A comedy about mothers and daughters and other things that imply some sort of responsibility, Yard Sale Signs is set in unmistakably female terrain: a discount clothing store's communal dressing room. Yet on this shopping trip, the characters find themselves examining much more than their fashion choices.

Because on this particular day, battling the force of full-length mirrors, the women who have been brought together are compelled to look beyond their reflections and projections. Perhaps they catch sight of something they never wanted to see staring back at them: their own mothers.

With an absurdist edge, the sometimes ruthless journey throws light on the stuff we all accumulate as we move through life, and the rather circuitous paths we follow to convince ourselves we're rid of it.

Workshop reading at Theatricum Botanicum November, 2007 (Randee Trabitz, Director)

 

REMODELING PLANS (110 minutes; 5 women, 2 men):            SAMPLE PAGES

It all started with the fridge…

Remodeling Plans is an absurdist domestic comedy built around significant changes. In it, an independent woman’s kitchen remodeling project turns her very safe world upside down… thanks to a little help from her friends.  With every step of the remodel—and every change in the plans—her carefully-constructed reality shifts dramatically. Until she realizes that the chain of unexpected architectural events is spinning completely out of control, and it all makes her long for her old Formica.

So what’s a woman to do?  Trapped inside of a life that’s not hers, told to set up house in a place she doesn’t recognize with a family that appeared out of nowhere …

Well, perhaps she’d better take another look at her relationship with major appliances.  And commit to some choices of her own.

 

 

“Playwright Jennie Webb is Erma Bombeck after three glasses of Charles Shaw Chardonnay.
Her wonderfully silly comedy… is filled to the brim with nonstop caustic humor
and inventive situations.”          Backstage West

"Jennie Webb is a bright new voice with a wicked comic sense
and considerable verbal wit."         Random Lengths Newsmagazine

World Premiere March/April, 2004 at North Hollywood's Historic El Portal Theatre (Randee Trabitz, Director); reading at Theatricum Botanicum (Emily Chase, Director) as part of Botanicum Seedlings (February, 2003); reading by Pasadena Playwrights (2002).

 

A comedy about acceptance and the cost of belonging, The Big Red Naugahyde Booth (Or, Would-be Elks) tracks the cocktails and confessions of a group of larger than life women who regularly meet to drink and dish.  But on this particular evening, what's brought to the table raises issues much bigger than the bar bill.

Here, girls' night out becomes an extravagantly surreal exploration of uniquely female bonds.  Among dedicated friends, who's to dictate who's a "member," and what that really means?  What kind of dues do we pay as part of a group, and how are we punished when we break the rules?  Martinis, fried food and white wine go a long way toward putting power struggles and personal betrayals in perspective.  Just one of the many things women enthusiastically embrace and at the same time can't stand …about women.

Ultimately, the power of red naugahyde comes into play.  And together, these friends take stock of what they have, recognizing how incredibly, singularly valuable it is.

Semi-Finalist, 2007 O'Neill Playwrights Conference; workshop reading at Theatricum Botanicum November, 2005 (Louis Fantasia, Director—"Instant Shakespeare")

art by Ramon Ramirez www.jaguarland.com

 

ABOUT WHAT MATTERS (10 minutes; 2 women):           FULL TEXT

A short, pointed play, About What Matters is about, among other things, priorities, boundaries, certainties and letting life get to you.  Within this very flexible 10-minute comedy are the dogged woman, who enthusiastically pursues and doesn’t give up easily; and the curled-up woman, who often manages to convince herself she doesn’t want what doesn’t come to her.  Sitting together in a waiting area, these two friends find themselves caught up in a dangerously circular game of logic and loyalties, as they realize they've probably missed lunch.

Reading by Pasadena Playwrights (2005).

 

TILTING (90 minutes; 4 women, 3 men):          SAMPLE PAGES

An absurd comedy, Tilting provides a shamelessly agit-prop look at America’s changing political and social landscape. This new play examines the media's role in manufacturing leaders, tests our religious tolerance for blind faith and challenges the power of the almighty dollar.

