Nikki Harmon - Artist & Playwright
TEN-MINUTES
AFRIKA KILIO*
Drama: 2M/1W - Beneath an acacia tree, in the Bush, in Kenya - Present Day.
A Poacher and a Wildlife Guard in a stand-off over a wounded Grévy's zebra – each defending and justifying his position. With no understanding between them possible, Rafiki is about to shoot Dada, and Dada’s aimed to kill the zebra, when the zebra raises her head and speaks a simple plea, and now, the Poacher understands. *Swahili translation: Africa Weeps
Production History
Production.........Open Hydrant Theatre Company - Urban Waves Festival, So. Bronx, NY
Urban Waves Festival
Photo: Luis Cardenas
WOMAN REFLECTING ON THE INVOLVEMENT OF A CHAIR
Drama: 1w - A police station interrogation room - Present Day.
A Chair makes a woman vulnerable to a Rapist. In time she and the chair become allies, growing stronger and closer with each day, and more impervious to attack, until finally they confront the enemy as one.
Production History
Production..............Curican Theatre, Off-Off Broadway, NY, NY
Staged Reading......Road Theatre Company, No. Hollwyood, CA
Finalist....................Actor's Theatre of Louisville, Louisville, KY
Finalist....................Stageworks/Hudson's “Play By Play” Festival, Hudson, NY
AND THE WAITER CAME BACK
Comedy: 2m/1w - A café in the town of Miraflores, outside Lima, Peru – Present Day.
A Peruvian wine expert has a bottle of 6,000 year old wine in his possession, stolen from an archeological site, and a French wine expert has traveled from a museum in Paris to appraise, and possibly, purchase it. The problem is a persistent waiter who just won’t leave them alone.
Production History
Production................Seattle Fringe Festival
Staged Reading.......Studio4Seattle – Seattle, WA
Seattle Fringe Festival
Studio4Seattle
BABEL TOWERS – 2 bd/hi fl
Comedy/Satire: 1m/2w - The Penthouse of a very tall building in Phoenix, AZ – A long time ago . . . Or, not so long ago. A riff on the Tower of Babel.
A brand new apartment building, built to accommodate a group of people who want to live in their own community with people who speak the same language. The Building Manager is showing the Penthouse to a prospective tenant, which should be no problem until Goldie Goldstein, the Chief Building Inspector, shows up to point out a problem that "The City" has with the building. And then the earthquake comes.
Production History
Staged Reading...........Jewish Writers Roundtable, Encino, CA
A GIRAFFE AND A ZEBRA WALK INTO A BAR
Drama/Fantasy: 2m/1w - The bar in a Private Safari Club in Central Kenya - Present Day.
A Safari Tour Guide sits at the club’s bar. It’s late; it’s cold and raining outside. His beers are on a tab; he’s being aged out of the business, and all hope of achieving his one dream in life is as good as gone. Then a woman walks into the bar, listens to his story,and leaves. What she leaves behind is what he’s always wanted. That is, if it and she are real.
Production History
Finalist..............Stageworks/Hudson, Hudson, NY
(ALMOST) EXTINCT & (CERTAINLY) FLIGHTLESS
Dark Comedy: 1m/1w - Joe and Bessy’s Backyard Patio in a quiet Northwest Albuquerque cul-de-sac – Summer – Present Day
Joe’s had an extremely rough day at work and it’s all due to Polymorphism. Bessy’s day hasn’t gone any better with her home catering business when she's seen buying pre-packaged dough! In a day where high tech and youth are prized and age and experience are thrown aside, Joe finds himself as extinct as the Dodo . . . and to make matters even worse, he's having a strong desire to peck at the bird feeder.
Production History
Finalist..............Stageworks/Hudson, Hudson, NY
AND THE DEVIL SENDS COOKS
Comedy: 2m/2w - A soundstage and the camera and sound console areas, during the taping of a morning TV show
The cameraman on Martha Stewart's TV show wonders if she's who she says she is. Because who in their right mind even thinks about sequinning the outside of flower pots to match the color of the flowers inside so that they can change the balance of the colors in their garden before the flowers bloom? He's convinced it's mind-control! That she's the anti-Christ! But it's too late! Slashes of firely light engulf the soundstage as we hear Martha's devilishly sweet voice singing: "It’s only a paper moon, Sailing over a cardboard sea, But it wouldn’t be make-believe If you believed in me."
