Nikki Harmon
Nikki Harmon’s plays range from Theatre for Young Audiences to Murder Mysteries to Social/Political Satire and have been produced in China, Australia, Singapore, India, Thailand, Romania, the Channel Islands, South Africa, and throughout the U.S. and Canada. She’s been a Finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and three times chosen for the University of Central Missouri’s National Theatre for Young Audiences Competition. Her play “Snowflake’s Story” was read at the Kennedy Center as part of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education Project. Along with her writing, she’s also an artist and worked for many years as a stage manager, lighting designer and as a TV Location Casting Director. To fill her Bucket List, she’s volunteered on digs in Thailand, Peru and Arizona, on wildlife conservancies in Kenya with the Grévy’s zebras and Namibia with cheetahs, in D.C. Illustrating mole beetles for the Smithsonian, and in Italy at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma with 2nd century Herbals (books illustrated by monks). Nikki studied at the Sorbonne, the Université de Montpellier, Institut Britannique; Carnegie Institute of Technology, University of Miami, Pasadena Playhouse of Theatre Arts, and is a long-time member of Actors Equity and the Dramatists Guild. https://www.nikkiharmon.com/ (Pictured: Nikki with a rescued giraffe on an Earthwatch Project at Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, in Kenya.)
A Tale of Bravery of a Zebra, a Lioness and a Very, Very Small Bird New Release
Children by Nikki Harmon
44 pages
3 m, 5 f, 5 flexible, many extras
An optimistic and friendly Grévy’s zebra sees a reward poster for a rhino horn nailed to an acacia tree. She quickly hatches a plan and convinces a feared lioness and a hesitant, red-billed oxpecker to sneak out of the wildlife conservancy and save the endangered black rhinos. Soon these three endangered species and unlikely friends head into the perilous bush, which is filled with poachers hiding behind every tree. With the help of the lioness’ old friend, a puff adder and her snakelets, they save not only a herd of rhinos but a tigoni reed frog, a mama elep...
Day the Cow-Dreamer Ran Away and Other Tales of Wonder
Fantasy by Nikki Harmon
41 pages
1 m, 1 w, 3 flexible
Here is a troika of short, story-theatre plays that will take you on three very unusual journeys. First stop is a town where the cow-dreamer ran away... and we all know that without someone to dream cows there simply are no cows. Then we travel to a farm where the devil comes to call every day at noon. Only the dog knows who he is, and it's up to her to save the farmer and his wife. Finally, we visit a marsh and find out what happens when the Sun gets so curious about the Earth that she comes down to see what it's like for herself. Because the narration fills...
New York Stories
Adaptation by Nikki Harmon
62 pages
Flexible cast minimum 4 (3 m, 1 w) maximum 37 (28 m, 9 w)
Here are ten short views of turn-of-the-century New York through the eyes of O. Henry, the master of the twist ending and chronicler of everyday people from young shop girls with enormous dreams to the ne'er-do-wells with plans for the easy life. Among the people you'll come to know and almost love are: three of the dingiest and laziest musketeers you've ever seen, plotting to relieve a hard-working wife of a whole dollar she earned scrubbing clothes; a young gentleman with a sudden insurmountable problem in giving away a "mere one-thousand-dollar" inheritanc...
Murder in the 1st Person Singular
Comedy Mystery by Nikki Harmon
54 pages
5 m (one non-speaking), 3 w
It's a chilly, rainy night at the Stonebridge School for Proper Young Ladies as the English teacher, the home ec. teacher, the athletic coach, the butler, the head of the alumnae and a mafia hit man break into the dean's study to kill him. The trouble is they each find him already very dead with a noose around his neck, two suicide notes in his pocket and a Japanese ceremonial dagger in his back. Now it's Detective Bliss' job to find out who did what, with what, when, and why. Meanwhile, the suspects are trying to bump each other off. And who is that mysterio...
Coat...and its Curious Travels
Comedy by Nikki Harmon
68 pages
3 m, 1 w, 5 flex; total of 9 with doubling, 42 w/o doubling
Ever forced to wait and wait…and wait? Want to scream at nonsensical bureaucracy? Then you’ll sympathize with Mr. Poosch who, after he accidentally leaves his well-made coat in the country to the North, finds tremendous hurdles when he attempts to get it back. First, he cannot obtain the right paperwork to travel, and then, when he finally arrives, it is Sunday and the country is closed on Sundays. A homeless man finds the coat and finds his luck turns around while wearing it. Meanwhile, poor Mr. Poosch finds himself broke, hungry, and laboring in the street....