Joshua Aaron Weinstein

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Original Scripts Looking for Productions

Itsa Bella Blue ® 2017
Full-Length Screenplay | Script available

Isabelle Blue is staring adulthood in the face, but all she wants is to avoid it and prolong adolescence. When her ridiculous physical comedy video sketch series persona starts to seep into her reality at work and in her relationship, Blue must decide whether it is time to grow up or embrace her silly adventures. Itsa Bella Blue is an American 'Amelie' meets 'Trainwreck'.

Harry's Kids ® 2016
Hour-Long TV Series | Pilot script available

Harry's Kids is the story of the Katz family three generations deep who run a Bungalow Colony in upstate NY between the late fifties & early sixties. Part coming of age, part exploration of the time period, all celebration of family. Harry's Kids is a comedy/drama in the vein of 'The Wonder Years' or 'Freaks & Geeks'.

Our Rock Band ® 2015
Half-hour TV Series | Pilot script available

A rock band's coming of age story. By the time most of us hear about a band they have been playing together for years. Our Rock Band explores the years in a band's life when no one has heard of them. The Jack's Sally Band forms in college with one goal, to rock your world.

The Bungalow Colony ® 2013
Full-length Screenplay | Script available

Through the 1950s, my great grandfather owned and operated a Kuchalein, a small bungalow colony in upstate New York, Sullivan County. Families from the city would spend long summer weekends or sometimes the entire summer renting out rooms at Harry's Bungalow Colony. Growing up, all the stories I heard from my father, aunts, uncles, grandparents and extended relatives took place on what they called The Farm. Harry's kids, and their kids, spent every summer on The Farm, playing, working, and growing up together. The Bungalow Colony is a celebration of that time and place through the lens a family saying good-bye.

The Not King ® 2013
Full-length Play | Script available

An absurd comedy about the royalization of celebrity in America.

Hailey's Comets ® 2007
Short Screenplay | Script available

At the New Faculty Tea, Gloria decides to poison her husband with a pastry laced with The Death Angel, a favored fungus of Roman emperors anxious to dispose of the bothersome. The day arrives and Gloria goes out for a morning run, wearing her daughter's first pair of running shoes, which she keeps as a momento of the day she watched her daughter grow up and become a woman; the same pair of shoes that lay in her tidy closet next to a scrapbook of family murders. Hailey's Comets is adapted from the short story by Carol Krucoff (read here).

Theatrical/Film & Video Writing Credits

The Broker's Nose | Jan 2015
Presented as part of RhinoFest
Watch on YouTube

The Not King - Script Development | August 2011-March 2013
Act I reading at University of Chicago's Summer Inc program
Act II reading at Liminality/Stage 773
Directed by Chris Zdenek
Development Blog

! | July 2011 | co-writer
Presented at City Lit's Art of Adaptation festival
Conceived and directed by Chris Zdenek

Lower Debt | Mar/Apr 2010
Presented by LiveWire Chicago Theatre
Directed by Rebekah Scallet

"Muscularly poetic dialogue" - Chicago Reader

Lower Debt - Workshop | October 2009 | writer/director
Presented by LiveWire Chicago Theatre in association with Chicago DCA Theater

From DCA Theater Blog 'LiveWire Theatre captivates audience with a modern Everyman tale': "Some of the questions that director Joshua Aaron Weinstein asked in an earlier blog: 'What about this play inspires you? What doesn't? What characters do you connect with, and which do you not care about? How does the language of the play feel to you?' really helped fuel the discussion last night after seeing the work-shopped version of 'Lower Debt'. After a well-paced, thoughtful and language filled hour and fifteen minutes of 'Lower Debt', the audience readily stayed in their seats to talk about what they had just seen, and to offer feedback about the changes that could be made before LiveWire Chicago Theatre launches a fully produced version in Spring 2010."

When Jaina Met Jared | June 2009 | writer/director
Private Commission for a Sangeet

White
Finalist in 2008-09 Reva Shiner Playwriting Contest

IML ® 2008 | co-creater/director/editor
WCProductions Film
Watch on YouTube

Soldiers: The Desert Stand © 2008 | Apr/May 2008
Presented by LiveWire Chicago Theatre
Directed by Glenn Proud
Watch on YouTube

**** "This wartime satire began life as a grad-school project for playwright Weinstein in 2004; that it's still just as relevant (if not more so) four years later justifies its sentiments even further." - Kris Vire, Time Out Chicago

"Joshua Weinstein's sharp, often very funny play uses sometimes penetrating, sometimes tedious spoofs to comment on the current rhetoric of the military and the sexuality and spectacle of violence in America... the language truly sparkles, and the play's comic sensibility is impressive and in perfect balance with the chilling moments..." - Newcity Chicago

Madeline Long won a 2008 'Outstanding Performance in a Play' After Dark Award for her portrayal of Toma Singerson... "Long's dead on performance was both mesmerizing and hysterical, leaving the audience delighted long after leaving the theater. Her depiction of a frenetic adolescent was exhilarating, hilarious and amazingly accurate." - Chicago Stage Review

Soldiers: Recruitment © 2008 | December 2007
Presented by LiveWire Chicago Theatre at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts as part of Mordine & Company Dance Theater's '800lb. Gorilla in the Room'
Directed by Glenn Proud
Watch on YouTube

"...excerpting from its full-length 'Soldiers: The Desert Stand, Recruitment' plays on war-department absurdities. Absurdist, yes, but, as they clarify, it's a 'serious play on war.'" - Debbie Goldgaber, Newcity Chicago

Handshake of a Stranger © 2007 | co-writer/director/editor
WCProductions Film

Urbana © 2007 | writer/director
WCProductions Film

A/other Lover © 2007 | February 2007 | writer/director
Presented by LiveWire Chicago Theatre

**** "There's plenty to admire about writer-director Weinstein's short head trip... this sounds a lot like Woody Allen territory, as do Weinstein's insights..." - Time Out Chicago

The Bout © 2006 | August 2007 | writer/director
Presented at the Abbie Hoffman Theatre Festival XVIII

Blame | July 2006
Published by Ghoti Magazine

Night Out | July 2006
Published by Ghoti Magazine

Night of Innocent Games © 2006 | Apr/May 2006
Presented by LiveWire
Directed by Christopher Dennis

F. | January 2006
Presented by GroundUp Theatre & LiveWire in association with National Pastime Theatre
Directed by Don Johnson

Echoes of a Dream | July 2004
MFA Thesis
Directed by Chuck Gorden

Love on Planet Telex © 2007 | May 2004, January 2002
Presented by FirstStage LA at the Playwrights' Express
Directed by Lilly Thomassian
Also presented in an Evening of One-Act by MFA Playwrights
Directed by Ani Cadelli

Toy Soldier © | April 2004
Presented by Not-A-Penny Productions at the 1st Annual New Play Festival
Directed by Edward Fairchild

Sing You a Song | August 2003
Summer Studio project
Directed by Cara Gerlock

Synchronicity | Summer 2003 | co-writer
Hero Status Productions

Bugs | February 2003
Presented at the ACTF 10-minute play competition

Putting Him Down | November 2002
Presented at the William Inge Theatre Festival - 24-Hour Plays

Being Fein | October 2002
2nd year playwriting project
Directed by Dr. Roger Gross

Click_Here | August 2002
Summer Studio project

Unconditional | January 2002
Presented in an Evening of One-Acts by MFA Playwrights
Directed by Lina Khoury