BOOKS
HERE & THERE
In this thrilling saga, a paradigm-shattering feat may alter humanity’s future as quantum entanglement and teleportation collide.
FILM / TV
THE FOOTAGE
Developed by Pressman Film: 2014
Adapted from Scher’s “Nice little play about hipsters and snuff porn!” (– Variety)
BEHIND THE SMOKE
Penny Marshall, Parkway Productions and Joe Frazier
Treatment on the life of Joe Frazier.
JiGsAw
TV pilot, developed with Louverture Films (Danny Glover’s production company)
Hour drama: a journalistic team of underdogs led by a volatile maverick, atone for the past by exposing corruption in the hope of finding redemption in the present.
Pilot script and show bible.
THEATER
TRIANGLE
An original mystery/romance set against the backdrop of an infamous New York tragedy. Two couples from different eras—in 1911 a Jewish seamstress and her Italian foreman, in 2011 a graduate student and a free-spirited stranger—discover what it means to risk everything you have and everything you believe for love.
- Theatre Works opening July 2015
- Lyric Theatre (Oklahoma) opening March 2014
- National Alliance for Musical Theatre, 24th Annual Festival of New Musicals (NYC)
- Theatreworks New Festival (Palo Alto, CA)
- O’Neill Theater Festival (CT)
- Directed by Robert Longbottom (Scarlet Pimpernel on Broadway)
- Williamstown Theatre Festival (MA)
Press
“With its compelling story and attractive score, “Triangle” seems destined to have a promising future.”
— The Oklahoman
“The show cleverly ties together two love stories from two eras. …While these are serious themes, the writers mix in the right amount of humor to keep the audience engaged.”
— The Journal Record
THE FOOTAGE
Disparate groups of twenty-somethings orbit around a young woman’s abduction, when her captivity goes viral.
The story shuttles back and forth between three unrelated groups of friends—one in NYC, one in Western Idaho, and one in Threshold (an immersive online game)—all of whom are obsessed with online footage of an abducted young woman. Racing against the clock, the fanatical footage-heads try to decipher and defuse uploaded clues of the girl’s surreal kidnapping, in an attempt to save her before the cameras stop rolling. The Footage is a dark and twisted multimedia tale about the insidious encroachment of the internet into our lives.
- Production Stooged Theater (Sydney, Australia)
- World premiere at Flea Theater (NYC)
Press:
“Scher creates a world more familiar to some of us than we’d like to admit.”
— Variety
“We nervously ponder the dark side of YouTube. ”
— New York Times
“Joshua Scher’s new play The Footage is a stylish, engrossing, contemporary thriller.”
— www.nytheatre.com
“The Footage is compelling theater. It will haunt you long after you leave. ”
— Huffington Post
“Sparkling dialogue”
— Variety
“Zingy dialogue”
— New York Times
“Facebook, online role-playing games, and YouTube are factored ingeniously into this ambitious drama.”
— New Yorker
“A thriller, to be exact, the kind of guilty pleasure that has quick cuts, head-spinning plot twists and subject matter so of the moment”
— New York Times
“A nice little play about hipsters and snuff porn!”
— Variety
MARVEL
All Heroes Are Scared Of Heights. The story begins with a guy dressed as Spider-Man, sitting on a platform hanging from a crane on the Brooklyn Bridge. Enter Gabriella, a cop, still low on the totem pole, but high in idealism. Armed with persistence, a warped sense of humor, and a knack for conversation, she works to coax our friendly neighborhood wacko down over the next five nights. He, however, has his own agenda and it quickly becomes unclear who has the upper hand. The play explores the contradictions of courage, the burden of choice, and the many masks of a hero. Will it all end with a bang or a whimper?
- Gold Prize, Clauder Competition, Portland Stage Company (ME)
- Roundabout Theatre (NY) New Voices Underground
- directed by Charles Randolph-Wright
- Little Festival of the Unexpected @ Portland Stage Company (ME)
- Huntington Theatre , Breaking Ground Festival (Boston)
FLUSHED
After hours in the men’s room of Peter Luger’s steakhouse, a Polish cleaning woman, a down-on-his-luck investment banker, and a turtle answer the age-old question can you find true love with your arm stuck in a toilet?
- Published in BTM Edition V Baker’s Plays
- Herring Run Arts Festival (MA)
- The Gallery Player’s Theater (NYC)
- Boston Theater Marathon
- Commission & Production by MCC & Rising Phoenix Rep. (NYC)
FELLING GIANTS
A dangerous drama about Davids, Goliaths, and their stones. Felling Giants explores the tense landscape of a community on strike and three reunited friends striking out against each other. It’s a story of people who struggle to hold onto the past and are torn apart by the future in this searing drama about memory, loyalty, and the impossibility of stepping into the same river twice.
- Best Play @ 10th Annual Edward Albee Conference
- 10th Annual Edward Albee Theatre Conference (Valdez)
- The Yale School of Drama (New Haven)
VELVET ROPES
Two innocents trapped in an art museum contemplate the nature of humor, performance, and art in this hilarious one-act play.
- Published in Plays & Playwrights 2001 (play)
- The NYC Fringe Festival produced The Drama League
- The Hangar Theater Fringe (Ithaca)
- New Dramatists (NYC)
- Indie Theater Now →
- Good Reads Website →
- Barnes & Noble →
“Joshua Scher’s new play Velvet Ropes is almost certainly the sharpest new comedy in Fringe NYC; his is likewise the most original new comic voice to emerge in quite some time.”
— New York Theatre Experience
“Velvet Ropes offers a satiric and laugh-out-loud look at art, as perceived by the likes of two everymen.”
— Backstage