Projects in Development
I'm always up to something, and by "something," I mean "a lot of things." Here's a list of shows I'm comfortable enough to say that I'm currently working on. Some are still being written, some are heading to the workshop phase, some are ready for production.
I'm very open about my process and discuss it in detail on my new Substack newsletter "Doing the Work". If you're a producer or Artistic Director and think find of these concepts intriguing, please drop me a line!
Beyond the Veil
A Ghost Play by Steve Wargo
"Everyone is haunted..."
New England, 1919. War and plague dominate daily life. In a small town, two children have drowned in the exact same spot in the riverbend. Their grieving families come together to seek help from a Spiritualist medium to seek closure. What is revealed to them is darker and more dangerous than anything they could have ever imagined. An intense examination of grief, guilt, and other things that haunt us.
The Feast of Count Dracula
Adaptation by Steve Wargo
"There are such things as vampires..."
Expanding on the success of my immersive audio rendition of the greatest of all vampire tales, I and composer/sound designer Larry Chang are devising an immersive banquet where you are the guest, and the stakes (ahem) are greater than life and death.
Fakespeare's "Clew"
An unauthorized parody in verse of a screenplay by Jonathan Lynn and a story by Jonathan Lynn and John Landis by Steve Wargo
"My hate
For her was such that it did chafe my face
With flames, with flames, with flames, with flames, with flames
Ablaze with ashes, embers, cinder, smoke,
A bonfire branding me bescorn'd and sear'd
With red-ey'd fury!"
And now for something completely different: it's "Clue," but set in 1606 and performed entirely in iambic pentameter, and with two rowdy Groundlings heckling the proceedings. The cult classic becomes classic literature and an homage to the Elizabethan stage. This was the first play to open in front of a live, paying audience in NYC after the pandemic shutdown as part of Resounding's first season of live immersive audio works, and is now ready for a full staging.
The Legends of Sleepy Hollow
by Steve Wargo
and inspired by the history, folklore, and ghosts of the Hudson Valley, including "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving
"The truth is where you find it..."
A dark, immersive, ensemble-driven reexamination of the tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman as told some twenty years after the "fact" by a mature Katrina Van Tassel and her guests at her annual Harvest Ball. Memories and gossip are the fuel of the many legends told here, and one person's ghost may be another's lies.