Leslie's short plays include Practice; Plan Day; Deaf Day; Twenty-Four Years; Hi There, Mr. Machine; Rosemary and Elizabeth; Carol and Jill; The Click; The Favor. She won a Telly Award for the short film EVERY THREE MINUTES. Produced by Showtime, with Olympia Dukakis, directed by Michael Pressman.
Deaf Day - play
Produced at The Ensemble Studio Theatre - Marathon '99
Directed by Leslie Ayvazian, written for Kaitlin Kenny
Extended run in Poland and in Slovakia.
A young mother encourages her deaf son to interact with other children by creating a practice day at the park. She has to help her son overcome his fear of others teasing him. At the end of the day, the son is charged with determination but still fears the hearing world and requests the next day be spent at home as a quiet day.
"…a gentle, enchanting one-woman show…it's endearing throughout."
- Anita Gates, NY Times
Published by Dramatists Play Service
Translated into Armenian and published in "Dramatourgia" No. 1-2, 2006, and "Nork" 2007 - Yerevan, Armenia
Published in Best American Short Plays 2001-2002
Published in Best Monologues From the Best American Short Plays
Published in Talk to Me Monologue Plays
Deaf Day - film
Translated into Arabic and produced as a short film directed by Rana Kazkaz - Damascus, Syria 2010
Bahrain Voices Film Festival - Best Film
Seattle Deaf Film Festival, USA
Hong Kong Deaf Film Festival
Handi Film Festival Rabat, Morocco
Middle East Film Festival, Brazil
Abu Dhabi Film Festival, UAE
CineKid Screening Club, Amsterdam
Palm Springs ShortsFest, USA
Chicago Int'l Childrens Film Festival, USA
Mediterranean Film Festival of Montpellier, France
Festiva Int'l du Film Oriental de Geneve, Switzerland
Distribution:
Spiritual Cinema, USA
Yalla TV, UAE,
France 3, France
Plan Day
Produced at The Ensemble Studio Theatre - Marathon '98 Directed by Curt Dempster
One woman plays a mother to her only child, a son, in four different stages of her life: her 30s, 40s, 50s, and 70s. Each monologue begins "lights up" and ends with "blackout." This connotes the beginning and end of a day, as each decade passes and her love for her son ages and ripens.
"Everyone knows that in this perilous age, it's parents who have first dibs on fretting. Leslie Ayvazian knows. Oh, does she ever. In PLAN DAY, her little gem of a monologue... [she] escorts us through the decades, riffing amusingly on the mental notes we make, obsessively, protectively, superstitiously, to ward off evil, to keep loved ones safe, to keep ourselves busy.
- Peter Marks, NY Times
Published by Dramatists Play Service
Twenty Four Years
Produced at The Ensemble Studio Theatre - Marathon '00, Directed by Curt Dempster
Produced for radio as part of Playing on Air - October 2014
Directed by Peter Hedges, starring Jessica Hecht and Dominic Furmusa
"... A 12-minute play encapsulating two lifetimes. It is polished down to the last period. A husband and wife mark their 24th anniversary with a little dancing (or as he says, swaying), the awkward grace of which perfectly catches the uncertain rhythms of her mercurial feelings... Though the dialogue would appear to be the kind of clipped code that hides tired familiarity in most people... it [turns] into a hide-and-seek game of great warmth and humor that compels viewers to hold back their laughter until it all pours out at the end, when each player finds out in a single glance how much fun the other one continues to be, and how elusive."
- D.J.R. Bruckner, NY Times
Hi There, Mr. Machine
Produced at The Ensemble Studio Theatre - Marathon '02, Directed by Leigh Silverman
"This sliver of life furnishes a universal story of temptation as yet another New York teacher, alone in a hotel room during a weekend convention, pits her shaky dedication to dieting against the beckoning junk food machine in the hallway outside." - Lawrence Van Gelder, NY Times
Rosemary and Elizabeth/There Your Are
Produced for radio as part of Playing on Air
One of 25 one act plays produced at the Atlantic Theatre to celebrate their 25th Anniversary.
Directed by Leslie Ayvazian. With Mary Beth Piel and Maria Tucci.
There You Are is about two women who meet at an outdoor concert and pursue the relationship they didn't dare in their youth.
The Favor - play
Produced at The Ensemble Studio Theatre - Marathon '13
Directed by Leslie Ayvazian, starring Janet Zarish and Grant Shaud
" [A] fine two-hander built on awkwardness. Ralph is reluctant to carry out the odd request made of him by his wife. Ralph is reluctant to carry out the odd request made of him by his wife, Ellen: She wants him to go into the next room and give her dying mother a kiss. And not just a peck on the cheek... "It has to have something to it,” she tells him, enough to make her mother think the kisser is someone from her distant past."
- Neil Genzlinger, NY Times
The Favor - film
Produced as a short film by Fugitive Films, directed Eileen Myers
Starring Margret Collin, John Pankow and Olympia Dukakis
The film has been or will soon be screened at:
Golden Door Film Festival in Jersey City, NJ,
Bend Film Festival in Bend, Oregon
Big Apple Film Festival in NY
The Austin Film Festival
Carol and Jill
Produced at The Ensemble Studio Theatre - Marathon '09
"[A] sweetly comic play “Carol and Jill,” in which the playwright stars as the aging Carol (“I’m about to be 60,” she mutters, shell-shocked. “Wow. Tough.”), whose longtime friendship with another married woman gradually moves in a more romantic direction."
- Jason Zinoman, NY Times