NOCA Artist -Michele Markarian

Michele Markarian

Michele Markarian first started writing for performance in seventh grade. An actor, Michele needed to write herself something funny to perform. She has been writing ever since. She has written and performed political satire, social satire and sketch comedy for about 25 years for various groups in and around Boston, including the Newbury Street Theater, Common/Wealth Theater Collaborative and the Tony V Christmas Show. Michele has acted in her own plays in Boston and New York, and can sometimes be seen reading aloud from her high school journals as part of Mortified Boston.

Michele has written prose and articles for Wising Up Press, Mom’s Literary Magazine and The Air Charter Journal. Her short plays have been published by Dramatic Publishing and Heuer Publishing, and have been produced throughout the United States and Great Britain. Her play Old Friends was a 2006 Heideman Award Finalist. Michele is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Here is an excerpt from her latest work in progress, a play called “The Dedoption”, which focuses on a divorcing celebrity couple, Tom and CoCo, and their exit interview with an agency that promises to take back their adopted children with little fuss:

MRS. BRADY
What was that, Tom? You don’t feel like a father?

TOM
Well, I mean, I feel like I can act like a father – CoCo’s right, having these kids, being photographed with them, definitely made me feel more in tune with the idea of being a father, you know?

MRS. BRADY
Tell me more.

TOM
It’s just – I can picture myself with kids because I have kids. Sometimes it makes the whole fatherhood thing seem so real. So immediate. Visceral.

MRS. BRADY
Yes, but –

TOM
I think that’s the real reason Tim’s considering me for Red Moon at Dawn, and I don’t give a damn what you think, CoCo. He reads the trade mags. He’s seen me photographed at Lakers games with the kids.

MRS. BRADY
Is Red Moon –

TOM
It’s the story of a man whose son is artistic. He’s six. The man is having a hard time reaching him; I assume it’s because he’s not an artist himself but more of a he-man type.

SYLVIE
He’s not artistic.

MAN
That’s what I just said, uh, you. Babysitter. He’s a he-man type.

SYLVIE
I mean the son. He’s not artistic. He’s autistic.

TOM
What are you, from New York or something?

COCO
How would you know this, Sylvie? Did Jay talk about this with you? That is so – inappropriate.

SYLVIE
I read the book.

TOM
You read the book.

COCO
How could you have read the book? The film hasn’t even been produced yet.

TOM
Autistic?

COCO
Yeah, it’s, um –

TOM
Is that a different nationality? Is the son adopted from a different culture? Because then I would really have a leg up.

SYLVIE
Yeah, he’s from Autistica.