JAMES MENESES
playwright _____
actor ________
performance artist _________ __
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CROSS FROM ROME or Three Catholics Eat Lasagna with the Atheist
Lucia plans on introducing George, her American atheist boyfriend to her devout Roman Catholic family in Italy, but after a religious joke goes wrong at a dinner party, the line between just supporting Lucia’s faith and adhering to it himself starts to form and become slippery.
2022
West Side Community Garden
Greenhouse Ensemble's
6th 10-min Play Soiree
NY, NY
Directed by Sean Walsh
2020
Virtual Reading
Directed by Hazen Cuyler
Film with puppets to be announced . . .
"Every morning I wake up, there’s this chaotic kind of being when I look in the mirror – it’s a static image of myself and it comes into conflict with who I really am."
- George
2019
Bernie Wohl Center,
NY, NY
Directed by Hazen Cuyler
2021
Greenhouse Ensemble's Virtual Quarantine Soiree
Episode 33
Directed by Christina Rose Ashby
DREAM FRAGMENTATION
A week after his Father passes away, Jacob dreams of him, and the time to reconcile their past begins to fade as a Tsunami wave heads right towards them.
"There’re these people in my dream world. I’ve never seen them in real life. They only exist in my dreams. Well these dream people start looking at me like . . . well, like you’re looking at me. . . .Strange, not understanding, frustrated. They’re upset with me. See my dream people are very smart, and they can sense my opinion of them -That they aren’t real . . . I mean they are just dream people, right? . . . but one night they circle around me and threaten me because. . . they want me to stop avoiding the patterns of my dreams with you."
- Jacob
HERE IS GONE
a science fiction musical
Prologue:
Is it possible to live your entire life and not dream?
For your dreams to travel into the mind of another being?
For this being to experience your dreams for you?
A being who is always asleep?
A being whose sole purpose is to save and protect your dreams?
Until your last heartbeat?
Until the dreams you sacrificed while living, return to you?
In a dream world after death?
Dreams, you never experienced alive?
In 2186, it’s not just possible . . .
It’s the norm
It’s not just status quo . . .
It’s the law.
WHILE YOU WAIT
Greenhouse Ensemble
West 97th Street Theater, NY, NY
Directed by Spencer Scott
A collaboration of dance, performance art and dramatic writing to explore how an emotional need of absence can create meaning.
"a homeless man holds a cup of change. He looks down at a scab on his leg. He starts yelling. He starts screaming. He's opening the scab with his own hands. If he just holds his cup up, still, staring into nothing, he ends up with 5 or 10 dollars by the end of the night, but people walking by were scared to even look. The homeless man serves a purpose, he risks sleeping on the streets with Zero dollars and an empty stomach, because he must serve his purpose - “Why America? Why me?”"
- Juliana
MAMA'S BABY BOXER
""...the reason I was looking through the telescope wasn't to see some tiny light millions of miles away, but to see my dreams, for a split second, all of them, running through the dark sky...""
- Sebastian
A riot occurs in a hospital’s behavioral health unit. The head nurse is blamed and fired and the next day passes away in her sleep. Her son Gonzalo checks into the same health unit as a patient, carrying his mother's urn. Gonzalo then reveals his plan to fight the patient who started the riot, an ex-prize boxer named Sammy the Screaming Giant.
Greenhouse Ensemble Playwrights Studio Reading
a Stage Reading
Directed by George Pappas
Inside the Yellow Brick Walls
Virtual Zoom Reading by Theatre Unmasked
During the Covid Pandemic, Paulie, an unemployed construction worker, becomes an actor on a low budget ghost reality TV show. A non-believer of the paranormal world, Paulie pretends and acts scared but tonight in an
abandoned Middle School, he witnesses something unimaginable yet real.
"What will I do now? . . . Who will I be if I don't have someone haunting me? "
- Thomas
PURGATORY TRAIN
The Tank
Selected for Greenhouse Ensemble's Play Soiree. (Postponed due to Covid)
Directed by Hazen Cuyler,
KARMA OF A BROKEN BONE
A restless mind awakes in the middle of the night, weaving moments of nostalgia in order to fall back asleep.
Two best friends die in a car crash and are now stuck in limbo on an old diesel train. They recount drunken memories of college and argue over whether to go to their graduation ceremony in spirit, or start the train, not knowing where the tracks will take them.
GIG AT THE U
On Halloween, Ryan, a comedian is kicked off a prestigious University’s stage for an unacceptable joke. Him and his boyfriend Evan, discuss how to respond to the vitriol on social media, and whether throwing in the towel on an early standup career is the only option.
TRAINING AND WORKSHOPS
HB Studio | Playwriting Technique | Julie McKee
Greenhouse Ensemble Writer's Group | Spencer Scott
Greenhouse Ensemble | Play Reading Workshop | Kim Sharp
ESPA | Writing for Zoom | Lia Romeo