“Sage Martin is a young writer with a whiskey voice and an enormous, quivering heart. One to watch.”
Vince Gatton, Actor/writer
Fatness, Queerness, poverty, Kentucky, mental illness, addiction, loss, try-not-to-piss-your-pants-laughing-at-1-AM-while-the-foster-baby-sleeps visits with family, fighting, giving up, and always trying again. I write what I’ve lived, survived, and witnessed. Most of my pieces are love letters to the South, to the mountains, and to the heat I was raised in and under. I have a passion for horror on stage and use it to tell stories of intergenerational trauma, justice, and often ignored acts of violence marginalized people face. I call this “human horror”- When doctors ignore fat people’s health concerns due to size. When women’s hurt is silenced. When Queer people are forced to remain invisible. When men abuse power. When the rich won’t fucking stop hoarding everything from dollars to land to literal water. These things haunt me. They are horrific and deserve to be presented as such. I use fear to gut real-life events for audience consumption. And when I need a breath away from this, I lean into comedy. Mrs. Arnett, my seventh-grade English teacher, once told me, “the funniest people are often the most seasoned by life.” My name is literally a delicious herb. Take from that what you will.
Currently writing MINE, a full-length horror play about grief, justice, and the true cost of coal in Appalachia. This piece is part of the Cycle of Poverty Playwriting Fellowship with Lower Depth Theatre (LA, CA). A live reading of the script will be held in February 2023.
Plays
Ghosts Like Us (Full length, horror)
Ghosts Like Us is a collection of eerie and haunting tales based on Kentucky folklore and covers the cursed witches tree in downtown Louisville, Waverly Hills Sanatorium, a retelling of the infamous Goatman legend, and many more.
Wrought (One act, horror/surreal drama)
Grief is forever odd and unpredictable. Loss has the ability to bend human existence. To warp our minds. Time. Reid is trapped in the past after finding his boyfriend’s body following an overdose.
Semi-finalist for The Alpine Fellowship in Playwrighting
Miss Moonlite BBQ Pageant (Full length, dramedy)
The Miss Moonlite BBQ Pageant is half beauty pageant, half barbecue cook-off. The pastor’s wife has a suspicious 4 year winning streak but when Marnie arrives in town after the sudden death of her mother, everything changes. Marnie and her estranged grandfather William are forced to face their fractured family history the only way they know how- homemade barbecue. The town doesn’t take kindly to new competitors but Marnie has nothing to lose… May the best dish win.
Second Rounder, Austin Film Festival Playwriting Competition 2021
Finalist, Roots of the Bluegrass Festival
“If The Miss Firecracker Contest and The Secret Garden had a baby in the holler… Miss Moonlite is a tale of loss, healing, and BBQ concoctions.”
Review, NPX
Aunt T’s Resting Place (10-15 minute radio play, horror)
A road-tripping couple in search of directions wanders into a diner in the backwoods of Kentucky. An old woman offers them advice, a hot meal, and the tale of a local urban legend that they can’t quite shake… Based on Kentucky folklore.
Such A Pretty Face (Full length, mold-breaking comedy/spoken word)
Holly is fat. Her boyfriend Gabe is not. Despite Gabe’s adamance that her weight doesn’t bother him, Holly’s best friends Dan and Renee are skeptical. Such A Pretty Face dissects the realities of “dating while fat” and looks at body image, relationships, and identity. Combines spoken word and physical storytelling with traditional dialogue.
*2019-2020 In-Progress New Play Reading Series at Unicorn Theatre, Semifinalist
“Such A Pretty Face is that totally honest, hilarious, real-as-hell fat anthem we’ve been waiting and begging for. It’s here. And it’s magic.”
Wayne Rawley, Artistic Director
DIS/CONNECT (10-15 minutes, modern tragedy)
After a “no strings attached” personals ad brings Andy and Robyn together for an evening of anonymous sex, the pair realizes there is no reason to keep secrets from complete strangers. One is hiding their past, the other is hiding their future. The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Finalist, Carlo Annoni Playwrighting Prize, 2021
Semi-Finalist, MUSEUM OF DYSFUNCTION XII, Mildred’s Umbrella Theater Company, 2020
37.5687° N, 84.2963° W (Or, More Easily Pronounced, Berea: a play) (Short solo piece, surrealistic)
Recalling the path from grief to peace, Atlas shares what “home” means now that Mom is gone. What if we’re all just searching for the cloth we were cut from a few short moments before we were born?
Fibonacci’s Afternoon In The Garden (1-page play, comedy)
Fibonacci notices something strange about flower petals during an afternoon in the garden.
Visit NPX for rights, reviews, and script downloads.
Screenplays
The Trials and Errors of Suzette Le’Ago and The Downstairs Neighbor (or Half Magic)
(Short film, available on youtube)
Friendly and clumsy witch Suzette Le’Ago isn’t great at hocus-pocus. When she accidentally zaps her downstairs neighbor with her magic wand, she has to find a way to undo the spell put on him… But how?
*2nd place for Best Film and Community Filmmaker Excellence Award at The Chocolate City International Short Film Festival.
*Shown at drive-in theaters summer and fall of 2016 and 2017 in KY, IN, and TN.
*Official selection/screenings at Torremolinos International Fantastic Film Festival (Spain), The Virginia Independent Horror Film Festival (VA), Hollyshorts Film Festival (LA), Fake Flesh Film Fest 2016 (British Columbia, Canada), The Global Short Film Fest 2016 (NYC), Alhambra Theatre Festival (IN), Grand IndieWise Films, Premio Tortoreto alla Cultura 2016 (Italy), Premios Latino 2016 (Spain), ScareLA (LA), IndustryBOOST, Visionaria International Film Festival (Italy), UPIKE Film Fest (KY), Post Mortem (Mexico).
Fortune Nately
(Short, unproduced)
When Nate’s fortune cookie leaves him with a clue rather than a fortune he is sent on a city-wide wild adventure fueled by clever word play and wit. Each “fortune” leads to a new cookie, a new clue, and a new curiosity. Who is leaving these clues for Nate and why?
*Semi-finalist at the Sacramento International Film Festival
Miss Moonlite BBQ Pageant
(Full length, based on the play)
The Miss Moonlite BBQ Pageant is half barbecue cook off, half beauty pageant and when Marnie moves in with her drunken estranged grandpa following the death of her mother, they’re both forced to confront their fractured family history the only way they know how: homemade barbecue.
Articles and short stories
Father, Feathers, Flight – A flash fiction piece on fatherhood.
Why Can’t I Be Both? – An article on fat discrimination and its impact on the American Theatre, based on my 2018 Statera National Conference breakout session in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
10 Tips On Visiting The Gynecologist – A how-to developed after being a “featured speaker” for Planned Parenthood, with Elna Baker (The American Life, The Moth) and Sonya Renee Taylor.
*Secondary publishing available here.
Books AND POETRY
- Semi-Finalist for The Ball Grant 2018
More coming soon.
Sage Martin 