Lilly Camp

Writer | ProduceR | Script Consultant

Lilly Camp

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, where I spent my adolescence writing FanFiction, until queerness hit me like a truck and I pivoted to more personal work to, well, handle it.

Many years later, I sent my very first play to NYU’s Dramatic Writing MFA admissions on a whim. There I was trained in TV, film, and playwriting, and graduated with an Excellence award. Since, I’ve had my work recognized by the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Yale Drama Series, the American Blues Theater, the American Playwriting Foundation, The Sundance Theatre Lab, and the Austin Film Festival, among others. My plays have been presented by the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, Normal Ave. Theatre Company, and Theatre [Untitled]. In 2022 I was a Jane Hoppen Writer in Residence at Paragraph NY, and in 2023 I was the Noel Coward Foundation Writer in Residence at the Cape Cod Theater Project. While my work spans subjects like youth, family trauma, pop culture, and sports, its common thread is queerness.

I offer freelance script consulting, and have read for production companies, educational institutions, fellowship opportunities, and individual projects. I also run marathons and manage a cafe in Brooklyn.

Proud member of the Purple House Collective.

 

Plays

 

Legacy

Former members of a winning college rowing team reunite to celebrate their teammate’s success as the current coach. Under the expected drama– old crushes, former rivalries, and “who’s winning the reunion”– lie deeper wounds, and a collective traumatic experience from over a decade ago will resurface and demand they face it as adults.


The Queer Utopia

A lesbian couple moves into a their dream neighborhood– wealthy, leftist, and overwhelmingly queer– but their new struggle-free “normal” begins to eat away at their relationship and force them to ask whether their fantasy life was just heteronormativity– and if they really want that.


Degeneration

Five friends on the brink of 30 gather in the woods on their preplanned commune trial run, one of them potentially about to get the career big break that would ruin the plan for everyone. But when they receive news that they’ve lost their dream opportunity, they try to reign everyone back into the plan, only to find each has their own reasons to assimilate into society and grow up, too. Over the course of one evening around a fire, Degeneration explores modern friendship and family, quarter-life crises, and the death of youth.


Why taylor Swift is Gay

A playwright and self-proclaimed “Gaylor” takes us through a presentation on why she is convinced that Taylor Swift is gay (and possibly already coming out). But what begins as an exploration of Taylor’s career, public life, and possible secrets is interrupted by interludes from her own life, until she’s faced not with the truth about Taylor, but instead with the reality of why she so badly needs her to be gay.

O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Semi-finalist, 2022


All Eight

Nine freshmen women sit in a boat together every morning at 6am on their collegiate rowing team, competing with each other up for best times, lowest body weights, and most influential seats, until race day when they are asked to put it all aside and row together as comrades in one boat. Crew would be chaotic enough on its own, but off the water, their coach shows up at their parties and drinks with them, makes lewd comments about their bodies, and is allegedly sleeping with one of them. So when one rower secretly rats him out for allegedly sleeping with a student and is seemingly rewarded with the best seat in the boat when he’s fired, her motives come into question– as does her position of privilege on the team. Over the course of their freshman year, All Eight examines how the world of collegiate sports drives these young women with varied power to fight to win– races, love, power– at the expense of even each other.

Normal Ave NAPSeries Reading; February 2019. Directed by Chiara Klein

O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Semi-finalist, 2019

Bechdel Group Finalist, 2019

Blue Ink Playwriting Award Semi-finalist, 2020

Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival Official Selection 2021

Yale Drama Prize Shortlist, 2022


BEST FRIENDs

Best Friends introduces us to Elle Summers—a “walking college application” to most people, “loser” to some—who can’t wait to trade suburban Los Angeles and an abusive household for Harvard and grown up conversations. That is, until her friend Matthew Durand asks her to be the “clean-up crew” to his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend Haley Moore and what begins as an awkward evening of crying turns into Haley and Elle spending every moment together. And maybe more? That depends on who you ask. Tackling sexuality, high school culture, and social media communication/lack thereof, Best Friends shows us how coming out in the Internet era hasn’t gotten any easier.

Rita and Burton Goldberg Dramatic Writing Award workshop/reading 2018. Directed by Alex Keegan

Special Consideration for the Relentless Award, 2018

Winner of the Rita and Burton Goldberg Dramatic Writing Award, 2018

semifinalist in the Austin Film Festival, 2018

Theatre [Untitled] Summer Reading Series 2021

 

Television

 

Schmuckboi

1/2 Hour Comedy

Esther, a self-proclaimed Fuckboi loner, attempts to get back in touch with their Judaism to get close to yet another girl. But what begins as a failed short con turns into a genuine reconnection to faith when their fake Queer Jewish Club stops feeling so fake.


All Eight

1 Hour drama

Nine freshmen women rowers compete with each other for the best seats in the best boats, until race day when they put competition aside and row as one. But rumor is their coach is sleeping with one of them, and the others won’t stand for the resulting favor... er, exploitation.

Initially written as a play, this limited series tells the story of this team’s freshman year in a serialized format.

Sundance Episodic Lab finalist, 2021


Heathens

1 Hour drama

Lulu Simmons, a naïve, recently bullied young Jewish girl, enrolls in a mixed-gender LA Valley Catholic institution after being called a dyke at her public middle school, in an attempt, perhaps, to prove them wrong.

Fusion Film Festival Finalist, 2017

NexTV Writing and Pitch Competition Quarter-finalist, 2017

New York Short Film and Screenplay Festival Finalist, 2017

LA Indie Film Festival Finalist, 2017

Rhode Island Film Festival Semi-finalist, 2017

LA Femme Film Festival Finalist, 2017


The Lesbian Spirit Guide

1/2 Hour comedy

Comic book artist and longtime “spirit guide” to bi-curious girls’ first foray into lesbianism, Logan has just been left at the altar when her comic "superhero" rendition of the event goes viral and she suddenly has a chance at a graphic novel deal. Living as the Lesbian Spirit Guide in real life is less than glamorous; Logan still clearly hopes her spirit guidees will fall in love with her– especially her new editor of her graphic novel.

 

 Film

 

The Only One in the Room

Co-written with Francisco Mendoza

After thirty years at the helm of the Manhattan Playwrights Theatre, Katherine Lambert finds out the board is planning to push her out to make room for a “fresh perspective.” Desperate to retain her position, Katherine decides to steal a smaller theater’s bombastic play in a bid to try and gain new relevance, refusing to believe that the movement that once made her one of the only female artistic directors in the industry is the same that now clamors for her to step down.


Long Game

Logan, a college runner recovering from an injury begins a secret relationship with her closeted friend, Karley and what at first looks like a closeted girl refusing to come out soon becomes terrifying– what if she imagined the whole relationship? Soon Logan’s pushed to the brink of sanity, and, one night, to the bedroom of Karley’s boyfriend, carrying a handgun.

 

Audio

 

Hairy Legs Hannah’s Feminist Quarter-Hour

Co-written with Francisco Mendoza
Directed by Francisco Mendoza
Produced by Lilly Camp

In this new radio program created by Woke City's Ministry of Progressive Affairs, feminist tweeter/Social Justice Warrior Hairy Legs Hannah tackles issues of discrimination, inequality, and free speech to teach kids about the liberal agenda– or she would, if she had any interest in following the script read by the white, cisgender male narrator. With her roommate/rival Shaven Legs Shawn constantly trying to steal her spotlight, and her sister Astounding Ashley undermining her at every turn, Hairy Legs Hannah may not be the hero Woke City needs, but the one it deserves.

Austin Film Festival Semifinalist, 2017

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