Devised Work

I create and co-create plays, movies, games, classes, workshops and theatrical experiences.

Some of my devised pieces include:

DEAD WEST
a role-playing game by Dwayne Blackaller and Geoffrey Bennett
Death ain't the end. It's a door. And that door leads right into the Last Chance Saloon, where all manner of unlikeliness is possible. With an innovative game design and a world rich in  storytelling opportunities, Dead West is a fast paced role-playing game set in an epic, western-inspired landscape where legendary archetypes and supernatural forces collide.

DUST
a short film by Dwayne Blackaller, Matthew Cameron Clark and Cody Gittings
When estranged siblings Jess and Junior meet at a funeral home to cremate their father, they meet a young mortician who's unusual perspective might bring them together. DUST was the winner of the 1 Potato New Short Screenplay Award at the Sun Valley Film Festival.

SWORD SONG:
A NEW ARTHURIAN LEGEND
a play for young audiences by Dwayne Blackaller
"My name is Avalon Griffith Hughes. When I was eleven years old, I became a legend.”
When young Avalon discovers a mysterious sword in a lake in Cornwall, England she finds herself in the heart of an incredible adventure. Could she be King Arthur reborn? And who are the four other young women from around the world who have discovered swords of their own? Join the quest with Idaho Theater for Youth as the five girls seek to solve the mystery of the Lady of the Lake and to create a new Round Table big enough for the entire world.

RABBIT/MOON
a play by Dwayne Blackaller and Matthew Cameron Clark
A love story set on the Moon, the most dangerous place anyone has ever been, challenging us to reconcile what we believe is real and what we believe to be impossible. More than 200,000 miles from home, NASA Commander Chandni Douglas has lost contact with earth just as one of her crew members, Will Lundon, has become stranded 45 miles from the spacecraft that was supposed to carry them all safely home. As the sun sets on their mission, and they are all plunged into the surreal lunar night, a paper forest rises from the dust and a trio of curious animals appears from the darkness to play out an ancient story — maybe the oldest story humans tell. A kind of fairytale that unfolds from the heart of a desolate, science fiction moonscape, Rabbit/Moon explores the liminal space between what we think and what we feel.

OROFINO
a play by Dwayne Blackaller
After the death of her ailing father, Carole Gorman finds a box of cryptic letters written to a woman she's never met. A woman who just may have the answers to her father's broken mind and the secret of what happened to Carole's mother over twenty years ago. To uncover the truth, Carole must to return to the place where it all started and confront the strange woman who lives alone the old house overlooking the flooded valley. A woman who just might be able to speak with the dead.

MAGGIE LUMIERE AND THE GHOST TRAIN
a play by Dwayne Blackaller and Tracy Sunderland
Maggie has always seen what others miss. She loves making movies, Charlie Chaplin’s walk, the way shadow gives way to light. She’s also deaf, but this has never stopped her. Determined to make a silent film masterpiece, Maggie and her intrepid posse of movie-making pals stumble upon a derelict train yard that seems like an ideal movie set. But their shoot in disrupted when they stumble upon a mysterious railroad car that contains a dangerous secret.

NARWHAL!
UNICORN OF THE SEA
a play by Dwayne Blackaller and Matthew Cameron Clark
Dr. Diana Richter is a marine biologist who has never left her island home: Terrified of depths the way some people have a fear of heights, she took correspondence courses to earn her Ph.D. After finding a message in a bottle from her Jacques Cousteau-esque grandfather with a clue to the location of the mysterious narwhal mating grounds, Richter joins the ditzy sailor Xander Oxley and the cantankerous Capt. Barnabas Crock,  aboard the aforementioned Lugubrious. Their path isn't easy; they must dodge Swedish scientific vessels, dive under Arctic ice, grudgingly accept the advice of Richter's mantis shrimp spirit guide and combat oxygen deprivation to reach the mysterious Horning Hollow.

THE UNCANNY VALLEY
a play by Dwayne Blackaller and Matthew Cameron Clark
In the spring of 2014 Dwayne Blackaller and Matthew Cameron Clark took audiences into the future to explore what it means to be human. Set in a place called the Longhouse, built as a rustic artists' retreat with a view of the Sawtooth Mountains, THE UNCANNY VALLEY featured Carie Kawa, Matthew Cameron Clark, Justin Ness, Tracy Sunderland and Stitch Marker as Stanley, the caretaker who may be less, and perhaps more, than human.

AIR HEART
a play for young audiences by Dwayne Blackaller
KA-CRASH! And with that, Sonny and Kate crash through the roof of an old farmhouse and into a dusty attic. Trapped. But when an old radio crackles to life with a distress call from halfway around the world and out of time, the kids find themselves embroiled in a a high flying mystery with a legendary aviator named Amelia. Together they learn that sometimes the only way out is up.

A NIGHTTIME SURVIVAL GUIDE
a play by Dwayne Blackaller and Matthew Cameron Clark
A boy in Arco, Idaho and a girl in Hokkaido, Japan become unlikely long distance friends.  She hates her new rural home and he's terrified of what comes out when the sun goes down.  They're united by a shared mystery:  What's happened to their fathers, and are they ever coming home?  It's a fantastic adventure of friendship, hope and imagination. And things that go bump in the night... 

R E / F R A C T I O N
a play by Dwayne Blackaller  
r e / f r a c t i o n  is the story of a man named Dexter whose life is about to change. When Dexter’s thumb goes numb, there’s only one person he can talk to: Chelsea, his strange and lonely dental hygienist.
r e / f r a c t i o n  dives into the mystery of symmetry, the complexities of identity, and the dividing line that runs through every human heart.

THE ACHERI  
an experiment in terror by Dwayne Blackaller and The Empty Boat Theatre Company
Welcome to Sunny Side Daycare where six adult strangers struggle to survive the impending apocalypse and the horror of what's waiting outside...

H.G. WELLS: 
THE SCIENCE OF FICTION
a play for young audiences by Dwayne Blackaller
Travel through time to witness H.G. Wells as a young man attempting to write about inventions, contraptions, doohikeys, and thing-a-ma-jigs. Encouraged by his best friend, Philby, H.G. Wells struggles to feel confident about his writing. In turn he encourages Philby to find her passion.  As glimpse the beginnings of famous novels such as The Invisible Man and The Time Machine, we discover a friendship and a bond strong enough to help shape the future.

THE COMET
a short play by Dwayne Blackaller
When everything you thought you knew shatters, what is left? In The Comet, a star-crossed lover looks to a pair of eccentric 16th century astronomers to rediscover the harmony of the worlds.

DESTINOPOLIS  
a play devised by the MFA Acting Students of The Ohio State University, 2009
A story about the neighbors you didn't know you had, Destinopolis is a glimpse at the refugee experience through a broken lens. At times intimate, at times silly, it's ultimately about the dream of a place home.

ACT-O-MATIC  
an original street-theater creation by Dwayne Blackaller
Originated at OSU Urban Arts Space, 2009,  the ACT-O-MATIC is ultimate vending machine. Drop in a token, pick a scene and BAM. Instant theatrical art. Originally conceived as a treatise on consumer art, the Act-O-Matic has become what it once railed against: a commercial cash cow. Decked out in 1960s teal white and gold splendor it is truly a thing to behold.

WILD STAGES  
a play devised by the MFA Acting Students of The Ohio State University, 2008

THE PHYSICS OF REGRET
Boise Contemporary Theater, 2006

(...dad...) 
BSU Hemingway Center, 2004