Production History
Staged Reading............ Wild Child Presents, NY, NY
AT THE MOMENT OF UNDERSTANDING
Drama: 1w - University of Arizona, Tucson campus, Photography Center – A exhibit of Louise L. Serpa's photographs - Present day.
A woman with no particular passion for the arts, and some time to kill, goes into the Photography Center. As she wanders from photo to photo, she comes upon a student intently studying a Louise L. Serpa photograph of a bucking bronco. This chance encounter lets Muriel see the photo, and art on a whole, through new eyes. When she finally has that moment of understanding, she wants to shout her discovery to everyone. Art can be elusive, but when it grabs you - And forces you to look at it, to it understand, you’ll understand what happened to Muriel.
Production History
Included in "365 Women a Year Playwriting Project".......(Louise L. Serpa, 1st woman photographer allowed to photograph in the rodeo arena)
Reading............Phippen Museum, Prescott, AZ
LIKE CREATURES CONTEMPLATING EACH OTHER'S LIFE
Drama: 1m/3w - Namibia – under a Baobab tree and in kitchen of the President’s State House - Spring 2014
A kitchen worker in the President's State House, who's a victim of constant threats and violence, and a cheetah, never knowing if she will live through the night, both yearn for a safer, freer life, for each other's life. When they become each other they discover that the Bush and the House are not what each had expected.
Production History
Production................Open Hydrant Theatre Company - Urban Waves Festival, Bronx, NY
Staged Reading.......Jewish Writers Roundtable, Encino, CA
Urban Waves Festival
Photo: Luis Cardenas
THE SCALES OF JUSTICE
Comedy: 1m/1w - The front yard of a house in Marango, Il. – Present day
Mrs. Amanda Mcphearson-Taylor-Stein-Bolton-Smith III’s husband has been murdered and she is answering the Officer’s questions, although her attention is more on the dead fish, scattered around the lawn, than on her dead husband, who had the impertinence to die in the foyer, on her newly laid wenge floor. . . still wearing his boots. In the end the Officer is curious about what happened to all her other husbands, and her unusually thorough knowledge of blood removal. “Hints From Heloise,” she smiles. "I’ve been her biggest fan . . . for years!"
THELMA AND LOUISE RECALCULATED
Comedy: 2w - Thelma’s car, lost somewhere on I-10 - Present Day.
A woman with no sense of direction, driving from Los Angeles to Phoenix for an internet coffee date, is lost somewhere on I-10 with a map she can’t read, and a GPS system with a mind of its own.
TWO SIDES OF THE ISSUE
Comedy: 1w/1m - the washed-out backroad on a Wyoming cattle ranch - Present Day
A rancher rescues a woman from a flooded-out road only to discover it's the 'tree-hugger' that's driving everyone crazy at the town hall meetings. What's more, she's got one of those blackfooted ferrets with her! . . . and they're all three stuck in his jeep until the rain stops!
WATER X 3
Drama/Comedy: 3w - So. California, India, Kenya - during a severe drought - Present Day
Three women's reaction to a drought in inter-locking monologues.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE BIG TOP
Drama: 1w / 1 m - The cheetah cage behind the Big Tent of a touring circus in the southwest.
Perfect Muhapikwa, a kitchen worker at the circus, is forced by the cat-keeper to work for him on the sly. She has a strong bond with the circus’ lone cheetah and a deep desire to return to Namibia. After animal right’s activists protest the use and treatment of the circus’ endangered species the circus obtains a court order permitting them to send their cats to a German circus under U.S. Code 1539, allowing for the sale of endangered species under specified circumstances. When Perfect finds out she tries to free the cheetah and get both she and cat back to Namibia.
