Steve Yockey – författare

5m / Dark Comedy / Unit set After young couple Kevin and Blake engage in an adventurous and hastily planned night of group sex with the older, more "experienced" Max and Andy, they are left trying to salvage their relationship from a pummeling mix of jealousy, betrayal, telegrams from a soaking wet delivery boy and a ravenous sea monster from the ocean floor. This universal love story rendered through a post-modern gay lens slips from domestic comedy into a darkly fantastic fable examining the role and depth of commitment in relationships and what it really means to say the words "I love you." "A fiercely imaginative and finely tuned new voice...Smartly observed and blissfully performed...[Octopus'] tentacles tickle the funny bone, awake the mind and tug on the heart." - San Francisco Chronicle "An evening full of arresting images...classic tragedy seen through a very contemporary ironic lens" - Marin Independent Journal "This tale of two gay couples' group sex fling and its serious consequences arrives at a powerful statement about illness and love." -Variety

5m, 4f / Comedy / Unit set Join the exploits of a band of mismatched cartoon stereotypes on a wild ride through this animated world, Presented in the style of a Commedia dell'Arte scenario gone berserk, Cartoon is a devilishly violent social commentary that explores the rapid coalescence of media, politics and consumer giants. A young, idealistic upstart named Trouble steals the giant hammer that Esther, the bratty dictator, uses to maintain a monotonous but peaceful order. Chaos ensues. Bombs explode. Puppets are set free. Anime girls fight. And as the bodies pile up, the violence begins to creep off the stage and into the audience. There's nothing like a punch in the face to really get the blood moving. "Fast-paced, funny, and drenched in pop culture. If you see only one play about cartoon characters killing each other this year, make it this one." - East Bay Express "Yockey's piece plays like an Eastern European communist-era political comedy, with farce and cruelty artfully intermingled to create horrifying situations...whose frequent leaps from cartoony cuteness to over-the-top violence are both shocking and hilarious."- LA Weekly "Cartoon poses profound questions with every laugh...it will leave you thinking and discussing the play for the remainder of the evening." - Backstage "At its core, Cartoon is a response to society, to violence, to corrupt leadership, and to twisted romance..." - TheatreForum Magazine "The play slowly reveals itself as being more than just a wacky comedy about violence in the media...it speaks to a deeper, darker truth about people's ability to turn on one another without visualizing the cost of that betrayal. It is in these moments that CARTOON shines." - TheatreForum Magazine

Ten Minute Plays/ Various male and female roles Two men at the end of the world, a woman who believes she turns children to stone, some college students with alcohol and a sledgehammer, the perpetrator of a hit-and-run accident, a man obsessed with asphyxiation, and a roadside elephant in India. The very broken characters that inhabit this collection of shorts wander through a dimly lit, over stimulated and paranoia-fueled world that exists just underneath the dominant popular culture. From the darkly comic to the starkly distressing, these uneasy little plays are tightly wound, structurally adventurous glimpses into some of the most simultaneously intimate and harrowing moments of everyday life. Contains: (every little thing) sucker punch kiss & tell dizziness & loss of breath snuff film lonesome stop motion swallow (stereo) headphones medusa

Comedy / Casting: 4m, 3f An incisive look at sex, love, bullfights, big-game hunting, and intimate apparel. Large Animal Games takes a skewed but razor-sharp look at relationships by examining the romantic lives of several couples and the man who supplies each of them with intimate apparel. "Light-hearted...subtly related themes of animal-lust, competition, self-image and possession cleverly at work...well-honed, true-to-life-repartee" -SF Bay Guardian "Light and smart...there are lots of clever plays out there...but Large Animal Games is a little bit different--and a lot more enjoyable" -Berkeley Daily Planet "Smart...witty...[Yockey's] brightest and most open-hearted work" -Creative Loafing "Compelling...desire gets carnal in Large Animal Games" -East Bay Express

