Andy Bragen
Workspace 2009-2010
Andy Bragen’s honors include the Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission, a Tennessee Williams Fellowship, a Jerome Fellowship, and a New Voices Fellowship from Ensemble Studio Theater. He has participated in residencies at Millay Colony and Blue Mountain Center. His plays and translations have been produced at PS122, Queens Theatre, Brown University, BT Playwrights Rep, and the University of Rochester. Reading and workshop venues include The Guthrie, The Playwrights Center, Rattlestick, LAByrinth, EST, Repertorio Español, Soho Think Tank, P73, and the Lark. Bragen is a graduate of Brown University’s MFA program in Literary Arts.
Excerpt from This Is My Office
Here, come see my office. That’s it, right over here. Sorry, I know it’s a pigsty. My dad’s was worse. Picture this: Papers piled up on the desk, an ashtray overflowing (it was okay to smoke back then, everyone did it). Bookshelves with overstuffed binders teetering haphazardly, a spare pair of shoes, paperweights holding down sheaves of documents, chewing gum, candy wrappers and sandwich wrappers, mayonnaise stained ties, his bosses used to come in his office and say Bragen you’re building a rat’s nest in here, or, better get this office cleaned up Bragen, before we take it and you to the garbage dump. Of course he always believed they were joking, my mother says, and he didn’t change a thing. There was a dresser drawer back at home too, his drawer, full of broken watches, Camel unfiltered cigarette packs, spare keys, loose change, penny wrappers, paper clips, rubber bands, shoehorns, defunct bankbooks, and random business cards. I still remember its musty smell. I have a drawer like that too, in my old wooden desk at home, and if someday I have a son...
