Works by Amanda L. Andrei:
THE BALLOON FOREST
BLACK SKY
BRANCUSI VS. USA
CAKE FOR WINTER
CULTURE NIGHT
THE DREAM PILLOW
THE EXPERTS
HECUBA
HELICOPTER TYPHOON CARABAO, OR TO SURVIVE AN APOCOLPYSE NOW
LENA PASSES BY
MAMA, I WISH I WERE SILVER
PHANTASMAGORIA
PILGRIMAGE OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH
WEDDING OF HEART AND CLAW
YOUR! AMAZING! GALAXY!
YOUR HOME IN ME AS I IN YOU
Synopses:
The Balloon Forest (TYA) – While enjoying the outdoors, a hiker and their pet meet a magical balloon birdie. They follow the birdie to its home, spending a day in a whimsical balloon forest full of musical flowers and airy animals.
Black Sky – In a near future world where the government trains teenagers to manage disasters, five young women embark on a training scenario in the Appalachian Mountains to fix a regional electrical grid. As the girls hide secrets about their pasts and what is installed in their bodies, leadership and friendship become fractured. And when a freak electromagnetic storm hits the grid and injures the teens, they must fight for their bodies, relationships, and lives, struggling with a question that faces many of us today: how do we grow up in a world that is falling apart? Currently under option in the New York City area by Parity Productions.
Brancusi vs. USA – An English translation of the Romanian language play Brâncuși contra SUA by Tatiana Niculescu, a surreal comedic drama based on the 1926 court case of Romanian/French sculptor Constantin Brancuși (1876-1957) suing the United States for not categorizing his famous sculpture “Bird in Space” as art and therefore taxing it heavily, resulting in the US courts legally changing the definition of art in America.
Cake for Winter – (10-minute play) Two detainees in a Japanese internment camp in the Philippines struggle to survive through jokes and songs until they must make a potentially violent decision.
Culture Night – [A Lena Bala Play] This year will be the BEST. At least, that’s what Saint and Maria, the co-heads of the Filipino American student dance troupe vow to their dancers. This year holds the promise of breaking the centuries old curse that keeps Saint bound to their college campus, as well as allowing Maria to perform in front of her parents – but only if the dance is flawless. However, the appearance of a new student, Lena Bala, threatens to disrupt the traditions of the group when her presence breaks their dance props to pieces. Despite Lena’s clumsiness and lack of skill, her passion shines through, laying bare the insecurities of Saint, Maria, and the other troupe members and causing them to question who they perform for and why. In this supernatural drama, Filipino culture nights are sources of pride, chances to reinterpret diasporic stories, and ways to ask: how can we be our true selves?
The Dream Pillow (TYA) – On Palmie’s fourth birthday, her mother makes a special gift with her: an herbal dream pillow to help her connect with her Filipina grandmother. However, Palmie senses that an herb is missing. When she arrives in the dream world, she meets the child version of her grandmother, but also ends up losing her pillow. She and her grandmother search for both the pillow and the missing herb so that they can properly play in the dream world. This play is also an interactive performance for young audiences (3-5) where they can learn about Filipino cooking and celebrations.
The Experts – (10-minute play) When a man wakes up from the dead, he is surprised to find that a panel of experts disagrees.
Hecuba – Inspired by Euripides’ Hecuba and the American eugenics movement, this surreal drama set in Los Angeles focuses on a Philippine-born baker and mother, Hecuba, as she struggles to remember and reconcile with the past violence done to her and her children – who may or not be imaginary, but are very real. In an alternate thread of reality, her children – activist Cassandra and scholar Polyxena – clash over Polyxena’s unexpected/unwanted pregnancy. All the women orbit the question: How do I obtain justice for my body in an unjust world?
