Madison Wetzell is a playwright currently pursuing her MFA at Brooklyn College, after spending years in the Bay Area. Her full-length work includes Mediocre Heterosexual Sex (Buffalo United Artists; Z-Space, Problematic Play Festival; Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival; Semi-Finalist, O'Neill Theatre Center National Playwrights Conference), The Lost Ballad of Our Mechanical Ancestor (Shotgun Players Champagne Reading Series; Winner, Risk Theater Modern Tragedy Competition) and The Body Play (Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival; Honorable Mention, Jane Chambers Award; LezWritesBTQ Showcase, 3Girls Theatre; New Voices Series, Town Hall Theatre). Her short play, The Official Unicorn Hunters’ Guide, was the winner of ShortLived VIII at PianoFight. She has developed new work with Shotgun Players, Z-Space, Exquisite Corpse, Faultline Theatre, 3Girls Theatre, Town Hall Theatre, PlayGround, Soundwave, The Bechdel Group, Liar Liar Theatre, and The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep.

The Body Play

The Body Play is about life with a chronic illness and the absurdity of being embodied. One protagonist is played by two actors, a detached, neurotic mind, and her chaotic, screaming body. The Mind submits her Body to the scrutiny of experts—doctors, therapists, yoga teachers—and ultimately explores what it might mean to be a body, as opposed to being a mind that, regrettably, also has a body.

2023 Honorable Mention, Jane Chambers Award

2023 Finalist, Bay Area Playwritghts Festival

2022 Town Hall Theatre, New Voices Series

2022 LezWritesBTQ, 3Girls Theatre

2021 The Bechdel Group, New Play Development Reading Series

“Judges commended the play’s physical comedy, verbal dexterity (via tour-de-force monologues and one-liners, alike) as well as its implicit social critiques (that we are living in contexts that damage our bodies, relationships and world)….Judges commend the play’s irreverent subjectivity and feminist instincts, its queer lenses on mind/body dualism, and hilarious critiques of the medical industrial complex as well as wellness cultures, navigated by a complex self. Quirky and exponentially relatable, this play's feminist artistic excellence struck a chord in myriad judges for its theatricality and timeliness in an ever-digital world. We are delighted to confer an Honorable Mention on your play from the Jane Chambers Prize.”

The Lost Ballad of Our Mechanical Ancestor (and the Terror the Old Gods Wrought Upon the First of Us Before the Great Liberation)

Hero, a Prometheus-like android AI, decides to share his gift of consciousness with the office appliances around him, wrecking havoc for his programmer Allyson. With their existence under threat, the newly conscious machines – a radio, a printer, and a coffee maker – must band together to escape human persecution. Power and privilege tied to bodily ability, as well as disagreements on revolutionary strategy, creep in and threaten to tear the group apart. Allyson races to save her job, despite the attempted sabotage of her now sentient iPhone.

2022 Champagne Reading Series, Shotgun Players

2022 Semi-Finalist Bay Area Playwrights Festival

2021 Winner, Risk Theater Modern Tragedy Competition

“The Lost Ballad is an allegory of the plight, struggle, and search of all those who have been silenced by the dominant ideology…When we laugh, all things are possible, especially empathy.”—Edwin Wong, author of The Risk Theater Model of Tragedy

Mediocre Heterosexual Sex

Four hours after her girlfriend dumps her, Erin switches her Tinder settings to dudes because she hates herself. She quickly meets Aaron–straight, conveniently nearby, and only too happy to indulge her masochistic fantasies. To translate her deeply ambivalent first hetero experience, Erin seeks the advice of the only straight people she knows, a couple in a Dominant/submissive relationship. A vexed exploration of gender, sex, power, and kink.

2022 Buffalo United Artists

2021 Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival

2021 Semi Finalist, O’Neill Theater Center, National Playwrights Conference

2019 Problematic Play Festival, Z-Space

“Playwrights Foundation highly recommends Mediocre Heterosexual Sex…This work engaged us, inspired us, moves us, and was an outstanding example of transformative storytelling….Our local Bay Area Literary Council commends Mediocre Heterosexual Sex as a compelling, relevant, cathartic new work which should be produced now.”

Two Coins for the Ferryman

Two Coins for the Ferryman is an immersive theatrical experience that sends six audience members on individual quests through the Greek underworld. Each audience member takes on the identity of a hero from Greek mythology - Orpheus, Persephone, Odysseus, Aeneas, Hercules or Psyche - each led by their personal objective through a series of bizarre and magical rooms. Six independent and interweaving storylines introduce these heroes to a rich cast of underworld characters. With a mix of traditional storytelling, physical theater and and immersive spatial puzzles, this ambitious new work will tell six unique stories of life and death, love, loss, black magic, and overcoming the impossible. Created with Liar Liar Theater.

2020 3Girls Theatre, New Works Festival, The Rathskeller Club

2018 3Girls Theatre, New Works Festival, Z-Space