Debbie Lamedman

Debbie Lamedman is a playwright, author, and editor based in Portland, Oregon. She has a series of monologue and scene study books published by Smith & Kraus, Inc., and two plays published by Heuer Publishing. Debbie’s produced plays include Up the Fall, phat girls, Triangle Logic, Eating in the Dark, and Drowning in Quicksand. Debbie is the co-bookwriter for the musical How the Nurse Feels which had staged readings at both the ASCAP/Disney workshop in Los Angeles, and New World Stages in New York. Debbie’s short play Mind Control was produced as part of the 35th Annual Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Short Play Festival in NYC.

Since 2009, Debbie received commissions to write plays on social issues for teens for Pittsburg High School Repertory Theatre Company. These plays include Everyday People, a play on anti-bullying which premiered in April 2011 to nearly 5,000 audience members. Additional commissions include Rx, a play dealing with prescription drug abuse among teens, You Belong to Me, a piece on teen dating violence, and Snowflakes, a theatrical documentary exploring autism.

In addition to writing, Debbie has worked as an adjunct theatre instructor and guest director at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. She has also taught acting classes at the Portland Actors Conservatory in Portland, OR. Debbie is a frequent guest teaching artist and has taught master classes in playwrighting and monologue workshops around the country. Currently, Debbie is editing three new anthologies for Smith & Kraus, The Best Men’s Monologues 2021, The Best Women’s Monologues 2021, The Best 10-Minute Plays 2021.

Debbie received her MFA in theatre from Brandeis University and is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. https://www.debbielamedman.com/

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
https://www.debbielamedman.com/
https://newplayexchange.org/users/10208/debbie-lamedman
FB:https://www.facebook.com/debbie.lamedman; and /debbielamedmanplaywrighting,
TW: https://twitter.com/DebbieLamedman
IS:https://www.instagram.com/debbielamedman/

MORE ABOUT ME
Why do I keep doing theatre?*
That is an excellent question. I thought I hit my wall with theatre years ago. But just like in Godfather Part III, every time I think I’m out, it keeps pulling me back in. I’ve attempted to have a cynical attitude about it, but it’s not in me. I have taken long hiatuses from working in the theatre, but during that time I was always miserable if I wasn’t working on something. It’s elusive to me, what that thrill is. Maybe it brings to mind the first time I stepped foot into a Broadway house. I was eight years old, and the excitement of the audience, that first downbeat of the orchestra, the incredible performances I watched slack-jawed, all those sensations seems to fill my soul every single time I walk back into a theater. It doesn’t have to be Broadway. It doesn’t have to be New York. That thrill of excitement has happened in a bare, chilly warehouse in Portland, Oregon; a garage turned into a make-shift black box in San Francisco, a backyard with a wooden platform in Sherman Oaks, California. It’s in me. What can I say? The theatre virus runs through my veins, and there’s no vaccine for that.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
I'm always attempting to write more 10-minute plays in order to have a vast array of them for the many festivals and opportunities that continue to arise. I feel like I should be working on something to do with current affairs, but it's not in me to write about that right now. I am working on a new full-length piece that delves into the struggles of a married couple when one of them comes out as nonbinary.

KEYWORDS
Jewish, Crone, Food, Fat, Aging, Androgyny, Grief, Menopause, Nonbinary