Writer. Producer. Dramaturg.
Full Length Plays
For all of Ali's downloadable versions of Ali's plays (including short works, monologues, and musicals) and downloadable versions of the scripts. Please visit her New Play Exchange page.
If you're interested in producing any of her work, please reach out to her directly using the contact page.
Christen the Place
Cast: 5m, Run time: 70 minutes
Tonight is Erik's housewarming party with his four oldest friends, but the night quickly devolves into chaos as everyone besides Erik is having a personal or emotional crisis and no one has the tools to deal with them.
Development History: Commissioned from Alt eller Ingenting, IRT Residency, Norwegian tour
“In Christen the Place…where is the line between joke and seriousness? This performance addresses the mental health of young men, and the importance of opening up to those around you about how you really feel in time, to avoid the outcome being fatal.” - Kultur Plot
What audiences are saying:
“I wish I had seen this when I was in high school”
“Literally heart wrenching. Did not anticipate to cry this hard on a Friday evening”
“I was moved by the honesty and care infused into the portrayals of masculinity, and the process of self-acceptance”
"It was so amazing, and I am still thinking about the last scene. The whole show was so funny and moving."
Apparitions
Cast: 2f, 2m, Run time: 90 minutes
Apparitions is about Lilly, a 30 something customer service agent and Office Manager at Apparitions Perfume Company. Driven by a hyper vigilance she developed from untreated PTSD, Lilly takes her job very seriously and just wants everyone to be okay. But when Lilly is prevented from giving the customers what they want (her boss threatens to fire her for being too accommodating), a persistent customer shows up to the office in person to force Lilly to get what she needs. Apparitions asks, how much empathy is too much empathy? And when does the pursuit of understanding become dangerous?
Development History: The Workshop Theater
Quotes about the show:
"Ali plays with the surreal nature of capitalism as a customer service agent with the ever-present need to please is matched with her nemesis, a mega-Karen. It is a welcomed exploration of the unrealistic demands capitalism and patriarchy place on women in the service industry."
- The Workshop Theater
“What happens when someone works too hard? What happens when that work clings like a ghost? What happens if everything haunts them? These are the questions that stick like an echo from the past. On every page of Keller's Apparitions, day-to-day survival is visible.”
- Liana Irvine
(un)conditional
Cast: 3f, 2m, Run time: 90 minutes
Fantasies are harmless, right? But what happens when your spouse wants to take a dark fantasy from the realm of imagination firmly into your bedroom? For two couples, the boundaries of compromise, communication, and unconditional love are tested to their breaking point, and seven-year-old Mia is getting caught in the crossfire.
Development History & Readings: Semi-finalist for SPACE on Ryder Farm Residency, 2020 Austin Film Festival Second Rounder, Readings at: Judson Assembly Hall & Pearl Studios, Soho Playhouse Lighthouse Series 2024
Quotes about the show:
"Wow what a punch in the gut this play is. Keller is asking questions that we need to be having here. I really hope there are theatres out there brave enought to produce a piece like this."
- Shaun Leisher (Co-Founder and Literary Manager of Emerge Theatre Company)
Standards
Cast: 4f, male voices/video footage, Run time: 2 hours
Troj is living her best life: she's in the top sorority, she's head girlfriend at the Lambda fraternity house, she's an internet sensation, and she's in the running for a dream fellowship. She's so perfect, no one even cares that she's a raging monster behind closed doors. Until Carolyn has the audacity to date the next Lambda president, compete for the same fellowship and threaten the empire she has built. Their resulting feud nearly destroys everyone’s friendships, relationships, and Greek Organizations. And for what? Neither one of them ends up with the fellowship anyway.
STANDARDS is the story of four women who have every reason to get along but instead choose to tear each other down.
Development History & Readings: Semi-Finalist for The Mitten Lab, Primary Stages ESPA Drills Finalist, The Dramatists Guild - Friday Night Footlights, Reading with The CRY HAVOC Company at Ripley Grier Studios, & Skeleton Rep Salon Series
Quotes about the play:
"Standards" takes everything you might expect from a sorority-centric play, holds it by its ankles and demands its lunch money. It is a poignant look at the troubled—and sometimes downright evil—side of the people who use the internet to gain celebrity for being seemingly perfect and wonderful...The dialogue is quick and engaging, and when the characters turn on a dime it feels so natural you almost don't even notice it. There is a genuine sense of artistic purpose from Ali, and it seeps through her writing. Ali writes in her statement that she's not interested in offering people answers to the questions her plays pose, and "Standards" is no different. Ali Keller doesn't care what you think, and that makes for some wild character studies."
- The Mitten Lab Residency Selection Committee