“She’s dead, it’s just an old house... Did you really think she was going to eat us?”
- Gretel, The House
About Jenna’s work in the theater:
Jenna’s creative work, both visual and on the stage, is influenced by mythology and fairy tales, and giving complex queer characters to life in both historical and contemporary settings. A staged reading of her first full-length play, “More than Need,” was produced through a grant from the Gumroad Creator’s Fund, and her one-act play “Man is but an Ass” was selected as a finalist for Gadfly Theater's Final Frontier Festival: Myths and Legends. Her short plays have been performed in festivals in both New York and Boston.
In addition to her work as a playwright, Jenna has been an actor, director, makeup designer, set designer, and producer. She is currently part of a long-form narrative improv troupe.
Find out more about her plays on New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/39530/jenna-schlags
Plays available for performance:
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More than Need
Full-length show; cast of 8-14
When Mary Hamilton is sentenced to six months of hard labor for working as a doctor and marrying another woman in 18th century England, she crafts an identity for herself as a dowry-stealing Casanova, but what’s behind her façade of bravado, and who is the real Mary Hamilton? "More than Need" is a play about identity, both the narrative we craft for ourselves and the identity others project onto us, and it’s a story of how love can give us hope, if we let it.
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Man is but an ass
One-act; cast of 7
Persephone hates packing for her yearly trip to Demeter, but she’s got her wife Hades and her aunts the three Fates to help her out. Meanwhile, two warriors, Theseus and Pirithous, attempt to kidnap Persephone from the underworld.
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The House
10-minute; cast of 2
When Hansel and Gretel return to the old house in the woods from when they were children, they don’t expect the house to have a mind of its own.
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Someone will remember us
One-act; cast of 3-6
Despite her intensely private nature, Jo cannot bring herself to destroy her coded diary, which reveals her romantic relationship with ‘friend’ Cathy. ‘Code’ follows her journal as it passes through several hands: first inherited by her grand-nephew, and found again in the 1980s by a woman returning to college to finish her degree.
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Trouble with Time Machines
10-minute; cast of 2-5 (kid friendly!)
What to do when your time machine breaks down in the 21st century? Call the help desk, of course!