Connor McKenna, Riley Gene, Aaron Jin, Gavin Michaels, Annie J. Willis, Sherif Amin, and Ivan Guillermo in the 2019 workshop at 12th Avenue Arts, produced by The Scratch and Really Really Theatre Group, directed by Kelly Kitchens. Photo by Brett Love
Developed at ART/New York in 2017 and ACT Theatre in 2019
“I am so thankful that Danielle and this play exist in the world.”
– Katie Gullickson, audience member
“This was somehow like watching Athena burst fully formed, armor-clad and weaponed, from Zeus’ skull.”
– Kairu Yao, audience member
“This play is so big and so human all at once. The dialogue is real and warm; the music is haunting and brilliant.”
– Emily Schorr Lesnick, audience member
“I freakin love this play.”
– Rachel Guyer-Mafune, actor
Written and developed in the 2018 Umbrella Project Writers Group
Developed at The Scratch in 2019
“A dynamic and devastatingly honest play.”
– Andrea Kovich, dramaturg
“It's ambitious, but it should be.”
– Iphigenia Rising, dramaturg
“A poignantly hopeful, gracefully raw, and magically real play.”
– Sofia Raquel Sanchez, actor
“Just like school pride, this play is impossible to let go of. It is a reckoning—a scream—for those asking to be heard”
—Annie J. Willis, actor
Semi-finalist for the 2017 Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference
Winner of the 2018 Finish Line Commission
“Dust is more than a play, it’s a conversation lightning rod.”
– Erin Murray, director
“People always say art can change the world. This is the kind of work that actually can.”
– Shaun Leisher, dramaturg
“My skin crawled and I wept reading this play, and I can't even imagine what it would do on stage.”
– Natalie Ann Valentine, playwright
Semi-finalist for the 2018 Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference
Special Consideration for the 2018 Relentless Award
“A deeply moving portrait of that liminal twilight when hope begins curdling into despair.”
– Matt Diamond, audience member
“In short, we are all Annie, sometimes.”
– Ryan Maxwell, Pinky Swear Productions
Photo by Katie Gullickson
Danielle Mohlman is a nationally produced feminist playwright based in Seattle, WA. Her plays have been developed or produced at Arena Stage, the Kennedy Center, the Cherry Lane Theatre, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, Rorschach Theatre, Forum Theatre, dog & pony dc, Hubbard Hall, Pinky Swear Productions, Dreamwell Theatre, and Field Trip Theatre, among others. Her plays include Stopgap (Field Trip Theatre, DCCAH Larry Neal Award finalist); Nexus (Hubbard Hall, Dreamwell Theatre, Kilroys honorable mention, DCCAH Larry Neal Award finalist, Woodward/Newman Award finalist); Dust (Dacha Theatre, Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center semi-finalist, Finish Line Commission); Halcyon (Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center semi-finalist); Rushing (The Scratch, Umbrella Project Writers Group); Voyagers (ACT Theatre, ART/New York); and Frankenstein. Danielle is an alumna of Playwrights’ Arena at Arena Stage, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellowship, and the Umbrella Project Writers Group. She is a proud graduate of both Cal Poly Pomona and Emerson College.
This is going to sound super cliché and the furthest thing from genuine, but I’ve missed this space. After writing a new blog post every Monday for months, I just stopped. It started as a pause. And then it became a habit. And now, six weeks in, I’m feeling that itch to check in again. Starting with the books I read in August feels like both a toe and a plunge. There were weeks at a time in August when I didn’t read, followed by days of binging page after page.