Straton Rushing
Playwright + Screenwriter + Educator
Plays
Mutability
(2F, 3M) The small rural town of Craven, Texas, is changing and local gas station owner Frank Hooper is not okay with it. Hoping to scare away the influx of remote-working millennials that see the town as a cute getaway, Frank has begun posing as a "creepy hillbilly" a la 'Texas Chainsaw' to freak people out. Once his daughter Mary visits for spring break and discovers his harebrained scheme, the pair find themselves digging up old grudges and arguing. Matters are further complicated by ghosts and a killer on the loose whose motivations are unclear until it’s too late.
Accolades: Runner Up, Todd McNerney Playwriting Award (2024), Finalist, ATHE Judith Royer Excellence in Playwriting Award (2023), Finalist, Kitchen Dog New Works (2023)
Development: Pegasus Theatre’s Fresh Reads Festival, ASU TheatreLAB, New Deal Creative Arts Center’s Hudson Valley Theatre Festival
Welcome to the Fair!
(3-9 F, 3-10 M) Huzzah and good morrow y’all! In the quirky west Texas oilfield town of Patterson (population 4,134), the residents decide to host their own renaissance fair. Failed former professor Dr. Kit Marvin and social outcast Mollie Baptiste lead the operation, with Mollie's hillbilly cousin Cletus as their main ally. They must scramble, lie, and cut every corner to keep the fair up to county code, as the Sheriff looks for any excuse to shut the magic down. A laugh-out-loud comedy in two acts
Accolades: Co-Winner, The Chameleon Theatre Circle's 25th Annual New Play Contest (2025), Semi-Finalist, Utah Shakespeare Festival’s Words Cubed Play Festival (2025)
Development: Baylor University, Theatre Arlington's Play Readers' Club, Chameleon Theatre Circle
America’s Favorite Gameshow
(1F/NB, 1M, 2A) Welcome to the live taping of 'America's Favorite Gameshow'! The contestants are not quite sure how they got here... actually these games seem - weird? And how much money are we playing for anyways?... You expect us to do what!?!?... What starts out as a normal day on set, slowly morphs into an interactive dystopian nightmare that asks the audience - Are you willing to play along?
Accolades: Semi-Finalist SLU Inkslinger Award (2026)
Development: Second Thought Theatre's Thought Process, Sewanee Writer's Conference
Happy Wright
(1A) Happy Wright is a strange person, this much we can say for certain. They love aviation, poetry, and Saturdays. But Happy's mind is plagued with questions, the kind that makes the world really confusing. Loosely inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, the show is a portrait of anxiety, bravery, and the help we can give each other when we are willing to.
Accolades: Bela Kiralyfalvi National Playwriting Award (2022), Honorable Mention, William Faulkner Literary Award for Playwriting (2022)
Development: Workshop Production, Wichita State University (2022), ASU TheatreLAB (2021), Mid-America Theatre Conference Play Symposium (developed with dramaturg Suzi Elnaggar), Finalist, The Sauk’s Plays-In-Progress Series (2021)
Circles & Walls
(3F, 2M) Alex L’Estrange is serving a sentence in Huntsville penitentiary. After an incident with other inmates, he is sentenced to solitary confinement, where he begins to hear a voice in his head that identifies itself only as “the Narrator”. As the days pass by, the Narrator’s intentions slowly come to light. On the outside, his younger sister Kyra is trying to navigate life as a young college student with her only family member newly behind bars. And when a new person comes into her life and challenges her to come out of her shell, she isn’t sure how to proceed. Both siblings must face past ghosts, and try to find a new normal for themselves during Alex’s incarceration.
Accolades: Semi-Finalist, Circle in the Square Theater School Emerging Writers Residency (2024), Semi-Finalist SLU Inkslinger Award
Development: Outcry Theatre (2023), Elephant Room Productions (2023), The Digital Development Project (2024)
Franz Kafka's The Trial
(8A - 20A) Someone must have slandered Josef K. Because one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested. And, it only gets stranger and stranger from there. He's faced with the most unspeakable horror mankind ever created, bureaucracy.
This all-new adaptation of Kafka's novel is a loving tribute to what made the original feel both hilarious and disturbingly relatable.
Development: Dallas College (2026)
Enferma
(3F, 2M) When Violet O'Neill is handed a cancer diagnosis, she feels she has nothing left to lose. In the coming months, she starts a new relationship, devises a plan to get back at her boss and tangles herself in a web of lies so thick she has to learn a new language to get out of it.
Accolades: Semi-Finalist, Landing Theatre Co. New American Voices Festival (2020), Semi-Finalist, Local Theatre Company’s Lab (2022)
Development: Phoenix Theater Co. (2021), Arts Fort Worth (2020), DGA Monday Night Footlights (2019)
Douglas: The Play
(1F, 1M) The genre of the autobiographical play includes masterworks like The Glass Menagerie, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Yellow Face and Long Day’s Journey into Night. Enter Douglas Jones-Jones, a young, pretentious, half-witted wannabe playwright eager to add his name to the list of greats. After dozens of attempts to have his show produced around the US, he finally talked [YOUR THEATRE'S NAME HERE] into giving him a shot. Just a few problems, almost nobody agreed to be in the show other than his ex-girlfriend Maude. Additionally, his life’s story is not particularly interesting, and he really fancies himself to be a bit of a genius (he’s not). So, the question is, can two actors who barely get along make this horrible script work well enough to entertain the good people of [YOUR TOWN'S NAME HERE] for an hour? I doubt it. But we’ll have to wait and see.
Production: SceneShop (2019)
Development: Tyler Civic Theare (2023)
Please feel free to reach out about other titles and/or short plays.