Stein, June 2018

• Reading, Reverb Play Festival, Echo Theatre Company, Tulsa OK, directed by Machele Dill, April 2017

• Semi-Finalist, nuVoices Play Festival, Actors Theatre of Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, 2014

• PlayLabs Selection, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Omaha, NE, May 2013

• Reading, Company of Angels Playwrights Intensive, Los Angeles, CA, Luis Alfaro, dramaturg, January 2011

WOMEN IN FILM: A FANTASY OF OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND AND JOAN FONTAINE

The year is 1941, and Joan Fontaine has come to Olivia de Havilland's dressing room to enlist her estranged sister’s help with their unstable father. What begins as a nostalgic comedy of Hollywood’s Golden Age evolves into a grandiose alternate history, contemplating a world in which Joan and Olivia could possibly overcome their famously bitter sibling rivalry. Such a place includes kidnapping, bloodshed, and no small share of bad acting.

• Reading, Blank Theatre Living Room Series, Los Angeles, CA, April 2018

• Workshop readings, Naked Angels Tuesdays@9, Atwater Village Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, 2016-2017

• Developed at HBMG Foundation Writers Retreat, Creede, CO, February 2016

HOPE HOUSE

The year is 1994, the state is Arkansas, and the town isn't even worth mentioning. Our narrator George Tucker wants to do right in the world. He's working on his Eagle Scout project, doing some caretaking on the property of Hope House, a home for battered women. Although he tries to steer clear of the many troubled residents, he still falls for April, a mysterious teenager who wants to get as far away as she can, if she could only figure out how. All the while Katie, the home's new director, has a wary eye on George. HOPE HOUSE is the third in a trilogy of plays set in Bumblebee, Arkansas.

• Workshop readings, Naked Angels Tuesdays@9, Atwater Village Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, 2014

• Reading, Fell Swoop Reading Series, Spirit Studio, Los Angeles, CA, directed by the author. October 2014

THE BUTCHER OF BUMBLEBEE

Jasper Lynch is back in town after a stint in an Oklahoma mental health ward, and he's determined to stay, no matter how bad the place wants rid of him. His girlfriend Amber is having his baby and he wants to do right by them, even finding a job and a place to stay. After three kids turn up missing, he and his buddies Chad and Ricky become easy scapegoats and he starts to wonder if he should've just stayed gone from Bumblebee for good. THE BUTCHER OF BUMBLEBEE is the second in a trilogy of plays about Bumblebee, Arkansas.

• Semi-Finalist, National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, January 2013

• Developmental Readings, Circle Readings, Los Angeles, CA, directed by Diana Wyenn, April-May 2012

• Workshop readings, Naked Angels Tuesdays@9, Atwater Village Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, 2012

BUMBLEFUCK, AR          

It’s 1988 in Bumblebee, AR, a nowhere town just east of the Oklahoma border the kids either can’t imagine ever leaving or can’t wait to escape. The Murphy family has roots there, with elder son Carl keeping a low profile on his dope-smoking and younger son Terrance trying to stay out of the sights of the biggest bully in junior high. A punk kid named Josh starts hanging around and teaches the boys a few things about themselves, but some lessons are more welcome than others.

• Reading, Botanicum Seedlings GreenReads, Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, Topanga, CA, Jennie Webb, dramaturg, August 2012

• Semi-Finalist, Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program Fellowship, The Juilliard School, New York, NY, April 2011

• Semi-Finalist, National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, February 2011

• Finalist, Playwrights’ Week, Lark Play Development Center, New York, NY, August 2010

CUSTOMARY MONSTERS

Frederick Furnivall, a “Scholar Gypsy” of Victorian letters, moves a young Shakespeare enthusiast into his home in order to educate and seduce her. Meanwhile, his friend and colleague, London diarist Arthur Munby, begins a secret romance with his servant, who happily continues to sweep his floors and clean his boots. How long can these two educated men balance their progressive ideals and their romantic desires? 

