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Theater/Writing

Full-Length Plays


ENTANGLED

New & Unproduced

Full-length dramatic play revolving around two female scientists, a Quantum theorist and a Cognitive Neuroscientist, locked down in the mountains of New Mexico with an unpredictable handyman. The play explores emotional and professional connections, mirroring the quantum concept of Entanglement, as the characters navigate complex relationships, personal meltdowns and profound disagreements about the nature of reality. Commissioned by San Francisco Playhouse

DRUNK AT THE BASE OF THE BODHI TREE

Developed with New Dramatists, Boston Court Theater, Alter Theater and a Ucross Foundation Residency. Workshopped with Mile High Theater. A three-person, ninety-minute play. A hiker discovers an injured woman face down in a ditch— a chance encounter that changes both their lives.

NIGHTFALLS

Premiered ODC, Deborah Slater Dance Theater. Chosen Top Ten Productions of the Year, SF Bay Guardian.

A movement play opening with a strange dream from which a woman awakes in a panic, triggering a night of catastrophic thinking, manic housecleaning, deep reflection, regretful phone calls and hare-brained plans.  An insomniac extravaganza.

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"Stunning"

− EyeOnDance

"Witty dance-theater... in the wee hours of a truthful night."

− Bay Guardian

Tree

Premiered Ensemble Studio Theater.  Produced by Victory Gardens, Horizon, SF Playhouse.  Winner Pen Award for Drama, Backstage Garland Award

A Southern white woman shows up at the home of an African American man in Chicago, claiming to be his half-sister; both are forced to confront a shared past hidden among the degraded memories of a demented old woman.  A play about race and family.

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"Riveting... complex... the blood ties here are fierce."

− Chicago Sun-Times

"Moving, sophisticated, authentic... Hébert creates a group of struggling characters who really stick in your soul."

− Chicago Tribune

Touch the Water

Premiered Cornerstone Theater Company, LA.

A meditation on the quixotic existence of the neglected Los Angeles River, “Touch the Water” was staged on the banks of the river itself, and incorporated elements of its ecology, history, and the history of the people who have lived by it, to create a stirring elegy of loss, as well as a hopeful call to rebirth.

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"A unique theater adventure..."

− Edge Los Angeles

"Spine-tingling magic."

− LA Weekly

St. Joan and the Dancing Sickness

Open Fist Theater Summer Festival, LA., Developed with New Dramatists, NYC

An adaptation of the Joan of Arc story, the play follows the brief and mercurial story of Jeannette LeBlanc, a fifteen-year-old girl in modern day southern Louisiana. A spectral Nun, a drunken Senator, the Catholic Church, and MTV come together for the exploitation of a true believer…with explosive results.

"Moving, disturbing, and quite powerful."

− Backstage

The Knee Desires the Dirt

Premiered Women’s Project, NYC. Winner PEN Center West Award

A biology professor at a small university is in danger of losing her job and her mind. Torn between a ferocious dying mother, a secretive teen-age daughter, and an intimate drama with the ghost of her husband… Christine is in danger of losing herself completely. A play about a strong woman who’s given too much of herself away.

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"The play is lively and charming."

− New York Times

"Curious, spirited, irreverent."

− Village Voice

Ruby’s Bucket of Blood

Premiered San Diego Rep. Adapted into a film starring Angela Bassett for Showtime

Set one hot night in south Louisiana, July 1961. The play focuses on Ruby Delacroix, a powerful but lonely black woman who owns her own bar, the “Bucket of Blood.” On this Saturday night, the regular singer is replaced with Billy Dupre, a white man with a great voice and a bad marriage. Ruby and Dupre clash and spark and finally find a little comfort in each other’s arms. Is the aftermath worth it?

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"Hot and spicy. A triumph."

− Los Angeles Times

Almost Asleep

Premiered Intersection for the Arts, SF. Published by TCG. Produced widely.

A whispered opera of the mind. The five characters represent different aspects of one woman’s mind as she falls asleep one night after a confusing, humiliating encounter with her male employer earlier that day, which dredges up a powerful, suppressed trauma.

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"Masterfully constructed."

− The Bay Guardian

"The writing is powerful, shocking, candid."

− Variety

True Beauties

Premiered Magic Theater, SF. Winner Critics’ Circle Best Play

TRUE BEAUTIES is the story of a southern Louisiana woman’s life and the people she loves and loses, told through memories in the moment of her death. The play spans forty years. An everyday passing of an everyday soul.

"A treasure."

− The Bay Guardian

Opera Libretti

Purgatory

Adapted from the W.B. Yeats play. Premiered OATCO, SF

Burning Dreams

Co-written with Octavio Solis. Premiered San Diego Rep

Short Plays/One Acts

Abe Lincoln’s Dog

Circle Rising, L.A., New Dramatists, NYC

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Thin Skin

Intersection for the Arts, SF

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In the Privacy of Strangers

Bay Area Playwrights Festival

Died Suddenly

Museum of Contemporary Art

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Strong Box

Padua Hills Playwrights Festival