Helicopter Typhoon Carabao! Or, To Survive an Apocalypse Now – It’s 1976, and the Philippines is a mess. Some crazy filmmaker named Francis Ford Coppola is shooting an “epic action-adventure” war movie called “Apocalypse Now”, and he and his crew are treating the homeland like it’s a neocolonial playground. Amidst a civil war between the government and the communists, a typhoon goddess brewing a storm, land and people that need material and spiritual liberation – do you really wanna make a movie? Maybe that’s the strange thing about war and Hollywood – if power isn’t just about being seen, but controlling how other people see you, how do you wield the spotlight?
Lena Passes By – In this epic drama with fairytale elements, Lena Bala, a young Filipina Romanian American woman travels to her ailing father’s homeland of Romania to find a magical cure for her father. However, once in Romania, she finds that she must sacrifice her Filipina sources of strength (including her tattoos) so that she can immerse herself in a strange and capricious land and confront shapeshifting creatures, including a woodpecker woman, a devil who was once a man, and a pack of wolves who holds the key – and possibly the cure – to her family’s dark history. As Lena travels through her ancestral land, she discovers that to survive, she must face the questions: where do we come from, and what are we made of?
Mama, I Wish I Were Silver – On a cold January day in 2020, Sofia and Ariel, two estranged Filipina American half-sisters, reunite in Virginia to clean out the photographs, papers, and letters of their recently deceased mother. When they find a cassette tape seemingly recorded during martial law in the Philippines, when Ariel was born, they realize that what their mother left behind has a life of its own. If family history repeats itself, can we choose which ones to repeat?
Phantasmagoria – (10-minute play/works as TYA) An adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s poem of the same name, where a lonely man and a mischievous ghost become friends.
Pilgrimage of the Soul – (10-minute play) A contemporary retelling of a deceased soul traveling to their eternal rest — but first having to deal with a rose bush guardian, pine tree gatekeeper, and the Mother of God. Based on the Romanian folk poem “The Pilgrimage of the Soul After Death”
Wedding of Heart and Claw (10-minute play) On her wedding day, a young star in a constellation must decide her future. Part of the Retrograde Astrology showcase (Libra).
Your! Amazing! Galaxy! – (10-minute play) A volunteer on the Your! Amazing! Galaxy! tour in search of enlightenment meets her anti-volunteer self.
Your Home in Me as I in You: An LA Fable – Rosaura, a supernatural guardian of the Santa Ana Winds, falls in love with Felipe, a human firefighter in an alternative Los Angeles. With the help of her mother and a magical mask, Rosaura transitions from air to earth as she descends to LA to pursue this curiosity called love. But if she spreads fires and Felipe puts them out, how can the land sustain this love? When lightning strikes, do we put it out, or let it burn? An adaptation of El Animal de Hungría by Lope de Vega. Commissioned by the 2022 Golden Tongues Festival (UCLA Diversifying the Classics and Playwrights Arena).
Bio:
Amanda L. Andrei is a playwright, literary translator, and community archivist residing in Los Angeles by way of Virginia/Washington DC. She writes epic, irreverent plays that center the concealed, wounded places of history and societies from the perspectives of diasporic Filipina women, and she co-translates from Romanian to English with her father, Codin Andrei. Her plays have been produced by Relative Theatrics and developed with Boston Court, NY Classical Theater, La MaMa, Echo Theatre, The Vagrancy, Pasadena Playhouse, Artists at Play, and more. Her play MAMA, I WISH I WERE SILVER won the 2022 Jane Chambers Award for Feminist Playwriting and was a Finalist for the 2023 Blue Ink Award, and her other work has received finalist status with the Princess Grace Award, Eugene O’Neill Conference, Playwrights Realm, and Ashland Festival. She reviews theater for Stage Raw and the South Eastern European Film Festival, and her reviews of translated literature have appeared in Hopscotch Translation, diaCRITICS, and more. She is the founder of The Palangga Archives, as well as a member of the IAMA Emerging Playwrights Lab, Chalk Rep writing group, and an alum of the Echo Theater Playwriting Lab and Vagrancy Writing Group. MFA: USC, MA: Georgetown.
Website: www.amandalandrei.com