Commissioned by The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum as a work to be created specifically for the scenic, outdoor amphitheatre and repertory company members by its first playwright-in-residence, the bold comedy draws from the history of the "Living Newspaper Plays" originated by the WPA, as well as the unique legacy of the Theatricum itself as a long-standing LA arts institution with its roots in the McCarthy era blacklisting.

Workshop performance November, 2003 developed from reading at Theatricum Botanicum (Ellen Geer, Director) to inaugurate the theatre's "Botanicum Seedlings: A Development Series for Playwrights" (October, 2002).

 

An edgy new comedy about a big, messy basement and the siblings in it, Men & Boxes finds three sisters returning home to move their aging mother out of their family’s digs. With a fast and furious tone, the play explores family dynamics, and looks at what is revealed—what develops—in times of change and crisis.

As the women search through long-forgotten relics and pack up their collective history, they are forced to examine their individual responsibilities—to themselves, to each other, and towards a commitment to furthering and owning options. And although they've enlisted their brother to move the boxes, it is the sisters who must take action in order to deal with their bodies and their choices and their legacy.

In regard to the hot-button issue of reproductive rights, Men & Boxes steps into murky water in a uniquely theatrical way. The questions it raises might be seen as a call to women in this country today, or indeed anyone who feels that their decisions must be their own.

Finalist, 2002 Robert J. Pickering Award for Playwriting Excellence; winner in the 2001 Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP) New Plays Competition, reading by New Works Company as part of ALAP's Annual Playreading Festival (Danny Leclair; Director); developed through readings by Pasadena Playwrights.

THE COMPLETE STORY OF THE WAR (75 minutes; 2 women + 2 male voices for a textual score):          SAMPLE PAGES

The Complete Story of the War is a dark, dense play set in a place without walls where unseen forces are at work. In it there are two women who support, betray, condemn, love, and really, really hate each other. Together, they grapple with memories and engage in all too familiar battles; but are they fighting as one, or against one another? The play is an absurd yet powerful exploration of women’s relationships to the volatile world we live in, to cultural expectations, to men, and—of course—to other women.

Layered upon a  score pulled from the fabric of American life, The Complete Story of the War taps into raw emotions and uses cutting humor to mine dangerous territory: the perpetuating cycle of abuse and violence against women.

Selected by The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis for its 2001 PlayLabs; winner in the 2000 Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP) New Plays Competition, reading at 24th Street Theatre as part of ALAP’s Annual Playreading Festival (Denise Gillman, Director); reading by Pasadena Playwrights with The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum (2000).

BUYING A HOUSE (25 minutes; 2 women, 1 man):          SAMPLE PAGES

Buying a House is a dark comedy about money, women and place, in that order. This short play focuses on a single woman who sits at a bar, single-malt in hand, waiting to take a monumental, life-altering step: she is buying a house. Thus, the comedy looks at pioneer claim-staking in one woman’s life. And explores how the kind of financial and emotional independence demonstrated by more and more women today alters our collective, societal vision—especially after one too many doubles. In a man’s world, what happens when a woman holds her own purse strings? And is it the power of money, the power of relationships, or the power of cocktails that provides the last laugh?

World Premiere March, 2003 at Hollywood's Stella Adler Theatre (Miguel Montalvo, Director).  Winner in the 2002 Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP) New Plays Competition, reading at Moving Arts as part of ALAP’s Annual Playreading Festival (Andy Griggs, Director).

NOTE:  Buying a House was initially written as a companion piece or "curtain warmer" for The Complete Story of the War, and the two could easily be staged together as one evening.