• Rehearsed reading, Hendrix-Murphy Foundation Playwrights Theatre, Conway, AR, directed by Jeff Benson, September 2011

• First Prize, Hendrix-Murphy Foundation Playwriting Competition, Conway, AR, March 2011

• Semi-Finalist, National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, April 2008

• Roundtable Reading, Lark Play Development Center, New York, NY, May 2008

• Finalist, Playwrights’ Week, Lark Play Development Center, New York, NY, June 2007

• Semi-Finalist, Princess Grace Playwriting Grant, June 2007

• Rehearsed reading, Within the Unknown New Play Festival, Unknown Theater, Hollywood, CA, directed by Diana Wyenn, July 2006

• Rehearsed reading, Fell Swoop Writers Group New Works Readings Series, Working Stage Theatre, West Hollywood, CA, directed by Ryan Dixon, December 2005

WAR AND JIM                 

You are hereby invited to a gala opening of an exciting new art show. Your host for the evening will be New York's most underrated painter, Warfield Mitchell. He is joined by wife Catherine, herself a poet of equally undistinguished stature. Together the couple uses paintings, poetry, and performance to take you on a tour through the east coast art world of the 50s and 60s. Assisting them is a very special guest—James Guest, to be specific—a young gay writer who goes home with them one night to sleep off a hangover and stays for six years.

• Screenplay adaptation, Finalist, 2017 Arch & Bruce Brown Playwriting Competition

• Semi-Finalist, Chesterfield Fellowship, September 2003, August 2002

• Rehearsed reading, Showcase of New American Drama (New West Series), German Theater Abroad GmbH, Berlin, Germany, directed by Lydia Steier, July 2003

• Rehearsed reading, Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, directed by Stuart Carden, July 2002

• Workshop production, Carnegie Mellon University Winter New Plays Project, directed by Lydia Steier, April 2002

SELECTED SHORT PLAYS:

SUSAN SONTAG GOES ON A DATE TO THE MINESHAFT

A comedic exploration of a rumor that a disguised Susan Sontag visited infamous 1970s S&M bar The Mineshaft in its sexy heyday.

• Recorded for podcast by HBMG Foundation’s American Playbook, February 2020

• Performance, National Queer Theater’s Pint-Sized Plays: A Night of Short Plays Set in a Leather Bar, Eagle NYC, October 2019

• Workshop reading, Naked Angels Tuesdays@9, Atwater Village Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, May 2017

THE YOUNGSTER'S GUIDE TO ADOLESCENCE

It's 1985 and Buddy's mom and dad are driving him to church camp. Which means it's time to take the Prince tape out of his Walkman and listen to some words of wisdom from Dr. Jim Gibson, author of The Youngster's Guide to Adolescence.

• Winner, 12th-Annual FUSION Short Works Festival, The Seven: Truth or Consequences. FUSION, Albuquerque, NM, May-June 2017

HEIRLOOMS: A HYBRID

A scene-stealing Tomato narrates this story of a playwright, his broken heart, and some guy named Ronald Reagan.

• Staged Reading, SeedlingsFest 2012, Hybrids and Heirlooms, Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, Topanga, CA, directed by Ella Martin, October 2012

• Performance by the author, “Homo-Centric,” Stories Books and Café, Los Angeles, CA, August 2012

A LITTLE LIGHT ROLEPLAY   

Virgil is willing to do whatever it takes to realize his fantasies. Monty is . . . less so . . .

• Production, Psychic Visions Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, directed by Marnie Olson and Caroline Marshall, August 2010

• Reading, “theSALON,” Celebration Theatre, West Hollywood, CA, directed by the author, May 2010

• Production, The Unspoken Theatre Group, Los Angeles, CA, directed by Kristina Lloyd, March 2007

THE PISSIN' POSSE               

 A couple of college roommates are targeted by a militant underground organization called The Pissin' Posse. And it's really ruining their high.

• Finalist, Heideman Award, Actors Theatre Louisville, July 2007

TAKING THE BAIT

Dinner with the in-laws. Need I say more? 

• Production, “A Pageant of the 50 States (and more),” Clubbed Thumb, Inc., directed by Rachel Chavkin, New York, NY, May 2007