Monica Flory
Playwright, Foundry Member, Foundry Class of 2028
Monica Flory is a playwright, director, and educator. She is passionate about writing coming-of-age stories, mother-daughter tales and femme-forward versions of classic works. Her adaptation of The Jungle Book has had over 300 productions worldwide. The New York Times called it “scrupulously faithful to Rudyard Kipling and completely original in its approach.”
Her most recent play with music, The Wanting Forest, was developed through a residency at Bloomsburg University, under the direction of David A. Miller. The world premiere of this lyrical mother-daughter fairy tale was directed by Aili Huber at Silk Moth Stage in Virginia. Poly Prep recently commissioned and produced Rosemallow House, a Stranger-Things-meets-Scooby-Doo haunted mansion play, that is currently being adapted into a middle grade novel by Jason Prunty.
Her coming-of-age stories include One Last Ride, a musical about a time-traveling roller coaster with composer Spencer Lutvak and Bank of Violets, a musical with composer Jacob Fjeldheim, about parallel productions of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night during the pandemics of 1918 and 2020.
Her mother-daughter works include Medea, a fresh take on Euripides produced by the Philadelphia dance-theater ensemble Humble Materials, and Brown-Eyed Rapunzel, a fantasia in which a mixed-race daughter retells fairy tales with her white mother to sort the racial dynamics of their relationship. Brown-Eyed Rapunzel was selected for the Philadelphia Women's Theater Festival, and subsequently produced by Philly PACK. Her film Because of Dragons with puppet-maker Kat Caro was selected for the Reel Puppetry Film Festival 2023.
Recent femme-forward classics include her take on Frankenstein and Mary Shelley’s life, Monster; Little Rose, about Emily Dickinson; and Silence, inspired by an Edgar Allan Poe story.
Her plays are published by Concord/Playscripts, Smith & Kraus, and Brooklyn Publishers.
Monica was a consultant for the transition team of Director's Gathering. Recent directing credits include Hadestown by Anaïs Mitchell, S P A C Eby L. M. Feldman, Lost Girl by Kimberly Belflower, Boundless by Mary Fishburne, Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl, Anon(ymous) by Naomi Iizuka, and Alice by Heart by Duncan Sheik. She was assistant director and dramaturg for Cry It Out at Simpatico Theater, directed by Tamanya M. M. Garza, and was the associate director for The Barrymore Awards, under the direction of Cat Ramirez. She is an education consultant for Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. and camp director of Ghostlight Theater Camp in Warwick, NY.
Monica holds a BA in Acting & Directing from Oberlin College and an MA in Educational Theater from NYU. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild and a former member of The Playwrights Cohort at PlayPenn. She lives in Philadelphia with her family.