Molly Hersage

Stage Plays:

	Touch the Face of God, 2006, co-authored by Nancy Hersage Two American families are each living in a self-created hell. At the heart of both struggles are two teenage children and the parents who can’t understand them. A foolish car accident leaves one child unreachable and the other haunted by what happened. Everyone, it seems, is paralyzed by fear of the truth and the inability to move on. Then, slowly, a metaphysical light begins to dawn, illuminating a way out of the darkness. Not everyone can see it. But for those who do, there is the promise of love - and the extraordinary experience of human forgiveness.
	The Perfect Endgame, 2005, co-authored by Nancy Hersage This play follows the moves of modern-day Londoners as they cope with their cultural, ethnic and religious identities. And it makes sense that life and living are so bloody hard in a city bubbling over with post-colonial and post-9/11 tension. Everyone is on edge, including the country’s fear-mongering Prime Minister and his intelligence agents; the aging Palestinian owners of a chip shop and son; the Bosnian-born mullah terrorist and his Muslim protégés; the Israeli arms smuggler and his wife and daughter; the Romanian doctor and his lover the intelligence agent; a young Jordanian woman and her live-in Muslim boyfriend; and a young Iranian arrested by mistake. But here’s the point: In what seem like vastly different lives, there are remarkably few degrees of separation between these characters. As the play moves forward, the players converge, as in a chess game, each acting out his or her individual endgame. Each is motivated by the same force. Fear. Fear of others - and fear of themselves. And fear will take them places they never dreamed of.
	Learning to Love, 1995 Set at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1990’s, this story chronicles the lives of seven people all seemingly disconnected who have more in common than they think. Matt, a successful lawyer, cannot comes to terms with the fact that his lover and law partner Chris is dying of AIDS. Rachel, an aspiring attorney, becomes so immersed in helping her client, thirteen-year-old Savannah, free herself from her abusive parents, she can’t see she is losing her relationship with Carl, her devoted boyfriend. Savannah’s parents, who have never known love in their own relationship, use their daughter as a pawn to create distance, anger and violence between them. Each of these relationships tells the story of individuals desperate to connect but who are too ashamed, too afraid or too unaware to love when it appears to them. In the end, each must choose to change or watch as their worlds are turned upside down.
	And Mama Do You Love Me, 1994 A teenage girl tries to encourage her mom to break out of an abusive relationship with her new husband. When it is clear her mother cannot let go, the girl decides to take matters into her own hands.

Screenplays (co-authored with Nancy Hersage):

Spencer on the Loose, 2005
A family comedy about a rebellious 10-year-old who escapes from his paranoid parents’ high tech security system to take a job as the long-lost son of an aging rock star.

Double Cross Dressers, 2005
A comedy about two New Jersey losers who pose as cosmetic sales ladies to launch a career as jewel thieves.

Bodies of Knowledge, 2004
A comedy about three strippers who teach in a private boys’ school.