I am a member of the Dramatists Guild, New Play Exchange, and the Forge, the play development lab at Hudson Theatre Works in Weehawken. My family musical Pirates in the Gazebo! won a BMI Foundation Award for outstanding creative achievement. My plays have recently been featured on radio, YouTube, and Zoom and performed in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Washington State. Please use the contact link to learn about rights to perform my plays.
Selected Plays by Lenny Hort
Origin Story
Audio play exploring the powerful forces shaping the cosmos through the adventures of superhero Expanding Universe
Shoestring Radio Theatre (San Francisco), May 2024.
VetRep Theater (Cornwall, NY), September 7-28, 2024.
Mass Extinction Squad
Two rival detectives interview possible witnesses and suspects including the Asteroid Belt, the Chicxulub Crater, and the element Iridium as they try to solve the mystery of who or what bumped off the dinosaurs.
15 Minutes of Frame Playwriting Competition, Third Place (NYC); Texas A & M Youth Adventure Program, 2024.
Indigo
Why wasn’t Indigo notified about the latest board meeting of Rainbow, Incorporated? How can Violet break the news that her friend has been voted out of the rainbow?
Equity Library Theater of New York Summer 2023 Virtual and In Person Play Festival, NYPL 53rd Street Branch, Saturday, August 26, 2023.
(Shown: Alicia Whavers as Violet and Sara Parcesepe as Indigo)
A Little Something About My Powers
A retired teacher interviews to become a superhero.
Voted Best Play at Equity Library Theater of New York Summer Virtual Play Festival, 2022.
Dear Daughter Moon
Moon admires the lovely green on her mother’s surface, but how can she ever host life of her own? Presenting half a billion years of letters between two familiar characters trying to remain emotionally connected while maintaining a quarter million miles of social distance.
Equity Library Theater of New York Spring Virtual Play Festival; Irvington Theater Arts Incubator series on YouTube, 2023
Grave Offense
A boy disturbs the ghost of an angry teenage girl when he unwittingly urinates on her unmarked grave.
Hudson Theatre Works Halloween One-Acts Festival (Weehawken, NJ) October 30-31, 2022.
Memoriam Development Nightshade Festival (Elgin, IL), September 30-October 8, 2022.Village Playwrights Queer Scare (NYC), October 30, 2023.
Fresh Fruit Festival (NYC) Semifinals, March 2, 2024; Finals, May 5, 2024.
The Sphinx Speaks
Murderous monster or playful pussycat? The Sphinx shares her side of the Oedipus story.
Hudson Theatre Works 10-Minute Festival (Weehawken, NJ),
December 9 & 10, 2022.
(Shown: Amanda Marie Evans as the Sphinx. Photo by Chase Newhart.)
Julius C-SPAN
Is Rome ready for a woman war correspondent? The Ides of March are looking like a slow news day until Claudia Platina happens upon one of the biggest scoops ever.
Live: Shakespeare on the Sound Short New Play Festival (New Canaan, CT), October 2021.
Zoom performances:
Tiger’s Heart Players (NYC), February 2022.
Rainy Day Artistic Collective (Seattle), April 2022.
Chemistry Date
Dating show host Iona Bond tries to find the chemistry between Chlorine and Sodium.
AmaZing Theatre Wheaton 10-Minute Play Festival (Wheaton, MD), November 2021.
PlayZoomers Festival of Love and Laughter, June 2022
Forces of Nature
Nine short comedies in assorted genres present mostly female characters personifying chemical elements, celestial bodies, tectonic plates, and other scientific phenomena.
Rip Van Winkle
Suggested by the tale by Washington Irving
Washington Irving put the US on the literary map with “Rip,” the oldest American story still widely read. Lazy, good-natured, justifiably henpecked Rip passes out after drinking a ghostly brew and awakens to find his colonial world changed to the United States and his friends long gone. This adaptation asks what new wonders Rip might discover if he dozed for 250 years and woke in the 21st century. Rip often felt out of place in his own time. How will he find a place in ours?
The Ghost on Saturday Night
Based on the book by Sid Fleischman
Based on the popular book by the author of the Newbery Medal-winning The Whipping Boy, this madcap Wild West ghost story portrays a resourceful orphan’s transformation from outcast to hero. Nothing ever happens in Foggy Gulch until the mysterious Professor Pepper rides into town promising to raise the ghost of a long-dead outlaw—live on stage.
