Elsie C. Hanson

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Elsie C. Hanson
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Born1986
Salt Lake City
NationalityAmerican
Occupation
  • Playwright
  • Novelist
  • Theater Producer
  • Director
  • Actor

Elise C. Hanson is an American playwright.[1], novelist, theater producer, director, and actor[2]

Biography

Hanson was born in Salt Lake City in 1986 and attended Adelaide Elementary School, where she got her first experience as an actor[3] and creative writer. Encouraged to pursue writing competitions by teachers, she participated in and won a number of Utah PTA Reflections Contests[4] through elementary and junior high school.

She continued acting and writing through her school years and became a director and producer at age sixteen.

Career

In 2014 her plays Extra and A Powdery Pressure Cooker were produced by Wasatch Theatre Company[5]. She was recognized as a top five finalist in the David Ross Fetzer Foundation for Emerging Artists[6] in 2015 for her play To Wit[7], and in the same year, her play Dadgummit was accepted and produced by the Bupkis Play Festival[8]. She has been awarded for her work at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival[9], earning awards for Best in Fringe in 2018, 2020, and 2021. Her plays have been performed largely in the Western United States. In 2020, she published three novels under the pen name Wallace Robin Hanson, all of them part of her Tales of Avalon: Chronicles of a Forgotten Land series.

In 2015 she joined the board of New World Shakespeare Company[10], a charitable theatrical society dedicated to classical works. In 2017 she founded Kallisti Theatre Company[11][12], an independent theatre company which specializes in original theater by local playwrights and bespoke productions written for the talent specific to the region or known by the playwright. She runs an online journal and podcast called Utah Theatre Chat, and in 2023 she founded the Utah Grassroots Theatre Collaborative, an organization committed to bringing the performance artists of the Wasatch Front together for the purpose of helping one another succeed at the craft they commonly pursue.

Plays

The Secret Son of Hitler

Hanson’s first award-winning piece was a farcical satire entitled The Secret Son of Hitler. The play saw its world premiere at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival (an extension of the original fringe festival in Edinburgh) in 2018[13] and then later was revised with the original cast in an extended version in 2022[14]. The script lampoons themes such as nationalism, birthright, the cult of identity, and the sociopolitical attitudes of the Cold War Era and beyond.

The Open Syrup

In 2018, upon viewing The Secret Son of Hitler, Jim Martin of Wasatch Theater Company commissioned Hanson to write a serial play in the style of a television sitcom but meant for the stage. Each “episode” would serve as a stand-alone play, but the series would have a running theme and In-joke|inside jokes that loyal fans could enjoy. The result was a serial play[15] about a hotel called The Open Syrup, in which a harried hotel manager named Rhonda Saint-Cuthbert must put up with the shenanigans of her hopeless superintendent Bradley Burgoyne along with a litany of stranger and stranger guests, some of whom include an incensed violinist, a butter-loving vampire, an aspiring mad scientist, a gaggle of ghosts, a politician, and a rat king. Each episode explores a different genre such as ghost story, time travel, or zombie attack, and each gets more absurd as the series goes on. A second season was requested by actors and audiences after the run of season one ended in 2022. The play series is ongoing and well-received[16].

To Wit

The finalist for the 2015 David Ross Fetzer Foundation To Wit was Hanson’s exploration of existentialist themes through a classical lens. In the play, a support group made up of Shakespearean characters led by Horatio discuss the nuances of surviving tragedy versus not quite surviving it. The play was produced in 2021 in The Box[17], a black box theater inside the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City.

My Gay Baptism

Hanson won her second award for playwriting for her submission to the Great Salt Lake Festival in 2020, My Gay Baptism[18]. This surrealist piece traverses through ideas of conversion, adopting new ideals, and transforming into a construct of what one may think is better than what one currently is.

Three Drag Queens Defuse a Bomb at a Talk Show

The third and fourth awards Hanson received from The Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival went to her 2021 submission, Three Drag Queens Defuse a Bomb at a Talk Show[19], which garnered best of fringe and highest-attended production. The show and the drag queen characters were so popular that, after the fringe festival ended, audiences demanded another production, which was performed unauthorized and guerilla-style in a secret event only for invited guests.

Kill Claudio!

In 2023, Hanson penned a “sort-of sequel” to Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, an absurdist black comedy called Kill Claudio!. The world premiere[20] was held in the Utah Arts Alliance Black Box Theater and was lauded by critics[21]. The piece features nine of the key characters from Much Ado About Nothing, each representing not only the character themes from Shakespeare’s romantic comedy, but a faction of humanity rooted in absurdist philosophy but grounded in human realism.

