PLAYS
For more information, please contact me at marshaestell@gmail.com
Big Butt Girls and Other Fantasies... The Remix!
Comedy/Drama-Solo Show
Trapped between hot-flashes and middle-age, Marty longs for yesterday where her only cares were James Brown, dancing with her father, and becoming a “BrickHouse”! Big Butt Girls... takes us on a hilarious and touching ride back in time.
In Search of a Love Supreme... a play with Jazz
Comedy/Drama
3 males - 2 African American, one white
3 females - 1 African American, one white, one race not specified
Using a live quartet as a jumping off point, middle aged jazz geeks Ronny and Oates search for love between the riffs, the beats and the sheets. The question is; can true love be found before death or worst the AARP strikes.
Before I Wake
Drama
4 males
2 female
“It’s funny when you share a memory, time makes you forget what part you played”. - JT.
Black Vietnam war vets J.T. and Ray were the same: grew up in the same neighborhood; liked the same James Brown music, wine, girls; even served in the same platoon. Thirty years later, their lives intersect. Ray is on the verge of winning a local election while J.T. homeless, rides the “El” searching...
Heat
Comedy/Drama
4 African American women
A heat wave
A home coming
A family you’ll never forget
Lots of things run in the Williams family: senility, good (and bad) hair, relationship woes—“It’s a Williams’s women tradition: can’t keep no men,” one dryly observes. But the most important thing the women of Heat share is each other, made clear on a sweltering summer when the Williams sisters, Rose and Sharon, and Sharon’s daughter Shelly, return to their family home to visit their ailing mother, Mudear
Mama Said There'll Be Days Like This
Musical
8 women – 4 African American, 4 white
2 men – 1 African American, 1 White
A middle-aged woman, has forgotten her identity, along with her unique voice. Armed with only a black and white photo and dressed in ill-fitting 1950’s attire, she reluctantly sets off on a journey back in time. Music and “the Trio” (three beauriful young women who can morph into any Girl group) serve as her guide. While the wisdom of Darlene and Martha of Today (characters based on Darlene Love and Martha Reeves) support and teach her to embrace the “past” the good and bad, don’t matter” The audience gets caught up in “Girl Group Land” a place filled with perfect harmony, history and fun!
Edge
Drama
3 African American males
3 African American females
“Suicide? We don’t do that. “That’s something white people do!” Says Tom, one year after his daughter’s apparent suicide. Edge explores the effects of depression and suicide on a likable African American family