Wrapping up 2025 with a bow!
announcements
1319 PRESS IS NOW AT THE DRAMA BOOKSHOP! This is not a drill. Earlier this month, several plays in the 1319 collection became available for purchase at The Drama Bookshop (a few were even featured on the New Plays wall!). This move was part of our long-standing effort to provide more opportunities for folks to find our plays in real life at a bookstore in physical copy form. Thank you to everyone who tirelessly asked the kind people at the front desk if they carried any of the titles in the 1319 collection– you made this happen.
Another exciting update: new merch dropped! Get yourself (or someone you love) some 1319 swag in the form of stickers, journal, tote, mug, sweatshirt… go wild and rep that new play pride.
new titles
This month, we have two new releases: The Great Pistachio by Nicholas Cummings and Stacy & Mia by SMJ.
Coming off of a run at Edinbugh Fringe this summer, The Great Pistachio follows future world-renowned playwright Bertrand Brambles as he emerges from a dirt hole with his magnum opus only to find that the world has, very rudely, ended. He must now mount his masterpiece with the only two survivors: his far less impressive brother and a deranged woman found living inside a community “theater.” A new absurdist exploration of isolation, grief, legacy, and discovering yourself through others and the art that we create together. Even amidst the apocalypse, the show must, confusingly, desperately go on.
SMJ’s Stacy & Mia centers two college kids as they navigate love, queerness, and finances. (Funnily enough, I attended a preliminary reading of Stacy & Mia at the O’Neill in 2020 and immediately fell in love with the intimacy of the piece. I hope you do too.)
The night before their sophomore year, Stacy and Mia grind on each other in the basement of a sorority house. The next morning, they’re randomly assigned roommates. Throughout the Fall, they avoid falling into something deeper… for a while. Trapped in their rooms, the gravity of the situation hits them and after bonding over shared family trauma, being queer, and a healthy amount of Jungle Juice, they start dating. But when Stacy’s financial woes come to light, Mia tries to solve the problem… by giving Stacy a check to make her problems go away. Does Stacy take the money?
SMJ is a phenomenal playwright with a slew of other brilliant plays as well. Read their bio here and check out their website at www.smjwrites.com
upcoming events
Stacy & Mia by SMJ will have a stage reading as a part of the Bechdel Project Reading Series, which will take place on December 17th at 7pm at The Bechdel Project in Brooklyn. This event is FREE (we always welcome donations) but please RSVP. Come hang out, browse the 1319 collection, and discover your new favorite play!
deals
Still looking for that perfect gift for the theatre nerd in your life? Support small businesses and emerging playwrights by gifting them a new play from our collection! Browse our online bookstore here.
author spotlight
This month, we are spotlighting Nicholas Cummings, author of The Great Pistachio. Nicholas is a Brooklyn-based playwright. His works have recently been performed in New York, New England, and right by the older England at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Outside of playwriting, you can find him performing improv and sketch comedy at The Second City NYC, The Pit, or a random bar with a slightly elevated platform that can be used as a stage. If he isn’t doing one of those things, then you can probably find him about three books deep into about five different fantasy series at any given time.
Nicholas’ new play, The Great Pistachio, is a love letter to wasting your time on art at the end of the world. It is a new absurdist comedy that explores the difficult balance we try to maintain between dedicating time to our art while also experiencing life, and the sacrifices that must come with both. From dirt holes, raw beets, and train robberies, this story embraces the insane lengths we take to provide meaning to why we’re here. But in its absurdity, comes an honest exploration of grief, isolation, and legacy and the intense power that art has in building a community and finding ourselves within others.
Nicholas describes his writing style as sentimental absurdist. He identifies a heavy emotion, something weighing him down, and places it at the core of the story. From there, the world is built around it with the belief that no matter how silly, stupid, or surreal the piece may get, there is always a tether to the truth that exists within. Nicholas notes, “I think there’s a kernel of sadness that drives some of the best comedy, and I hope to use that kernel to connect with others, and then hopefully, make them laugh.”
What’s a play you love?
At the Fringe Festival this year, I saw so many inspiring pieces so I’m going to cheat and choose a couple. If you have the chance to ever see Julia Masli’s “ha ha ha ha ha”, please do, it is a one person clown show that fully encapsulates everything I love about sentimental absurdism and perfects the formula. I have never been more moved, more confused, and laughed harder all at the same time in a show.
I also was able to see Xhloe and Natasha’s trilogy of shows they brought this year, “And Then the Rodeo Burned Down”, “A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson of God (Whoever Reads This First)”, and “What if they Ate the Baby?”. They have an incredible blend of written and physical storytelling, with an intense precision and execution of both. They are putting up some of the most inventive and exciting theater today.
Tell us a quirky lil fact about you:
There is a Macy’s near my home town, where I have, at separate points in my life, accidentally fallen down both their up and down escalators. I can confidently say falling down the up escalator is worse, because with the down escalator you’re actually just getting to your destination faster. On the up escalator you’re falling for longer and just end up getting dragged shamefully right back to where you started. 0/10 wouldn’t recommend either.
That’s all for today. Thanks for reading. We’ll be back in your inbox in 2026!