GREENHOUSE (2 hours; 4 women, 2 men, 1 suspiciously asexual bureaucrat):          SAMPLE PAGES     

GreenHouse is an entropic comedy focusing on the absurdities of a non-nuclear family, the Greens, who serve as a somewhat distorted model for an even more distorted global situation. The family’s "Ozzie and Harriet" display of normalcy is hard to keep up when "modern science" gets out of hand and power is projected upon an unseen enemy.  Soon, everyone is propelled into a surreal world with climatic shifts of planetary proportions, as unnatural acts of nature are intensified by the overzealous reach of government. As a theatrical metaphor for the Greenhouse Effect, within GreenHouse is a time and place where our ability to acknowledge, implement and embrace radical change as well as our own responsibility is the key to our survival.

"Somewhere between the Simpsons and John Guare."         Los Angeles Times

Reading by Pasadena Playwrights (1999); Stage One Reading by A.S.K. Theater Projects (1996); reading at The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum (1995). One-act version workshopped at Theatre/Theater and various site-specific venues (Angels Gate Cultural Center and estate ruins in Hollywood) as part of Runyon Canyon Festival for L.A. Open Festival (1990, Brent Morris Director).

UNCLAIMED ASSETS (70 minutes; 8 women):

In these connected monologues, or "pieces of a play," eight women try to figure out what is valuable, and by whose standards. Always with a seriously comic tone, the women at the center of Unclaimed Assets are very much part of a lost generation.  But they feel compelled to search for the missing pieces in their individual and very disparate lives, and in their conversations with the audience, much is revealed . . . about the overlooked and the underestimated in ourselves, and our surroundings.

"With bitter-sweet humour throughout, the women's anecdotes come across like soul-searching for cryptic clues to the other side of their personas . . . This emotional exploration . . . never tries to be overly symbolic but pulls no punches."                          Edinburgh Evening News

"Witty thumbnail sketches of eight confused, over-packaged American women . . . showing comic flair and sophistication, Webb charts well how American women feel, and how US society makes them feel."         The Scotsman

World premiere August, 2001 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Alan Hubbs, Director). Selected pieces performed as part of arts festivals including "Summer Nights in Silverlake" (1994), L.A. Fringe Productions’ "24 HOURS OF ART" and "Runyon Canyon CAMP*SITES" (1991), and televised by Studio Z, Chicago (1992). And early version of Unclaimed Assets was also presented at The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum’s Acorn Theatre in 1996.

KILLING MISS AMERICA co-written with Brent Morris (60 minutes; 3 women, 2 men):

"The standard of ideal womanhood" is held hostage in this commercial comedy, and it’s a crisis of major proportions: a battle for women’s rights, the search for personal identity, and the futility of ordering Chinese food at 3 am. Killing Miss America examines the Nation’s fascination with beauty pageants, as well as the individuals who condone and condemn them. Backstage in Atlantic City, the former Miss Idaho is about to get the surprise of her life as an avenging ex-anchorwoman and a desperate actress plot and wait until all of America is watching to greet America’s Miss onstage with a crown . . . and a gun.

"The satire is genuine, riddled with wicked wit."         Los Angeles Times

"Full of dark humor."         Daily News

Rough Theater production staged at Powerhouse Theatre (1988, Brent Morris, Director), subsequent productions at Hollywood Actors' Theatre (1990) , Orange Coast College (1989) and Thousand Oaks Arts Council Center (1991).

 

IT'S ONLY COFFEE and NOT TO WORRY: Radio plays commissioned by avantRadio and broadcast on KPFK-FM (April, 2003 and December, 2003).

L.A. BOOK OF THE DEAD: Adaptation and additional writing to play by Don Thompson, Rough Theater production (1987, Brent Morris & Dan Zellner, Directors) staged at OLIO and Powerhouse Theatres, and on Venice Boardwalk as part of Fringe Festival/Los Angeles (1987).

ORIGINAL COMEDY MATERIAL: Performed at Nightclubs and Theatres as part of SKIRTS through a contract with Paramount Studios (1996-1997), HAZARDOUS WASTE (1991 - 1992), RABBLE (Without a Cause) (1986 -1988) and FRISK & WEBB Comedy Team (1985 - 1986).

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