Three Plays - Paperback

by Zetta Elliott (Author)

CONNOR'S BOY: Connor, a successful artist and transracial adoptee, commits suicide after being accused of abusing his beloved son. Connor's death forces the people who loved him to confront each other, the past, and the guilt that fuels their fierce struggle over his child. MOTHER LOAD: A black woman filmmaker in her mid-thirties, Liv, decides to attend her estranged mother's sixtieth birthday party. Her mother, Cleo, is a prolific, celebrated playwright. Liv arrives determined to triumphantly disclose her pregnancy, but instead she must confront the fact that Cleo is dying of uterine cancer. BEAST: DeMarcus Gaines, a famous basketball player, has been implicated in a shooting that may end his career; these charges are just the latest in a string of accusations leveled against the young star, including rape. His family, from whom he has been estranged, decides to rally around DeMarcus, but only after he gives a full and honest account of his actions.

Author Biography

Zetta Elliott earned her PhD in American Studies from NYU. Her poetry has been published in the Cave Canem anthology, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, Check the Rhyme: an Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees, and Coloring Book: an Eclectic Anthology of Fiction and Poetry by Multicultural Writers. Her novella, Plastique, was excerpted in T Dot Griots: an Anthology of Toronto's Black Storytellers, and her essays have appeared in The Black Arts Quarterly, thirdspace, WarpLand and Rain and Thunder. She won the 2005 Honor Award in Lee & Low Books' New Voices Contest, and her picture book, Bird, was published in October 2008. Her first play, Nothing but a Woman, was a finalist in the Chicago Dramatists' Many Voices Project (2006). Her fourth full-length play, Connor's Boy, was staged in January 2008 as part of two new play festivals: in Cleveland, OH as part of Karamu House's R. Joyce Whitley Festival of New Plays ARENAFEST, and in New York City as part of Maieutic Theatre Works' Newborn Festival. Her one-act play, girl/power, was staged as part of New Perspectives Theater's festival of women's work, GIRLPOWER, in August 2008. She currently lives in Brooklyn.