Masha Obolensky

Masha Obolensky

Masha Obolensky’s plays and performance pieces have been produced by the Nora Theatre, Emerson Stage, TimeLine Theatre, Boston Theatre Marathon, Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Huntington Theatre, the Samuel French OOB Play Festival, LaMaMa, The Boudica Series, HERE Arts Center, Access Theatre, and Source Festival D.C. Awards and grants include: Massachusetts Cultural Council finalist, Pen New England...
Masha Obolensky’s plays and performance pieces have been produced by the Nora Theatre, Emerson Stage, TimeLine Theatre, Boston Theatre Marathon, Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Huntington Theatre, the Samuel French OOB Play Festival, LaMaMa, The Boudica Series, HERE Arts Center, Access Theatre, and Source Festival D.C. Awards and grants include: Massachusetts Cultural Council finalist, Pen New England Discovery Award, Kennedy Center Michael Kanin Award, Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for Best New Play, Shakespeare’s Sister Fellowship semi-finalist, a WordBridge Fellowship, PlayPenn Conference finalist, Eugene O’Neill Theatre Festival semi-finalist, Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival semi-finalist, and a Source Festival D.C. finalist. She was a Huntington Theatre Fellow in 2011/12 and continues to meet with her cohort, who have formed the writers’ group MUTT. She has an MFA from Boston University in Playwriting. 2021 productions include a New Play workshop production of her play Interior of the Artist Without Her Sister with Emerson College, an audio play for the Huntington Theatre’s Dream Boston series, and a short play called Burnout commissioned by Brandeis University.

Plays

  • Interior of the Artist Without Her Sister by Masha Obolensky
    Cast: 
    9–15
    ·
    Genre: docudrama/historic, experimental
    Genre: docudrama/historic, experimental
    When her sister, Virginia Woolf, dies by suicide the painter Vanessa Bell is plunged into the past as she struggles to understand who she is in the world without this central relationship in her life. A theatrical piece that draws from and is inspired by the autobiographical writings of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. This new play explores grief, identity, the effects of inner passivity and repressed memory,...
    When her sister, Virginia Woolf, dies by suicide the painter Vanessa Bell is plunged into the past as she struggles to understand who she is in the world without this central relationship in her life. A theatrical piece that draws from and is inspired by the autobiographical writings of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. This new play explores grief, identity, the effects of inner passivity and repressed memory, loving someone with a mental illness, the transformative power of art, and the ability we have to reimagine the past and change our present.
  • Not Enough Air by Masha Obolensky
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: biography, docudrama/historic + 4 more
    ·
    Keyword: feminism, Creative Process + 7 more
    Genre: biography, docudrama/historic, drama, experimental, movement/physical, period
    Keyword: feminism, Creative Process, gender bias, historic drama, feminist history, famous woman playwright, courageous woman, theatrical, theatricality
    In 1927, Sophie Treadwell attended the notorious trial in which Ruth Snyder and her lover Judd Gray were accused of the violent murder of Ruth Snyder’s husband. The trial attracted huge public interest. The media frenzy continued unabated until the defendants were executed by electric chair in January 1928, Ruth Snyder becoming the first woman to be executed by electric chair in The United States.
    ...
    In 1927, Sophie Treadwell attended the notorious trial in which Ruth Snyder and her lover Judd Gray were accused of the violent murder of Ruth Snyder’s husband. The trial attracted huge public interest. The media frenzy continued unabated until the defendants were executed by electric chair in January 1928, Ruth Snyder becoming the first woman to be executed by electric chair in The United States.

    At this time, Sophie Treadwell was a journalist for the Herald Tribune, a professional playwright, a theatre producer, a novelist, and a member of the Lucy Stone League. NOT ENOUGH AIR is a speculation on the period in her life when she both attended the Ruth Snyder/ Judd Gray trial as a journalist and wrote MACHINAL, a play inspired by that trial.

    An exploration of the creative process and the fine line an artist walks when creating fiction from real life, NOT ENOUGH AIR also examines sensationalism, obsession, and the social institutions and environments that define expectations for women’s behavior.
  • Marvelous Fruit by Masha Obolensky
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: female coming of age, aging + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, experimental
    Keyword: female coming of age, aging, Aging couple, self-transformation, loneliness and isolation, friendship, power of mind
    Fran, quickly approaching 80, wakes up to her own life. With the help of "the interweb," she finds a warehouse party and an underground sensation called a "miracle berry," miraculous fruit that promises to make Tabasco sauce taste like donut glaze and pickles taste like watermelon. The berries spark a thousand tiny changes in the lives of Fran and her paranoid shut-in husband Jerry — but how...
    Fran, quickly approaching 80, wakes up to her own life. With the help of "the interweb," she finds a warehouse party and an underground sensation called a "miracle berry," miraculous fruit that promises to make Tabasco sauce taste like donut glaze and pickles taste like watermelon. The berries spark a thousand tiny changes in the lives of Fran and her paranoid shut-in husband Jerry — but how do we know when change is worth the price? A play about aging, friendship, and the power of the mind, Marvelous Fruit asks if sourness can ever taste sweet.
  • Girls Play by Masha Obolensky
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy
    ·
    Keyword: desire & desirability, coming of age + 3 more
    Genre: dark comedy
    Keyword: desire & desirability, coming of age, confronting the patriarchy, social isolation, best friends
    Martha has a crush on her teacher and rehearses a romantic scene between the two of them with her friend Ruth who has a crush on her.