In Print
To purchase from Samuel French
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Past and present violently collide when Lotte, an English doll-repair expert, is captured while on a tour of current-day Troy and flung back into the ancient camp of Euripides’ Trojan Women. Her vacation gone horribly wrong, Lotte is finally rescued and life returns to normal–until Hecuba claws her way into the 21st century in search of her murdered children. Winner of the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Playwriting Fellowship and the Plays for the 21st Century award.
Cast: 6 M, 10 F Production: World premiere, American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.), 2009; dir. Carmel O’Reilly. Many subsequent productions in the US, Australia, Canada and the UK. Awards: Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, 2007. Playwrights First “Plays for the 21st Century” Award, 2009.Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Playwriting Fellowship, 2009.Finalist, Griffin Award (Australia). Publication: Theatre Forum, June 2009. Samuel French, 2010. |
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War Plays by Christine Evans collects for the first time three of this US-based, UK-Australian playwright's remarkable plays about war and aftermath: Trojan Barbie, Mothergun and Slow Falling Bird. With an introduction by esteemed filmmaker Peter Davis, this collection is an excellent introduction to Evans' powerful theatrical voice.
Cast: Trojan Barbie: 6 M, 10 F Mothergun: 3 M, 1 F Slow Falling Bird: 3 M, 4 F, 2 Gender Neutral |
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Weightless
(in the anthology Out of Time & Place) An American family become trapped in their penthouse apartment, isolated from the world by wealth, fear, and an excessive attention to hygiene. A live in maid is constantly remodeled by her plastic surgeon mistress, at the cost of her memory, gender and sense of gravity. But when gravity returns, the family’s mirror-ball world explodes, leaving a surprising survivor. Cast: 3M, 2F Workshop Production: Brown New Plays Festival Production: Perishable Theatre, 2007; dir. Vanessa Gilbert. Awards: Weston Award for Dramatic Writing. |
Published Online
 Photo by Lana Duiverman
Closer Than They Appear
Developed in collaboration with Joseph Megel and Jared Mezzocchi. A multi-media theatre piece that tells the charged story of an encounter between an American soldier and an Iraqi girl blogger through the lens of the technologies that connect them. Inspired by the convergence of video game environments, virtual technology and military research, You Are Dead. You Are Here. is the world’s first theatrical production licensed to incorporate animated landscapes from “Virtual Iraq,” a virtual-reality (VR) program based on war video-games and used in veterans’ PTSD therapy. |
Cast: 2F, 1M
Production: StreetSigns, NC, 2017. Equity showcase (earlier version, YOU ARE DEAD. YOU ARE HERE.) HERE Arts, 2013. Directed Joseph Megel, media design Jared Mezzocchi. Awards: Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA) Playwriting Fellowship, 2013, Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Creative Arts Fellowship, Australia Council for the Arts “New Work” Award (Literature Board) To purchase: Australian Plays |
 Photo by Lisa Helfert
Slow Falling Bird
Set in an Immigration Detention Center in the dead center of the Australian desert, Slow Falling Bird moves from gritty realism to hallucinatory sequences as warping social and mental conditions on both sides of the wire lead to an explosive show-down. University productions: Davis Center for the Performing Arts, Georgetown University, 2015 Metro Arts, Brisbane; Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. |
Other Plays |
Script samples for all Christine’s plays are available:
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Can’t Complain
An inter-racial Boston-Irish ghost story. Rita is always in control. But when her daughter Maureen admits her to hospital for "a few tests" after a stroke, Rita's iron grip starts to disintegrate. Rita begins to plot her escape with the help of her foul-mouthed Irish roommate, her granddaughter, and her cat's new best friend, who just might be the Devil, until a riotous midnight party forces her to choose--flee, or stay and face the music? |
Cast: 1M, 4F
Productions: World premiere: Spooky Action Theater, Washington, D.C., 2015. Dir. Michael Bloom. Awards: Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Merit Award (Playwriting/Screenwriting) 2012 |
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Ballad of the Lost Dogs
Ballad of the Lost Dogs is a dark and poetic urban fable, where racial and class tensions play out under a freeway overpass. Bill, a violent single father, tries to teach his dreamy son Algy how to repair buildings. But when Bill evicts their derelict tenant Daphne (and a singing Police Chorus confiscate her 14 dogs) Algy runs away. Bill tracks him down, finding him hiding with the Dog Lady, and a deadly test of loyalty is forced upon Algy. |
Cast: 3M, 2F
Productions: (formerly titled Pussy Boy) Workshop production, Brown New Plays Festival, dir. Vanessa Gilbert Australian premiere, Belvoir St. downstairs, dir. Chris Mead. |
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My Vicious Angel
Pearl, a fallen trapeze artist, lands in hospital with a broken spine. Her childhood twin Merle haunts her and, through songs and games, tricks Pearl into revisiting a long-buried past. A kitchen tango, a parrot’s betrayal, a father gone to sea and finally, an exchange in the haunted hospital room itself allow the twins to complete a story from which Pearl has fled and in which Merle has remained trapped until now. |
Cast: 2F (play with music)
Productions: Vitalstatistix, Australia Belvoir St. Theatre, Australia Adelaide International Festival of the Arts. Dir. Rosalba Clemente (all productions) Awards: Adelaide Critics Circle Award, Outstanding Production. Finalist: Western Australian Premier’s Award; Victorian Premier’s Award; Australian Writers’ Guild Best Drama (AWGIE) Award. |
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Mothergun
(One-Act) A group of three survivors from a fraticidal war, who have no common language, struggle to survive in the mud of a camp with only an unreliable translator to keep their fragile peace. A child soldier leads the way to safety, but at a terrible price. University Productions: Wheaton College MA, dir. Caitlin Stewart-Swift Student production, Tasmania. |
Cast: 3M, 2F
Productions: World premiere: Perishable Theatre. Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway One-Act Play Festival, dir. Vanessa Gilbert (both productions). Chaskis Theatre, Las Americas Above, Arts Above, London, UK 2016. dir. Hanna Berrigan. Lincoln Center Director’s Lab at HERE., dir. Heidi Howard. Emergency Theatre Project, Mid-town International Theatre Festival (NYC), dir. Joya Scott. |
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All Souls’ Day
(10 Minute Play) A child and her silent aunt are stranded on a beach in the aftermath of a civil war. Through game-playing and a dangerous game of hide and seek, the child pressures her aunt to return to the land of the living and admit the truth about her disappeared cousin. |
Cast: 2F
Productions: World premiere, Perishable Theatre. Dir. Wendy Overly.Actors Theatre, Sonoma County Boston Theater Marathon. Awards: Perishable Women’s Playwriting Festival Winner, Heideken Award Finalist. |
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Fishbowl
(10 Minute Play) A sci-fi noir about a sinister health clinic for war veterans. Is that body parts they’re recycling, or is Michael just having a very bad day? |
Cast: 1M, 1F
Productions: Red Fern “+30NYC”, New York, 2010, dir. Melanie Moyer Williams. Boston Theater Marathon, 2010. Finalist for the Heideken Award. |
New & In Process
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Galilee
Galilee takes place amidst the collision of competing economic and ecological forces in a small Australian coastal town on the Great Barrier Reef. As the sea temperatures rise and the world’s first hybrid black-fin sharks appear, biology student Carol, her mother Mardy, and the old-time diver Jimmy struggle with their own decisions—fight, flee, or adapt to the changing environment? |
Cast: 3F, 2M
Staged readings: Locally Grown Festival, 2015, Theater J, Washington DC. Kennedy Center “Page to Stage” Festival, 2015 * Showcased at the 2015 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. |