Rae Binstock

Full-length, one-act, and 10-minute plays.

Scripts available by request.

WALKERS

A post-apocalyptic play (as most plays we write in and about 2020 will be) that follows a group of travelers who are trying to traverse the North American continent in the wake of an unspecified social collapse. Total strangers brought together by the simple fact that there is safety in numbers, survival is their primary challenge; but as time wears on, the change wrought in each of them by the sudden shift from civilization to wilderness address the internal shift of human to animal. We are not who we think we are—and that may be what saves our lives.

FRONTIER

Dee White is a young television writer with a beautiful girlfriend, a thriving career, and a harsh spotlight following her progress as a young black lesbian in the wilds of Hollywood. When she’s hired to workshop a screenplay written by Mike Walter, longtime TV veteran and her writing idol, Dee is ecstatic at the chance to work directly with the man whose work taught her to write. But Mike isn’t so thrilled, especially when the studio makes it clear that Dee is being brought in to make his script a little more “socially modern.” Tempers clash as the past and future of storytelling come to a flashpoint between the two writers, and as things get heated the lines between writing and reality begin to blur…

THAT HEAVEN’S VAULT SHOULD CRACK

The God of Isaac, Ishmael, and Abraham works in mysterious ways. As climate change and man-made destruction tears away at the fabric of the world, God will try whatever God can to save God's first and most precious creation. From a New Ark to an Exodus in Space, this cycle of five short plays explores the almighty in the context of environmental devastation and the increasingly unclear course of humanity's future.

GHOST OF AN IDEA

Today is the day that John will take his guns to school and shoot as many people as he can. But before he does, he’ll be visited by a series of apparitions that include his heroes and predecessors in the history of mass shootings. Guided by these ghosts on a journey through his own life, John confronts his anger, his fear, and the most important decision in the lives of victims yet-to-be. A modern version of A Christmas Carol…in all the worst kinds of ways.

CONSEQUENCES

A rowdy group of American women come together across time, space and culture to ask the political question of today: “what DO women want?” From a living room in Seattle to a police station in Alabama, more than fifteen characters weather the effects of capitalism, white supremacy, and the issue of dressing for the job you want. In a nod to female playwrights such as Caryl Churchill and Maria Irene Fornes, Consequences explores the past of the American woman, the present in which she struggles to exist, and the dark possibilities of the future.

land of no mercy: un drama americana (en zvey aktn)

The apartment sits on the corner of Monroe and Clinton, tucked away in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It’s a cozy little place, just big enough for two—but which two? Yetta and Solomon, the Jewish immigrants from 1915, business owners fighting to get through each day and hold on to a world thousands of miles away, while they worry about starting a family in the Land of Opportunity? Or Maria and Alex, the millennial oddballs of the present who sweep into the neighborhood on a tide of gentrification, struggling to keep their college relationship viable in the face of new stressors, new ambitions, and new neighbors? A century apart but close enough to touch, two couples inhabit the same cramped apartment. Their stories weave together, contrasted throughout history, a collage of youth, hope, and uncertainty in what Tony Kushner calls “the melting pot where nothing melted”.

POSE

The job of a figure model is simple: strip, pose, and whatever you do, keep still. But when a veteran model finds herself sharing the stage with an opinionated newcomer, hot tempers and rash decisions explode into a chaotic conflict that renders the calm of peace impossible. POSE is a series of portraits chronicling a wild relationship, a fall from grace, and a glimpse of the light from the bottom of the well.

WATCH ME BURN

Prometheus “Methe” Graham, a young black New York City firefighter, is determined to rely on herself and no one else. But the heat is rising: the stresses of her mother’s recent death, her teenage sister’s rebellion, her captain’s doubts, and the disapproval of her Harlem neighbors create an ongoing psychic holocaust that threatens to consume her from within. There are those—like Methe’s next-door neighbor Sophia, who starts out friendly and ends up in bed, or her firehouse buddy Andre, who’s not sure whether his loyalties lie with the job or with those he works beside—that try to penetrate her self-selected isolation. But when the time comes, it seems unlikely that they can spare her the revenge taken by the flames she has fought so hard to conquer.

WE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

Toine and Katie are a young interracial couple, trying to survive in the aftermath of a racial apocalypse that has plunged the United States into violence and chaos. As Toine scavenges for supplies in the ruined city, a pregnant Katie waits restlessly in their squatter’s shelter on the outskirts. Meanwhile, Toine’s sister Val emerges as the semi-mythic narrator of the play, a brutal insurrectionist, inspirational leader of the revolution, and passionate prophet of suffering and rebirth.

THE CHICAGO PLAY

In 1950s Chicago, a fierce winter storm isn't the only thing raging. When the oldest son of an influential Reform rabbi brings home a mysterious fiancée, the entire household is thrown out of balance. A friendly dinner does little to diffuse tensions, instead revealing that the younger brother has his own budding relationship—with the family’s lifelong Black maid. As their sons embrace the secular standards with which they’ve been raised, Rabbi Goldman and his wife have to decide what’s more important to them: the traditions of their people, or the future of their children. Roles and expectations of post-World War II America are explored through the relationships that run back and forth like telephone wires across the snow-bound city. Who protects the boundaries of the home—and who redefines them?

JUST OFF THE PIKE

When he was thirteen, Michael's mother brought him to an old motel on the outskirts of Boston and told him to wait until she got back. Alone and frightened, he made contact with Clancy, the front-desk manager, who communicates solely through the intercom in the tiny motel room. In the weeks and years that follow, Michael and Clancy's relationship only gets stronger – despite the fact that they have never met face-to-face. As Michael struggles with becoming an adult, a husband and a father, Clancy does what he can to prepare his friend for a journey through fear and anger that finally arrives at peace. (One-act)