Charlene A. Donaghy LLC
"With plays that are intoxicating and mysterious, Donaghy has a gift for finding the truth that lurks below our eccentricities"
Doug Wright, Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award Winning Playwright
Doug Wright, Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award Winning Playwright
4 a.m. Friends
“Through laughter and tears, companionship and strife,
these friends navigate life. 4 a.m. friends is a poignant portrait of resilience, friendship, and the enduring bonds that stand the test of time, and Donaghy creates three characters that I want to call at 4am or any time.”
Catherine M. O’Neill, Playwright, Theatre Maker
“Filled with genuine warmth and humor, Donaghy’s look at female friendships - told over six decades - reminds us that there is no greater power on earth than the love of a family we find
and choose for ourselves.”
Ellen O’Brien, Playwright, Journalist
“4 a.m. Friends hits the sweet spot of today’s ticket-buying audience! A delightful, poignant, laugh-out-loud
funny play. Bring tissues!”
Michele Clarke, Co-founder Playwrights ETC, co-founder Playwrights at Sisson Road, past trustee
Cape Cod Theatre Company
“Through laughter and tears, companionship and strife,
these friends navigate life. 4 a.m. friends is a poignant portrait of resilience, friendship, and the enduring bonds that stand the test of time, and Donaghy creates three characters that I want to call at 4am or any time.”
Catherine M. O’Neill, Playwright, Theatre Maker
“Filled with genuine warmth and humor, Donaghy’s look at female friendships - told over six decades - reminds us that there is no greater power on earth than the love of a family we find
and choose for ourselves.”
Ellen O’Brien, Playwright, Journalist
“4 a.m. Friends hits the sweet spot of today’s ticket-buying audience! A delightful, poignant, laugh-out-loud
funny play. Bring tissues!”
Michele Clarke, Co-founder Playwrights ETC, co-founder Playwrights at Sisson Road, past trustee
Cape Cod Theatre Company
Recent Event4 a.m. Friends
Truro Playwright Collective Truro, MA 4 am.m Friends: the ones who will break your heart with the truth, break out the champagne for celebrations, or break you out of jail. Becca, Tammy, and Kim are those kinds of 4 a.m. Friends with humor and heart the ties that bind. A myriad of iconic moments, people, and fashion from the 1970s to present day propel these friends as they fight, argue, support, and love through some of life’s most challenging hurdles, growing from their teens to their sixties. Starring: Jennifer Cabral as Becca Darlene Van Alstyne as Kim Braunwyn Jackett at Tammy |
Recent Production
Joanie & Freddie on Valentine's Day Playhouse 44 Avon, CT When my mom was in 4th grade, my dad, being the rambunctious boy that he was, pushed the red-headed Joanie into a snowbank. That act of youthful exuberance inspired almost 70 years together as well as my play, Joanie and Freddie on Valentine's Day. ------------------- 
Recent PodcastThank You Five
Strawdog Theatre Company Chicago, IL Bringing Theatre Artists from around the globe into a conversation about live theatre and digital storytelling with a spirit of gratitude and innovation. CLICK HERE FOR PODCAST |
Recent ProductionThe Perfect Job
Warner Theatre Torrington, CT Julie and Pam, friends who spent wild and wonderful times together in college, reunite as one struggles with a decision of life and love that could change both of their lives forever. Directed By: Lynn Paulella-Beard Starring: Maria Cook as Pam Maria Palheiredo as Julie |
Bones of Home and Other Plays*
Hansen Publishing Group I explore characters submerged in challenges ranging from a bad economy, to crime, loss of loved ones, and displacement. Miriam, the protagonist of the title piece, Bones of Home,has lost her long-time partner. As she contemplates a bottle of wine and sleeping pills, onto her dilapidated porch sneaks Dillon, hoping to steal away back to New Orleans to “…at least be close so I can talk to [my parents] and they hear me in the oaks and along the river and in a drafty old Treme cottage where maybe I can hide out as long as I need to feel them.” Across age and race, where the fear of loneliness is deeper than the fear of death, Dillon pushes Miriam with “You live, you keep this house alive, keep Jessie alive.” As she hears Dillon drive away in her 1969 truck, the audience is left to ponder Miriam’s choice as the lights fade on her and her decision. |
The Quadroon and the Dove*
Charlene A. Donaghy New Orleans, 1841. As a January cold snap settles over New Orleans, Clarice, a free woman of color Quadroon placée to Lucien Boudet, a wealthy white Native Creole industrialist, prepares to attend the upcoming and extravagant Quadroon Ball. 15 years have passed since Clarice was presented to Lucien at such an event and she has since led a life of status and privilege. Only in silence, Clarice contemplates if the price she has paid for such a life is yet another form of slavery. As the Quadroon Ball rapidly approaches, secrets and lies fuel betrayals and threaten the delicate balance of this provincial world poised on the precipice of change. As Lucien’s lustful desires for another collide with a looming enslaved persons' uprising, Clarice fights to maintain the life she has so carefully forged while striving to protect her young, teenaged niece Juliette, known as Dove…and to maintain her very sanity. Riveting and fast-moving, The Quadroon and the Dove is a powerful, poetic story that resonates with prevailing struggles we continue to confront in society today. Strong themes of race, gender and power are presented by a cast of six characters that you will stay with long after you leave the theatre. |
*Please click on image to visit websites
HEADER: Photographs courtesy of Josh Andrus Photography and Planet Photo. Production photos (l to r): Gift of an Orange with Dayenne C. Byron Walters & Richard Caines; Permanent Ink with Swann Gruen; Another August with Jason Walsh, Qiana Watsun, Foster Daniels, Jr; Who You Got to Believe with Sheilagh Weymouth & L.B. Williams. Photos with Director/Producer/Actor Jackie Davis as well as Dramatists Gary Garrison and Mary Conroy.