In January/February of 2016 Marisa’s comedy, Mad Love, was the first new play produced at the brand new Northern Stage/Barrette Center in White River Junction, Vermont. Directed by Maggie Burrows. Mad Love was an O’Neill Playwright’s Conference semi-finalist and won Best Play (2012) from NH in Portland Stages’ (Maine) Clauder Competition and was developed and had readings at the Lark Play Development Center in NYC, The Dorset Theater Festival, The University of Delaware’s professional resident theater company (one-week workshop and reading) and at Dartmouth College and Urban Stages in NYC.
Marisa’s plays include Saving Kitty, winner of Best Play (2010) from NH in Portland Stages’ (Maine) Clauder Competition and premiered at Wellfleet Actors Harbor Theater in 2012, directed by Rand Forrester. In the summer of 2013 Saving Kitty was produced by New Jersey Rep in Long Branch, NJ and directed by Evan Bergman.
In July and August of 2015 Saving Kitty enjoyed an extended sold-out run at the Central Square Theater in Cambridge, Mass. It was produced by the Nora Theater Company, directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner, and starred Jennifer Coolidge in the leading role. Saving Kitty was developed at the Lark Play Development Center, The Dorset Theater Festival and had readings at the Hayworth Theater in LA (Wendy Malick in the lead), The Lark (Harriet Harris), Boston Playwrights Theater (Karen MacDonald) and at the Williamstown Theater Festival, with Jennifer Coolidge, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel (Hand to God.)
Marisa wrote her first play in 2005 (Book Group) and it was produced at the Eclipse Grange Theater in Thetford, Vermont. Her second play, The Divine Family Comedy, was a Lark Playwright’s Week finalist in 2007 and a semi-finalist in the Harriet Lake Festival of New Plays, 2007 and was produced at the Eclipse Grange.
Marisa’s 10-Minute plays have been produced in the Boston Marathon of 10- Minute Plays, Barrington Stage in NY and in other theaters in VT, NH, Florida, New York and Massachusetts. They include: The Dress Rehearsal, Getting into Vassar, The Pre-Nup, Polar Bear Swim, Day One, Welcome to the Beekman Arms and Total Expression (Heideman Award Finalist, Actors Theater of Louisville).
In 2014 Marisa penned her first film, Second Wind, shot in England, staring June Brown, Harriet Walter and Tamzin Merchant, an Andrew Silver Production. Marisa is an associate artist at the Lark Play Development Center and has participated in their Meeting of the Minds program and attended the Theresa Rebeck Writer’s Colony in Dorset, Vermont (sponsored by the Lark) every spring since 2007. She is an Artist in Residence at the Hermitage Artists Retreat on Manasota Key, Florida for 2015-17, a six-week residency opportunity that can be taken over the course of the next two years.
Marisa is the co-owner and Publisher of Smith and Kraus Publishers, the leading publisher in the US of theater books for the trade with over 600 titles in print. She is a graduate of Wesleyan University.