Other Works

Full-length plays

  • Extra (2014)
  • To Wit (2015)
  • Float (2017)
  • The Secret Son of Hitler (2018)
  • The Open Syrup: The Bride Wore Smack (2019)
  • The Open Syrup: Birdy and Batty (2019)
  • The Open Syrup: The Ghosts and Ms. Saint-Cuthbert (2019)
  • Native Vulgarity (2020)
  • Uninhabitable[22] (extended - 2021)
  • Three Drag Queens Defuse a Bomb at a Talk Show (2021)
  • The Open Syrup: Time Wasted (2022)
  • The Open Syrup: The Musical! (2022)
  • The Open Syrup: Zombie Consequences (2022)
  • The Secret Son of Hitler (extended - 2022)
  • The Messrs. Gyre and Gimble: Provocateurs of Pizzazz (2023)
  • Kill Claudio! (2023)

Short plays

  • Prudence and Birdseed (2003)
  • Sour Grapes (2003)
  • The Traveler (2003)
  • Halloween Spectacular! Spectacular! (2008)
  • A Powdery Pressure Cooker (2014)
  • Dadgummit (2015)
  • Uninhabitable (2020)
  • The Open Syrup: Quarantine Confessions (2020)
  • My Gay Baptism (2020)
  • Insensitive Compassion (2020)
  • Six Faces (2022)
  • Dames and the Giant Turnip (2023)

Novels

  • Elowyn of Avalon
  • The Floating City
  • Albus Unus

References

  1. ↑ "Elise Hanson | New Play Exchange". newplayexchange.org. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  2. ↑ "Elise Hanson | Make-Up Department, Costume and Wardrobe Department, Actress". IMDb. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  3. ↑ Reviewers, Front Row (2015-02-15). "Hamlet in Salt Lake is Stupendous!". Front Row Reviewers. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  4. ↑ "UtahPTA.org". UtahPTA.org. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  5. ↑ "Home". Wasatch Theatre Company. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  6. ↑ "Davey Foundation". daveyfilm.org. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  7. ↑ Reviewers, Front Row (2021-08-23). "At Salt Lake City's The Box, New World Shakespeare Company's To Wit Is A Stunning Surprise". Front Row Reviewers. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  8. ↑ Staff, City Weekly. "Essentials: Entertainment Picks May 14-20". Salt Lake City Weekly. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  9. ↑ "Great Salt Lake Fringe". Great Salt Lake Fringe. 2023-08-02. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  10. ↑ "New World Shakespeare Company in Salt Lake City, Utah, Theater,". New World Shakespeare Company. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  11. ↑ "Kallisti Theatre Company - Home". www.onthestage.tickets. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  12. ↑ Kallisti Theatre Company talks Angels in America, retrieved 2023-10-26
  13. ↑ Reviewers, Front Row (2018-08-06). "It's 1945 and The Secret Son of Hitler Tosses in a Few Grenades at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival". Front Row Reviewers. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  14. ↑ Reviewers, Front Row (2022-06-21). "Kallisti Theater Company's The Secret Son of Hitler is a Quirky, Satirical, Laugh-filled Lampoon". Front Row Reviewers. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  15. ↑ Gurr, Tori Fawson (2020-02-06). "Theatre Thursday: The Open Syrup at The Box in the Gateway | Utah Theatre Bloggers". Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  16. ↑ Reviewers, Front Row (2022-03-26). "The Open Syrup at The Box Theatre in Salt Lake City is a Surrealist Journey of Misdirection". Front Row Reviewers. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  17. ↑ The Box at Gateway is Closing, retrieved 2023-10-26
  18. ↑ Reviewers, Front Row (2020-08-07). "My Gay Baptism! is a Showering of Fun at Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival". Front Row Reviewers. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  19. ↑ "3 Drag Queens Defuse A Bomb At A Talk Show". Great Salt Lake Fringe. 2021-06-21. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  20. ↑ "Kill Claudio! to open Friday, July 7". ABC4 Utah. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  21. ↑ Reviewers, Front Row (2023-07-07). "At The Utah Arts Alliance Black Box in Salt Lake City, The World Premiere of Kill Claudio! Presents a Rollicking and Riveting Modern Classic". Front Row Reviewers. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  22. ↑ Reviewers, Front Row (2020-01-06). "The Box's Black and White Gala in Salt Lake was a Fun, Colorful Evening for a Good Cause". Front Row Reviewers. Retrieved 2023-10-26.

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