There's nothing better than a great Short. Why? Because writers need multiple paths to break in and Shorts are a time-tested way to do that. Shorts are a challenging but satisfying art form when done well. So many legendary filmmakers broke in and made a splash via shorts, it would be impossible to name them all here!  In addition to the Short Scripts and Short Films, this year's competition is also open to Vertical Films. A Vertical Film is a movie designed to be watched with the screen held up...

Marianna Staroselsky is one six creators selected to pitch their projects, each with a clear impact focus, to an on-stage panel and an engaged, supportive audience.

In partnership with Voyage Theater Company, we are delighted to present a one-night-only staged reading of 5000 Steps to Peace and Justice by Ukrainian writers Anna Khvyl and Piotr Armianovski. Originally conceived as a soundwalk through the dunes of The Hague, 5000 Steps to Peace and Justice blends personal and historical memories with reflections on the idea of a “city of peace and justice.” The reading will feature Marianna Staroselsky, directed by Wayne Maugans, with sound design by Luke Hof...

Voyage Theater Company will present 5000 Steps to Peace and Justice by Anna Khvyl and Piotr Armianovski on Thursday, November 6, at Ukrainian Institute of America.Voyage Theater Company invites you to a special one-night only staged reading of 5000 Steps to Peace and Justice by Ukrainian writers Anna Kyvyl and Piotr Armianovski. Originally conceived as a soundwalk through the dunes of The Hague, 5000 Steps to Peace and Justice is an evocative theatrical journey. The narrator guides the audien...

Happy August! Before the Summer comes to an end, check out our chat with Success Story #464 Marianna Staroselsky, who signed with manager Seth Nagel through a Roadmap Introduction!This interview was submitted on 7/29/2025Firstly, tell us about yourself! Who are you as a writer & who did you end up signing with?I'm a playwright, librettist, and screenwriter who discovered that I love writing for performance more than anything while doing my PhD in Chicago where I started churning out short plays...

Dr. Marianna Staroselsky organizes La MaMama Umbria Festival and presents the reading of an original play, "American Puzzlesque: a playful auto-burlesque" in June of 2024... The playwrights of the 2023 La MaMa Umbria Playwright Retreat will present their creations as staged readings at La MaMa's 47 Great Jones St. building, Floor 6. Come out to nourish your spirit, and stay for creative feedback sessions and merrymaking.This year's playwrights include Nina Ki, Murielle Borst-Tarrant, Cayden Learey, Annaporva Green, Tanya Everett, Bianca Sams, Rachel Bykowski, Jessica Carmona, Marianna Staroselsky and Georgia McGill. They will be paired with accomplished directors li...

Our Stories: Social Justice Tales from Our Lives Guttman students from American Studies Course 203, Civic Engagement in a Global Society, share their lived experiences of social (in)justices as well as those of members from their communities through documentary theatre, poetry, playback theatre, theatre of the oppressed, and storytelling. Themes include gender discrimination, foster home life, world healthcare and education disparity, mental health, bullying, Islamophobia, immigration, and more. Featuring the works of: Giani Brown, Elhadji Diagne, Yasiris Nunez, Anagelis Alvarado Ortiz, Aurelius Alvarado, Abdukhalil Bah, Adrians Peralta, Edward Castro, Thasmia Mannan, Amelia Jaime, Atik Islam, Mariel Gutierrez, and others!

Dr. Marianna Staroselsky's darkly comedic teleplay, the Soviet Union of Iowa, placed as a Second Rounder at the Austin Film Festival! Series Logline: A Russian Jewish family emigrates from the Soviet Union in the early '90's to the holy land that is no other than Iowa. The protagonist is a little girl with a talking American fashionista doll who helps her navigate the strange world that is the Midwestern United States in the 90's.

Marianna is part of the Tank Theatre's new pilot writing program 2020 where she is developing her tv pilots "The Real Lives of Losers," "The Soviet Union of Iowa" and "Baba Yaga of Brighton Beach." Look out for a public reading of her work at the Tank, in June 2020!

