"The Misfortune Teller" (One-Act Link)

Strange to see a non-Oscars/movie related post on this site, I know, but I've been sitting on this thing for a couple weeks and thought it might be a good idea to share it. Below is a link to The Misfortune Teller, a 34-page one-act play I wrote for a college playwriting course this past semester. Though I don't have much intention to publish it, I'm proud of it and enjoy how it turned out, so I thought I'd share it online for everybody. This is the first piece of writing approaching formality that I've posted publicly before, so if there are better ways of sharing these things that you know of, feel free to tell me and I'll heed your words for future works. I'll talk about what it's about and all that jazz below.


Click here to read it.


The Misfortune Teller (working title) is a one-act play with five scenes and four characters. It's centered on Nathan and Martha, a couple in their twenties who are planning a big move to Atlanta after Nathan and their roommate Ben get a job offer there, a plan which is derailed when Martha's mother Donna, a self-avowed psychic, predicts that the trip to Atlanta will spell disaster for their relationship. Martha grows weary after hearing this, but Nathan is unconvinced, and believes Donna to be a fraud.

For this play, I wanted to explore how people reconcile differing beliefs in relationships, and was inspired by my generation's curious embrace of various informal "mystic" belief systems - astrology, mediums, psychics, chakras, etc. As someone who doesn't believe in those things, I wanted to try my best to not make any one character the hero or villain. I didn't want Nathan to be "the smart one", or for Martha to be unreasonable or for Donna to be a clear huckster. My goal was to present these characters as they were, and let the audience judge them based on their own experiences and beliefs. Whether or not I've succeeded in doing that is up to you, I guess.

I'm not actively pursuing a career in playwriting, but I enjoy all forms of writing and would like to write a play again sometime. This is a second draft (actually more like third or fourth, but the second complete draft after a wave of changes), so there are some errors here and there. I'm considering coming back to this work and maybe trying to revise it again, but not for a long while. For now, I'd like it to just exist and be out there and I welcome any feedback and constructive criticism you'd be willing to give me on the writing and content.

I hope you enjoy, and thank you to anyone who takes the time to read the whole thing.
(PS - My December predictions for the technical Oscar categories will be up in a few days, if you were wondering)