My Theater Life

Scott Lummer is an award-winning playwright and mediocre actor. Twenty-five of his plays have been featured in more than 60 professional productions worldwide, including productions in Los Angeles, London, Sydney, and Thetford, Vermont. He is the first playwright to be named a winner of the British Theatre Challenge in consecutive years ("Cherry" in 2017 and "2048" in 2018). "2048" was selected for the 2017 Inge Festival and was a finalist for the Shakespeare in the 'Burg's 2018 one-act playwriting competition. He has written twelve other short plays (many of them are really awful) and two full-length plays.

I've always loved the theater. I acted as early as 8th grade (I was the Admiral in HMS Pinafore), and did some more in high school (Lennie in Up the Down Staircase). After that, life got in the way, but I was always a patron. After becoming an empty nester, I started taking acting classes, which led to several roles, including a short-play festival, which led to attending a seminar on playwriting (I can do that!), which led to joining a playwrights' group, which led to my first play, which led to … well, you're here.

In terms of style, I do more comedies than drama, but I also like exploring dark edges. On stage, decisions are often viewed as black or white, and characters are typically heroic or evil, while those easy dichotomies are seldom truly applicable in daily experiences. I try to explore the in-between spaces and hopefully create more understanding of the complexity of issues. But then again, sometimes I just want the audience to laugh.