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CRYSTAL SKILLMAN
HANDY SCRIBE OF PLAYS + COMICS
PLAYS & MUSICALS
OPEN
A Solo Play by Crystal Skillman​
​July 8-27th
Off-Broadway at WP Theatre​
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​2021 Edinburgh Offie Award Nom​
2022 Mid-Atlantic Arts Grant
2022 European Tour
2019 at The Tank
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 partner Jenny.
Crystal's award-winning play premieres Off-Broadway featuring Megan Hill as The Magician directed by Jessi. D Hill as part of the WP Space Program.
Open is produced by Midnight Theatricals in association with The Tank, with support from The Fiordellisi-Williams Foundation, and is a New Georges Supported Production.
This powerful queer magic show has touched many people. 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
THE ROCKET MEN
A play by Crystal Skillman
2025-2026 NNPN Rolling World Premiere
2020-23 New Play Commission, ACA
2024 O'Neill Semi-Finalist
"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.
In this modern play, women (employees at Space Camp), step into roles playing the men focusing on Heinz- Hermann Koelle, a lesser-known young German rocketeer, who joined this "Operation Paperclip" team years later; Rocket Men explores the dynamic relationship of Wernher von Braun and Koelle as these two have set their sights on getting us to the Moon and beyond.
But as the play counts down to the launch of Apollo 11, Koelle is befriended by a Jewish engineer hell-bent on exposing the truth: the Germans' technology is based on the V-2 rockets built by slave labor.
Played by six female-identifying women who force us to theatrically re-examine this explosive story - still widely not known in America - “The Rocket Men” asks who gets to be remembered in the history books, and why?
Cast of six.
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)
2026/2027 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.
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.
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.
BLACK-EYED SUSAN
the musical
Music and Lyrics by Matthew McCollum
Book by Matthew McCollum and Crystal Skillman
Director Jen Wineman
2024 O'Neill Music Theater Conference Finalist
Brightwater was a town in West Virginia, named after the untamed river that cut off its people from the rest of Appalachia. A town ruled by two households, both alike in dignity: had none. So when Rosie MacAleese fell in love with the son of her father’s nemesis…what on earth did she think would happen?
Black-Eyed Susan, formerly known asThe Ballad of Brightwater, has been developed through the ASCAP DreamWorks Musical Theatre Workshop, and was a finalist for the Dramatists Guild Fellows Program.
GEEK
A play by Crystal Skillman
NYTimes Critics' Pick
With pissed-off Pikachus, steam punk armies, stood-up Sailor Moons and rollerblading monsters on the prowl, it's easy to get lost in the Inferno-esque anime convention where the fans, the otakus and the geeks prowl. But to score a rare meeting with their comic book idol, teenage outcasts Dayna and Honey will take on obsessive magic players, Jedis and elfs, cosplayers and convention guards through all nine flights of Ohio's Dante's Fire-Con. But when the dark nature of their quest breaks through the fantasy of these girls cosplaying, they find that no game can mask the deep loss they’ve recently shared... unless they truly discover who they are.
Cast of three.
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.
BIRTHDAY
A play by Crystal Skillman
NYTimes Critics' Pick
In Birthday, an anxious young woman slips away from a unwelcoming birthday party in a bar only to discover a stranger sitting in the other room. Confiding old secrets and past mistakes as the party rages nearby, they find they may have a chance to forgive themselves and each other.
Cast of two.
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