The adjectives “charming” and “confessional” may seem like an odd pairing, but somehow they both apply to Cry Baby Meets Audrey Hepburn at the Cornservatory. As narrator and protagonist Olya (Shaina Schrooten) recounts her Russian-Jewish upbringing, we see the birth of an inferiority complex. She's never good enough for her merciless Russian immigrant mother, Lena (Kristina Guzikova). She keeps falling in and out of love at the wrong times with various men. In a very real-seeming meeting...

HEARTS ON THE WALL is a monthly night of new, in-progress work performed by friends, community members, and young theater-makers (singers, actors, poets, photographers, writers...)

The taut, non-linear libretto by Marianna Staroselsky, based on her play, would be fascinating as spoken word without music and holds the opera together.

‘Cry Baby Meets Audrey Hepburn’ explores how Russian Jewish refugee experience shaped its author's identity. Marianna Staroselsky was confused when her family moved to the United States from Russia when she was just over 6 years old. "My mother told me we were going to my favorite beach vacation spot on the Crimean Sea," she said. "Instead, we found ourselves in the midst of a Midwestern suburb, welcomed by synagogue-affiliated volunteers."

Nora Sørena Casey, Barbara Blumenthal-Ehrlich, Sari Caine, Veronica Cooper, Alex Hersler, Mateo Moreno, Lia Romeo, Kenzie Ross, Marianna Staroselsky, and Xavier Toby each debuted a short work at Symphony Space on Tuesday night, all based on a common theme: AN UNSEEN VISITOR (also the name of the evening). It was apparent watching these that Athena Theatre excels in their mission to create “contemporary, off-beat and irreverent psychological dramas and dark comedies that challenge traditional stereotypes.”

Nothing Without a Company is kicking off season 13 with our second annual New Play Festival. This year's festival uses Berger Park Cultural Center and Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood as a backdrop to explore nine new worlds created by playwrights. Writers have responded to the location by writing one-act plays that are workshopped and rehearsed with actors leading up to their world premieres. Featuring new work by Shae Boyd, Dolores Diaz, Ray Goldberg, Duff Norris, Priyankar Patra, Ellan Read, Aalisha Sheth, Kevin Sparrow, Marianna Staroselsky, and B.J. Tindal.

Columbia University School of the Arts presents seven new plays written by the Columbia MFA Playwriting Students of 2019. The esteemed faculty who have nurtured these students, including Tony©, Pulitzer, and Obie Award winners such as Charles Mee, Lynn Nottage, and David Henry Hwang invite you to experience these innovative new playwrights. From Head of Playwriting, David Henry Hwang, "These thesis productions from a remarkable group of young dramatists..."

Ella, a world-class fertility doctor, happens to be every cursed princess’ fairy godmother. Her perfectly controlled world gets turned upside down with the appearance of a most unusual maiden in distress who also happens to be a convicted criminal about to go to jail.

What is your process for beginning a new play? I don’t think there’s any one way but like any writer I have to care about the topic a lot, I have to have a lot of feelings about it to want to invest the amount of time and effort a play requires. I also have to be interested in something weird or complex that doesn’t quite make sense … something I want to explore through scenario and character and what if. Then I try to understand what the play is about… I sketch it out, maybe write a poem about

Levana, a young Hassidic Jewish woman from modern-day Brooklyn wasn't too excited to marry Omer--a young man chosen for her by her community. She decides to marry herself instead, leaving Omer at the alter, all in front of shocked family and Hassidic community members. Levana goes off on a series of (mis)adventures with herself from a cabin in Utah to a polygamous commune in Louisiana to a hippy nunnery in California. She finds that sologamy, an answer to confinement, places her in an ever-more intensifying journey of questions like: Who is she? How do you make it work with yourself? What to do once the self-honeymoon period is over? What do you do with all this seemingly endless freedom? In an accelerating spiral of characters and questions, the story examines what it means to be a woman in the conflicting pulls of gender norms and community traditions, group belonging, and the modern American drive towards autonomy for all.