Writing

Please contact at adam.b.oconnell@gmail.com for more information on these projects, as well as access to full scripts.

all light on earth comes from somewhere else

La Pucelle

Writer & Performer

Written for the 2021 season of the New York Renaissance Faire, KidsQuest is an interactive, magical, and ASL-based adventure with the fairies of Sterling Shire. They've been tasked with performing a play for Titania the Faerie Queen, there's just one problem - they are very terrible at remembering their lines. In this show, a talking liason for the fae assist the children in learning some ASL words and phrases in order to help the fairies remember their lines.

Writer

A project by The Wallpaper Company as part of Real/Time Interventions' Post Theatrical festival, all light on earth is a play told through mail that seeks to reclaim lost queer futures from the wake of scrubbed archives, burned evidence, fabricated ephemera, and rot. Adam's track, June, 1816, is told through the letters of Emmett Tendler, reaching out to the man he loves through territory lines, an abusive father, and a blizzarding winter in the middle of June. How do you stay warm in a year without a summer?

Writer and Director

Originally produced in conjunction with NYU's Experimental Theatre Wing, La Pucelle is a folk retelling of the final days of Joan of Arc as an allegory for coming out as transgender to your parents. A child soldier fights for her belief, a bishop fights for political gain, and three angels fight to save a life. The original production was slated for an April 2020 performance at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, but was unfortunately delayed to an undecided date due to the COVID-19 crisis.

The Songs That Saved Your Life

The Last Days of James Dean

Writer, Director, and Performer

The Songs That Saved Your Life is an anthology play following the stories of various queer characters in 1987. The piece discusses the perilous path of teenage self-discovery, queer iconography and representation in music, and the devastating effects of the AIDS crisis. A selection from this play, entitled "The World Won't Listen", was produced in May 2018 at NYU's Experimental Theatre Wing, starring Adam O'Connell and Devin Wright.

Writer

The Last Days of James Dean is a historical fiction play loosely based off of the accounts in Don Graham's book Giant. The story follows the final days on set of Giant (1956) starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean, mere weeks before Dean's death. On set, Rock and Elizabeth place a bet to see who can sleep with James first. What follows is a discussion of what we are and aren't remembered for.