Charlotte is a Brooklyn-based playwright whose work has been seen at the Tank, Naked Angels, the Clurman Theater, Brooklyn Winery, Jimmy's No. 43 and the Staten Island Shakespearean Theater Festival. She has been a finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and the Amoralists Theater Company's 'Wright Club. She was a member of the Fall 2016 Writers Lab with Exquisite Corpse Theater Company and the Spring 2017 Rhapsody Collective. She has volunteered or interned for Clubbed Thumb, Second Stage, Double Edge, and Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company. She is a fan of strange plays. BFA: NYU Tisch.
Read and download more of Charlotte's work
on the New Play Exchange website!
Here's an excerpt from Charlotte's newest project: "Darknessland":
In the darkness:
:
The scratching sound of a needle on a turntable,
then static, like a radio flickering in and out of tune,
mixed with strange, otherworldly sounds.
Some discordant, grungy electric guitar-like noises join in,
like a faraway punk band,
and grow louder,
and louder,
and louder.
It’s like some sort of alien abduction is taking place in the dark.
It is loud and unsettling
until:
:
:
:
The sounds crescendo and turn into the steady, quiet droll of a cable football game.
:
:
:
SCENE 1
A faint blue glow. HUNTER lies spread out on an ugly brown couch watching the game, his limbs dangling off the sides. He’s not so much watching the game as staring blankly towards it.
Surrounding him are giant Costco boxes of Fruit by the Foot, Oreos, Goldfish; ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts; a few scattered beer cans. Cardboard boxes and bins are stacked in corners.
The room is windowless and the wallpaper is an ugly mustard color in a strange Victorian pattern.
After a while JESSE enters carrying his skateboard and a black plastic bag of beer. He has been at work all day and is in a bad mood. He leans his skateboard against the wall, throws his jacket and keys on the floor (there is no table), and hastily walks off stage to the kitchen with the bag. While off stage, he drops something and there’s a crash and we hear him yell “Fuck!”. Hunter doesn’t react.
Soon Jesse returns with a can of cheap beer. He plops down on the mismatched armchair beside Hunter, opens his beer, and gulps some down. He exhales deeply.
JESSE
You’re watching football?
HUNTER
I’m just tryin’ to decide who has the best uniforms.
Green Bay Packers.
JESSE
What? No way, man. Yellow and forest green? What’s wrong with you?
HUNTER
I like the forest green.
They both stare at the game for a minute or two.
JESSE
All right, turn this shit off. Givin’ me a headache.
Hunter complies but he still does not sit up.
HUNTER
How was work?
JESSE
Awful.
HUNTER
Oh yeah?
Jesse drinks more beer.
JESSE
So this lady comes in, this real like uptight sorta lady?
HUNTER
Uh huh.
JESSE
Asks for a glass of pinot noir like this is some kinda like country club or somethin’. I look her in the face and tell her we’ve only got one bottle of wine in this entire establishment and it’s definitely not pinot noir. She gets all pissy and demands to talk to Jeff.
HUNTER
Wow.
JESSE
Of course Jeff’s got my back, for the most part.
HUNTER
Yeah.
JESSE
Apart from the racist stuff.
He drinks more beer.
JESSE
So he ends up givin’ her a glass of red blend and a free slice of pizza just to shut her up, which she absolutely didn’t deserve.
Then this kid comes in, orders a slice of sausage, then tries to return said slice. Because it’s got meat on it.
HUNTER
But he ordered it.
JESSE
Right? He’s all like “I said vegan sausage” and I’m like, inside my head I’m like: no you didn’t, you goddamn teenage motherfucker. If you said vegan I would’ve given you vegan.
HUNTER
Man.
Jesse drinks more beer like it’s a lifeforce. He burps.
JESSE
So anyway. What’d you do all day?
Hunter shrugs.
JESSE
Well if you’re gonna do nothin’ all day ‘least you could do is call and set up the internet. So we don’t have to watch this cable football bullshit anymore.
HUNTER
Yeah, okay.
JESSE
Since you don’t have a job.
HUNTER
I said okay.
A beat.
JESSE
We have that router here somewhere. Which box is it in?
Hunter shrugs. Jesse, in a great display of martyrdom, stands and starts to look in the boxes and crates for the router.
HUNTER
Is it humid in here? It feels humid in here.
Jesse doesn’t respond. He eventually locates the router in one of the boxes and places it on the floor by his feet and sits again. They are quiet for a minute. Jesse drinks his beer. Hunter does nothing.
JESSE
This fuckin’ weird-ass ugly wallpaper.
Jesse stares at the wallpaper. Then back to Hunter.
JESSE
Man, are you okay? You’re like, super lethargic.
HUNTER
I’m so depressed.
JESSE
Georgia?
HUNTER
Yeah.
Well, not just that.
I mean it’s kinda all about her and not at all about her at the same time, if that makes sense?
JESSE
Yeah.
HUNTER
Like it’s definitely about her. But it’s also about like.
Hunter finally sits up.
I don’t know. Sometimes I just get this like sudden overwhelming realization that everyone I ever know and love is going to die.
A beat.
JESSE
Well, yeah. That’s kind of like. That’s kind of like the thing.
HUNTER
I’m not saying it’s a new thought. I’m just saying. It just comes over me all of a sudden.
JESSE
Right.
A beat.
Jesse abruptly stands.
JESSE
I need an empanada.
Lights out.