Jamie Gore Pawlik writes dark comedies about women behaving badly and the systems that taught them how. Her plays live at the intersection of absurdity and psychological realism, using humor to explore rage, power, ambition, grief, gender, and the uncomfortable things people do in search of love and belonging.
PLAYS
Ellie has a problem: she eats men. After devouring one of the men who sexually assaulted her fails to bring the relief she thought it would, she reluctantly joins I EAT BOYS Recovery: a church-basement support group where women attempt to curb their appetites with fellowship, a sacred Cookbook, and twelve steps. But when the group’s Chairwoman disappears and its newest leader becomes determined to save everyone, the women begin to wonder whether healing comes from following the recipe or throwing the whole damn book into the fire. I EAT BOYS is a dark comedy about sexual trauma, female rage, recovery, friendship, and what happens when there is no cure or justice for pain.
Rebecca thinks she’s been hired to make a feminist reality show. Then the network gets involved. Inside a Hollywood writers’ room, a comedian, two producers, and an overeager male assistant are tasked with creating television that is bold, progressive, female-forward, and, most importantly, profitable. When an idea about women reclaiming power in the sex industry is transformed into a competition where female content creators vie for subscribers and a million-dollar prize, the women begin to question exactly what they’re willing to put their names on. As corporate pressure mounts, principles become negotiable, feminism becomes a brand, and the seemingly harmless man in the room discovers just how much power there is in saying exactly what everyone wants to hear. girlbo$s is a dark workplace comedy about ambition, exploitation, performative feminism, and the uncomfortable question of how much of yourself you’re willing to sell in order to get a seat at the table.
SHORT PLAYS
A grieving woman walks into a dominatrix’s dungeon looking to be "useful." What she finds instead is Leah—a professional dominatrix whose commanding exterior conceals a private struggle with germaphobia and control. As their unconventional session unfolds, the carefully negotiated roles of dominant and submissive begin to break down, and the two women find themselves navigating something neither expected. Aftercare is a dark comedy about grief, control, vulnerability, and the strange ways we ask other people to help us carry pain we don’t know what to do with.
It’s 2053, and keeping someone cool can be a federal crime. In the aftermath of climate catastrophe, former nurse Carmen secretly runs unauthorized cooling equipment from her home to keep critically ill patients alive. When Jesus, a teenage missionary for a church working alongside the government’s Thermal Response Bureau, discovers what she’s hiding, he is supposed to turn her in. Instead, an unexpected connection....and a shared love of Lady Gaga.... forces him to question the institutions that have taught him the difference between right and wrong. Just Dance is a darkly comic dystopian play about faith, shame, climate collapse, and the small, stubborn acts of joy that become radical when a system demands obedience.
Jeanette has a pest problem. At least, that’s what she keeps telling the exterminator. Four years after the death of her husband, Richard, Jeanette lives alone in their New York apartment. Despite her husband's absence, she still cooks him dinner, pours his wine, and carries on their conversations as if he never left. When a handsome young exterminator named Curtis begins making increasingly frequent visits to investigate a pest problem he can find no evidence of, Jeanette discovers a reason to keep calling him back. But as Curtis begins to suspect what’s really bringing him to her door, Jeanette is forced to confront the difference between keeping someone close and refusing to let them go.
