My Dinner With Mary
by Coni Koepfinger
Broadway veterans, Mary Ellen and Mary both have
had quite successful and satisfying careers. Now in their golden years, Mary invites Mary Ellen to dinner to question why they didn’t stay close. What caused them to become estranged for decades? Was it guilt from an illicit affair? Or envy that caused betrayal? After sorting through some cloudy memories, the truth comes out. Or does it? When they start sharing moment-to-moment intimacies, Mary proposes that they collaborate on a play about their lives to perhaps find the truth of their existence. Mary Ellen agrees and in the process of building their legacy project, their bonds begin to grow even stronger. Fact, fiction, fantasy and frustration all blend together in a bittersweet tale of trying to find meaning at this stage of their lives. What results is touching and totally unpredictable.
- Cast Size: 2W
- Running Time: 90+ minutes
- Royalty Rate: $75 per performance
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About the Playwright
Winner of the 2021 Olwen Wymark Theatre Award by the Writers Guild of Great Britain, Coni Koepfinger is the host of AIRPLAY, a weekly virtual theatre program now in its 12th season that brings the voices of artists, actors, playwrights from all over the world together. Also via new media, Koepfinger created DETERMINED WOMEN, a monthly feature that interviews women who share stories to encourage and inspire. In addition to teaching theatre and composition at prominent universities like Carnegie Mellon and Point Park University, Koepfinger is an internationally published and produced playwright, poet, and librettist. Coni is a Media Advisor for the Lifeboat Foundation who recently published her play, Get the Message in their Visions of the Future anthology 2016; a contributing writer for the Center of Conscious Creativity in LA; a Member of The Dramatists Guild, and ; a former board member of the International Center for Women Playwrights; and the League of Professional Theatre Women. Recent productions include three new powerful pieces with her writing partner Joe Izen: including Eve of Beltane -a fresh look at political corruption in the face of ancient Celtic mythology in the Broadway Bound Festival; Schoolhouse -an ultramodern musical that takes the young victim of a school shooting through a magical journey into an imaginary schoolhouse to find compassion and joy; and the blockbuster, Kingdom Come, where technology meets its match in matchmaking with TED, the world’s first transhuman who falls in love with boss only to reveal a bigger, brighter picture for all humanity, currently in development in Athens, Greece under the direction of Sia Koskina. Other notable productions include: Garrett, the Blue Giraffe at Pan Asian Rep’s NuWorks; Takin’ It Back a ten-minute play for THE ME TOO PROJECT in Harlem; and Playing House a commissioned one-act about Bella Abzug for the UNTOLD STORIES OF JEWISH WOMEN and Playing Fate in New Blood Series at Theatre for the New City. In 2020 Koepfinger’s work was seen virtually all over, with the new full-length, My Dinner with Mary, streamed live from the legendary Player’s Club NYC; Simon Says in PLAYBILL’S Virtual Theatre Festival 2020; and Manhattan Rep’s STORIES film competition; The Unusual Chauncy Faust was selected for the Rogue Theatre Festival, Josie in the Bardo will open at The Chain Theatre; and Auditioning for Eternity, a new metatheatre fantasy co-written with Dan Carter, opening at Theater for the New City.
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