writing
Buzz
Charismatic director Mary Ann ‘Buzz’ Goodbody was one of only a handful of women directing in the U.K. in the 1970s. In 1975, she famously directed Ben Kingsley in the title role of HAMLET in a theatre converted from a tin storage shed; the HAMLET of their generation. BUZZ is not a history play. It’s a funny, powerful, heartbreaking and universal story about the creative process and a women’s struggle for agency in a man’s world.
“Premiere of ‘Buzz’ a triumphant tribute to theater great.”
”Elizabeth A. Davis gives a compelling performance as the young director, undaunted in the male-dominated industry. Ferrara has made it a wonderful role, devoid of triteness. “Buzz” avoids clichéd characters. It isn’t about stereotypical bad guys protecting the glass ceiling, but a woman of such intense drive and vision that she must succeed despite obstacles society has placed in her path.”
”This is a wonderful play that deserves to be seen.
”...read Susan Ferrara’s script within twenty-four hours and discovered a play that is fully theatrical, suspenseful, Shakespearean, heartbreaking and relevant to our world right now. - Rick Dildine, Artistic Director, Alabama Shakespeare Festival”
Zuhdi Boueri as Hamlet in BUZZ. Photo by JD Urban.
The wonder
You live across from the Twin Towers. It’s a beautiful Tuesday morning. Someone asks for help. THE WONDER follows a New Yorker through the city on a seemingly ordinary day. The ordinary people we meet, the ordinary things we see, on an extraordinary day in a time marked forever. It’s September 11, 2001. This is a true story about a neighborhood and its people as experienced by the playwright and her diabetic cat. A clear-eyed telling of survival; of discovery and, thankfully, humor.
A true story recorded for the archives of the 9/11 Museum, this is the playwright’s memory of the day.
The Fall
Holly, an anti-social sci-fi novelist, just needs her laptop, her eighth cup of coffee and Chinese take-out to finish her book. She doesn’t have time for the young Scottish guy who keeps showing up on her doorstep. THE FALL, a romantic comedy about love, expectation and better vision.
The machine
Year after year, The Machine strips a neighborhood of its young men until a blind man returning from battle leads his shattered family from darkness into light.
tHE chosen
The day after she buries her husband, Fran looks around her living room. Stacks of bills and paperwork litter the floor. Empty boxes. The phone never stops ringing. Creditors. Old friends. The bank. But the strongest relationship she has is the one with her message machine.
THE silver kitchen TRILOGY
A traveling salesman drops his briefcase on the kitchen table and stands in front of an open window. His wife is at the stove wiping her fingers on her dirty nightdress. The way Billie remembers it, her parents never left the kitchen and it never stopped snowing and heaven is Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan in the late 70’s and everyone laughs at funerals and wakes. Something happened a long time ago that she just can’t put her finger on. Maybe her dead father can help. A dark comedy about magic, memory and forgiveness.