This second collection of short plays from Steve Yockey mixes comedic absurdity with raw heartbreak to unearth worlds populated by desperate people, mythical characters, faceless corporate masters, and at least one Slasher flick heroine. The second half of the collection is comprised of the work very still & hard to see. This short play cycle recounts the history of a cursed hotel and the unfortunate guests who stay there. From riding in an erratic elevator and dealing with possessive ghosts to managing an ever-expanding hole in the floor armed only with gleaning supplies, these encounters with the unknown chillingly collapse the distance between the real and the surreal and remind us that, sometimes, bad things do happen for a reason. CONTENTS: foolish heart heavy cream [epistolary] hysterical bedtime a lovely violent ghost haiku wallpaper when it happens it will happen quietly very still & hard to see (a short play cycle)

ghost story in the most literal sense, afterlife follows married couple Connor and Danielle as they prepare their beachfront home for an impending storm. They do their best to come together and get the job done while packing up items stained by painful memories they don't know how to talk about. But when the storm rolls in faster than expected and a great wave rises up to drag them under, it may be too late for the them to come to terms with their history and escape the haunting world of unsent letters, unexpected snow, unfinished sand castles, unrelenting birds, and unforgettable loss that threatens to swallow the pair forever.

In the wake of a local tragedy involving gun violence at a community college single mother Elizabeth Miller and her withdrawn son Bailey try to jump-start their relationship across the breakfast table. But with berserker appliances shifting astronomy and the talkative new family dog's interruptions Elizabeth might not be able to really "see" the person she needs to see most.

Bellwether was a nice safe place to live. Bad things didn't happen there. That was until six-year-old Amy Draft went missing. As the investigation progresses speculation in the media and the neighborhood turns on Amy's parents Alan and Jackie Draft. But the young girl's disappearance is not what it seems and is only a glimpse of what lurks below the community's perfection.

In this modern revenge play Brenda Hendricks has her hands full dealing with her son Noah after he is expelled from a prestigious college and unexpectedly returns to their isolated Northern California home. When a mysterious woman arrives on their doorstep Brenda and Noah find their world turned upside down in ways both intimate and epic.

Years of success meticulous planning and an eye for detail have in no way prepared Vivienne Avery for her mother's slide into the grip of dementia. Initially hiding behind insomnia-fueled baking and a polite smile stories about her mother leave Vivienne's inner turmoil quietly laid bare in a juxtaposition of stories theatrical gestures and a children's story-esque Alzheimer's "creation myth."

This collection of short plays and monologues by Steve Yockey includes:A Mysterious HorseAdorable Kitten Image CollapseCough SyrupDark Suburban Still Life with a Small FigureEverything That Happened Before that Terrible Holiday Sweater PartyFluffGo Get 'Em TigerI Buried Doug Biggers Alive But He's Probably Dead By NowMusic for an Abandoned ZooShe Said Everything's Moving FasterTelephones and Bad WeatherVacuum

Beneath the otherworldly glow of the Northern Lights, tourists and locals mingle in the shadows of Iceland's capital city. Told through eight interconnected vignettes, Reykjavk eavesdrops on lovers, siblings, hotel employees, sex workers and even some birds with really strong opinions about honesty. In this tour-de-force collision of sex and danger, playwright Yockey propels us on a thrilling journey through a world in which the supernatural is closer than we think.

Three stories cross outside of Portland, OR in a pitch-black comedy featuring an illicit affair, a couple hanging on by a thread, bears at the window, the worst curiosity shop on the West Coast, and an adorable missing dog named Mr Bundles. No one's happy, people stop being nice and blood spills. This mash up of myth, missing empathy and "good neighbors" explores what happens when the mercury rises.

When a firework-filled marriage proposal goes very wrong, the accompanying explosions wake up something very old that's been sleeping in the nearby lake for thousands of years. What follows are intimate, darkly comic, and sometimes startling vignettes about the lengths people go when they desperately want something to believe in.