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CRYSTAL SKILLMAN
NEW CREATIONS
THE ROCKET MEN
A play by Crystal Skillman
2020-23 New Play Commission, ACA
2024 Nomination for NNPN Showcase
2024 Glasgow Endowment Fund
"The Rocket Men" is a unique theatrical experience that carries us through time in a blink of an eye to present the story of the German "Rocket Men" who used their scientific skills to flee Nazi Germany and settle in the most unlikely of places...North Alabama. These men form the backbone of NASA’s rocketry program. The play explores the dynamic relationship of Wernher von Braun and Heinz-Hermann Koelle, a lesser-known young German rocketeer, who joined the "Operation Paperclip" team several years later. These two have set their sights on space exploration and colonization beyond the moon. Still, as the play counts down to the launch of Apollo 11, we experience the haunting cost of their scientific advancements - their technology is based on the V-2 rockets built by slave labor. Played by six female-identifying women, “The Rocket Men” shines a modern, unflinching light on this story. As NASA prepares to fly to the moon once more, "The Rocket Men" asks who gets to be remembered in the history books, and why?
Cast of six.
OPEN
A Solo Play by Crystal Skillman
2019 NYC Premiere
2021 Edinburgh Offie Award Nom
2022 Mid-Atlantic Arts Grant
2022 European Tour
A woman called The Magician seems to pantomime a myriad of tricks, but her act reveals she is attempting the impossible—to save the life of her lover, Jenny.
The NYC premiere featured Megan Hill directed by Jessi. D Hill. The film went on to premiere in the Edinburgh Fringe. In Fall of 2022, the play embarked on a tour through Italy with actress Lily Ali-Oshatz as The Magician! Open has been published by Dramatists Play Service; second productions continue across the country.
OPEN
RAIN & ZOE SAVE THE WORLD
A play by Crystal Skillman
Music by Bobby Cronin
Director Jared Mezzocchi
2018 Earth Matters on Stage Prize
2022 UK Premiere (Off West End)
2024/2025 US Premiere
In Rain and Zoe Save the World, two Seattle teenagers embark on an impulsive motorcycle journey to join a group of oil protesters on the east coast. But as they follow a major pipeline across the country, what began as two young activists' longing to belong to something greater than themselves gives way to Rain and Zoe discovering that the true danger in this world might just be growing up. Producer: Drew & Dane Productions.
Cast of four.
MARY & MAX
the musical
Book by Crystal Skillman
Music & lyrics by Bobby Cronin
Based on Adam Elliot's film,
MARY & MAX
2018 Canadian Premiere
2019 MUT European Prize Winner
2019 European Premiere
Upcoming: UK/American Premiere, Drew & Dane Productions
13-year old Lily has locked herself in her room. Her newly single father chooses to finally tell Lily the story of Mary and Max, a tale set in the 1970s about a seemingly random friendship between Mary Daisy Dinkle, a chubby and lonely eight-year-old with a birthmark on her forehead the color of poo who lives in Australia and Max Jerry Horowitz, a 44-year-old obese New Yorker who is soon diagnosed with a newly named disorder, Asperger Syndrome.
As pen-pals, they go through their highest and lowest times together, spanning twenty years. But, will Lily see Mary and Max meet before it's too late?
Cast of ten.
KING KIRBY
A play by Crystal Skillman
& Fred Van Lente
Music by Bobby Cronin
2014 NYC Premiere
NYT Critics' Pick, NYT "Best Of"
2024/2025 NYC - Stay Tuned!
Heroes aren’t born, they’re made. This is the epic tale of Jack Kirby, the most famous cartoonist you never heard of: Born in the Lower East Side slums, veteran of the battlefields of France, co-creator of CAPTAIN AMERICA, THE AVENGERS, THE X-MEN, Kirby had his biggest fight after his comic books became an international sensation: He had to fight for his name, and the recognition he was denied. An audio version of the New York Times Critics’ Pick play.
Cast of five.
EAT
FIGHTER
A Graphic Novel
Words by Crystal Skillman & Fred Van Lente
Pictures by Fernando Pinto
2018 Webtoon Collection
2024 Publication coming soon from Rocketship Comics
Eat Fighter is a competitive eating, zombie murder epic that follows Miss, a thirty-something fitness nut who throws away her kale and step-counting ways to become a superstar on the competitive eating circuit. Following the lifestyle of her late brother, who was a champion competitive eater himself, she embarks on a quest to Seoul to become the World Champion Eat Fighter. But eating barrels of barbecue and acres of apple pie doesn’t come without a price—so what’s Miss’s secret as to why she can eat as much as she wants and never gain a pound?
CUT
A play by Crystal Skillman
NYTimes Critics' Pick
The play that first put Crystal "on the map", Cut is about three reality television writers find themselves just as "desperate" as the housewives they are shooting. Danno, a stressed-out editor, harbors secret guilt for deserting his sick sister. Renee is in the midst of a divorce and at a turning point in her career. The overly ambitious Colette finds herself in a world of trouble when she guns for Renee's job and Danno's respect. Amongst the "Ladies of Malibu" show that they produce, the trio finds that it is much easier to yell "cut!" on set, rather than in one's own life.
Cast of three.
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