Poster: Remy Fink and Zija Lubin-West
.
Observant
by Pamela Weiler Grayson
​
Three generations of women in a family confront their relationships to their Jewish identities, and to each other, when a 2019 mass temple shooting rocks their suburban New York community. Comedy and tragedy entwine, as family members grapple with what it means to be a Jewish American.​
​
OBSERVANT is the recipient of a 2024 grant from the New York State Council on the Arts and a Semi-Finalist in the Jewish Plays Project’s 12th National Jewish Playwriting Competition. Click here for article.​
​
The play had a sold-out, 9-show run in September, 2024, at The Chain Theatre (NYC), headlining Emerging Artists Theatre’s Fall Spark Theatre Festival (director, Shellen Lubin).
​
Observant had a reading at the Sarasota Jewish Theatre as part of the Newish Jewish Plays Series (July 2025).
​​
“Despite the deadly serious content and theme of Grayson’s play, the sharp script is also blisteringly funny at times, replete with the dry incisive wit so deeply characteristic of the Jewish American experience. ... This humorous undercurrent speaks to the strong sensibility and nuance which guides Grayson’s script; there is room for all of the complexity and complication and joy and sorrow of life in these words and in these collectively fine performances.” – Thinking Theatre Review
“A thoughtful and engaging play…eye-opening and compelling. I think both Jewish and non-Jewish audience members will enjoy and respond to this well-written and important play.” – Hi! Drama
​
“It is extremely timely. It is also thoughtful and well-written. It makes you think of what it really means to be tolerant and accepting of others even within your family. If we can't even achieve that, how are we ever going to achieve tolerance and acceptance on a grander scale.” – Says She, Says Mom
"It’s a really beautiful play. Funny, poignant, heartfelt and so timely, dealing with the growing antisemitism in our country.” – Magee Hickey of PIX11 (CW local t.v news station)
“Pamela Weiler Grayson's new play is worth seeing for its examination of the issue of being Jewish.”
– Theatre Scene
"Does a good job of maintaining an even-handed approach to antisemitism and racism ... And unfortunately, the topic is timely in today’s atmosphere. This is an effective and refreshing way to broach the subject.” – Electric Link Journal
The Sustain
Book and Lyrics by Pamela Weiler Grayson and
Alice Jankell
Music by Aaron Drescher
Currently in development
The Sustain is an intimate musical about love, sex, and friendship in an assisted living facility. With an indie rock score, The Sustain reveals the individual desires, fears and stories of the often invisible elderly.
​
The Sustain had a developmental workshop in NYC at The Sargent Theatre (September 2025), produced by Theatre Now New York.
The show was a 2021 O’Neill National Music Theater Conference Semifinalist.
Burning Down the House
by Pamela Weiler Grayson
​
This full-length play explores what happens when your 51 year-old husband’s Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease forces you to re-examine everything you thought you believed about commitment and love. This play has 5 characters that can be played by actors of any ethnicity.
.
Poster: Eric Kilpatrick
.
Urban Momfare
Book by Pamela Weiler Grayson and Alice Jankell
Music and Lyrics by Pamela Weiler Grayson
Urban Momfare is a funny, irreverent, and sometimes heartbreaking romp through motherhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It follows the friendship of three mothers as they navigate 17 years of child rearing, from “Mommy & Me” to college applications.
​
Urban Momfare won a Best Musical award in the 2014 New York International Fringe Festival, was extended into the Fringe Encore Series, and was a 4-Star, Time Out Critics Pick.
A Comfortable Life
by Pamela Weiler Grayson
A Comfortable Life is a full-length, 6-actor play (2 women, 4 men). It is set in a New England boarding school town (unit set) and explores money and class in the shifting terrain of 21st century America.
“Blue Ribbon Award” as one of the top three plays in an international playwriting contest.
Staged readings done at Arts on the Lake in Kent, N.Y and as part of Southwest Theatre Production’s Rising Artists Series, Austin, Texas.
Whose Plot is This?
by Pamela Weiler Grayson
This 10-minute comedy (cast of 4 women, 1 man) considers what might happen in the afterlife, when a man has led a very “full” life.
Finalist in Avalonia 7 Theater Festival — Best Comedic 10 Minute Play
Called “funny, funny, funny” by nohoartsdistrict.com, the play was produced as part of “Nine Winning One Acts” at the Group Rep/Lonny Chapman theatre in North Hollywood, CA., and was selected to be part of the Central PA Theatre & Dance Fest Playwriting Competition with a reading in June, 2019.
The Club
by Pamela Weiler Grayson
In this dark comedy, how far will a formerly successful, middle-aged white cis male playwright go to be considered a “fresh, new voice?” The play has 9 actors playing 16 parts.
Winners of 2020 Lake Tahoe Word Wave Playwriting Competition
Part of Emerging Artists Theatre’s New Work Series on October 17, 2019.
Burning Up!
Directed by Mark Phillip Lichtenstein
Produced by Zoe Samuel
Written by Pamela Weiler Grayson and Rick Bassett
Lyrics by Pamela Weiler Grayson
Music by Rick Bassett
Cast: Lori Hammel, James Sasser, Sara Jayne Blackmore, and Evan Siegel
This short musical film is based on a 10-minute musical written in the BMI Workshop. The film is about a married couple who both get sick on the same day, and a younger “couple” who fall in and out of love in less than 15 minutes.
Wine and Squeeze
by Pamela Weiler Grayson
In this 10-minute play (all-female cast of 4), set in a mammography waiting room unlike any other, three women bond over this shared female purgatory.
​​
This play was featured in the virtual Orange County Ten Minute Play Festival in August 2020, and in October 2020 had a live-streamed production at the Group Rep/Lonny Chapman Theatre in North Hollywood, California. A live production with an audience is planned for when theatres re-open.
