Christine Rose

After publishing 12 books and over two dozen short stories, Christine decided to try her hand at playwriting. Perhaps because she’s so loquacious, she’s found that she has a natural talent for dialogue and thoroughly enjoys writing plays!

She wrote her first play, Sanctuary, and her second play, Charming Charlie, during the 2024 London Playwrights’ (LPW) #WrAP challenge—basically NaNoWriMo for playwrights. They’re both highly political and socially relevant plays centering around US politics and the ubiquity of male violence.

Utilizing the skills of LPW’s talented dramaturg Kimberly Andrews, Christine revised and polished these plays in preparation for submissions and ultimately staging. In May 2024, she produced a “rehearsed reading” for Sanctuary, at which she entertained a full house and participated in thoughtful discussions afterward.

In November 2024, Sanctuary premiered at The Hope Theatre—an award winning Off-West End Fringe theatre in London—for a near-sold out one week run. Audiences loved it. Critics had mixed reviews, but overall the play’s impact shone through.

Charming Charlie is a full-length, near-future dystopian play about a dangerous politician that’s threatening US democracy. Two radically opposed groups fight in the streets in a new American civil war. Depending on the outcome of the 2024 US election, Charming Charlie (like Sanctuary) will either be a harrowing alternative history or a prophetic dystopian thriller in which US democracy is dead.

Additionally, Christine has written three other plays so far in 2024:

• A feature-length comedy called Invisible about a woman who wakes up on her 50th birthday to discover she’s invisible to the world
• The Clockwork Heart, a one-act play based on her O. M. Grey short story.
• A one-act play called Ten First Dates inspired by friends’ (as well as her own) experiences dating as a middle-aged woman.

Christine is quickly becoming a prolific playwright and is looking forward to having more of her work staged in London and beyond. She’s looking for collaborators to help bring these plays to life.