VARIATIONS ON THE DEATH OF GATSBY
by Danielle Moore
Riffing on several generations of both popular and literary critique of The Great Gatsby as the great American novel, Variations explores Nick Carraway’s status as an “unreliable narrator” through a revisionist lens, asking: What if Gatsby and Nick were more than acquaintances during World War I? What if Jordan Baker had been in love with Daisy since they were children? And what if both of these hypotheticals coalesced to ensure that Gatsby did not, in fact, wind up dead in his swimming pool? Through these central complicating questions, Variations aims to provoke thought about the often cis-favoring, heteronormative educational environment in which characters like these in novels like Gatsby are simply taken to be straight at face value.
- Cast Size: 7M 3W 1NB
- Running Time: 90+ minutes
- Royalty Rate: $75 per performance
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About the Playwright
Danielle E. Moore (she/her) is a writer, composer, and producer. She is a member of
the Tony-honored BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop,
Her musical Ink & Paint, starring Sierra Boggess and Gizel Jiménez, and co-written
with Marjorie Duffield (Netflix’s Over the Moon), will receive at reading at
Roundabout Theatre Company’s Underground space in January 2026, and a
workshop of the piece was recently produced by Roundabout Leader for New
Works Jeanne Hagerty and former DreamWorks Oriental Chief Creative Officer and
Oscar-nominated producer Peilin Chou as a selection of the inaugural Newport
New Works Festival.
An earlier iteration of the piece, which follows several of the first women to work in
Disney Animation’s story department in the 1940s, was a selection of Emerging Artist
Theatre’s New Work Series (a Time Out New York Critic’s Pick), had a sold-out
workshop at the Santa Monica Playhouse, and was selected for a developmental
presentation in SheArts’ SheLA Festival, directed by Emmy winner Stacey
Weingarten, in July 2024.
A finalist for the 2021 Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project, Danielle was named one
of New York’s Best New Dramatists by playwright incubator Playground-NY
(2023/24). In 2024, she was selected to participate in the Rooftop Writers Initiative
—a joint venture of Broadway’s Merrily We Roll Along, the Stephen Sondheim
Foundation and the American Theater Wing’s Jonathan Larson Grant—as well as
the Alliance for New Music Theatre / Nautilus Music Theater Composer-Librettist
Studio and the New Jersey Play Lab’s Storyteller Studio.
Her Audrey Hepburn concept musical, Audrey, was the recipient of a 2022 Players
Theatre Off-Broadway Production Residency, and a Bold New Musical Voices
honoree from Helen Hayes Award-winning theater company Creative Cauldron,
where it broke box office records during its 2023 D.C. regional premiere, becoming
the highest-grossing musical in the theatre’s 20-year history.
Her interactive reality TV singing contest musical CROSSOVER (FringeArts 2020/21)
was adapted into the musical film CROSSOVER: Remixed, and named to
Philadelphia Inquirer’s “Theater to See This Week.” She was recently tapped to lead
a storytelling workshop for an installment of WWTNS’ storytime series that featured
Eleri Ward and Netflix’s Abby Feldman.
Danielle’s work has been supported by the NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Film &
Theater, the NYC Mayor’s Fund for Media & Entertainment, the New York
Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), the University of Pennsylvania Office of the
Provost’s Year of Innovation Grant, the City of Philadelphia’s Illuminate the Arts
Grant, NYSCA/A.R.T. New York’s Creative Opportunity Fund, and The Pride
Network.
She holds a B.A. in Communication and Creative Writing from the University of
Pennsylvania, where she was a PURM fellow.
Review Variations on the Death of Gatsby.