Writer. Producer. Dramaturg.
Select Full Length Plays
For all of Ali's plays 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.
BLOOD/SWEAT/TEARS
BLOOD/SWEAT/TEARS is a horror movie, inside of a musical, inside of a play about Ginny (and her movie and musical counterparts – the show is triple cast across the worlds) – Ginny is a bookwriter & lyricist, who’s fighting to get the final draft of her musical script approved to go into rehearsals. But as Ginny’s creative team insists on changes, she begins rewrites that drastically impact the plot of the musical and therefore the horror movie. Turning a story that should be one of determination and success into a disturbing tale about survival, as reality and fiction begin to blur during Ginny’s final evaluation.
BLOOD/SWEAT/TEARS is like if Inception and Whiplash had a baby – and that baby sang like 50% of the time.
Development History & Readings: HARP Theatricals 2022, The Tank LIMEFEST 2021, Winter Intensive at The Workshop Theater 2021, Abe Koogler's Workshop, ESPA Primary Stages First Draft Class
"Blood/Sweat/Tears is a deft matryoshka doll of a play, layering a trio of complex worlds to highlight the gender disparities enforced in the stories we tell. As her worlds fold into each other, we are all made complicit in what we allow in the service of art." - The Workshop Theater
"Blood/Sweat/Tears is an extremely well written piece that seamlessly weaves the 3 mediums. The characters are all well developed and the struggles the female characters face are true to life. I love this movie/musical/play!" - Alyssa Haddad-Chin
Apparitions
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 2021
"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
Christen the Place
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
(un)conditional
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
"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
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
"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
Select Short Plays
The Worst Kind of Pants
Mary and Peyton have planned move-in day surprises for each other. But since they haven't talked about all the details of their relationship yet, will their surprises bring them closer or tear them apart?
No Italian
In 1923, Stella traveled to America from Sicily in the hopes of giving her daughter, Emily a better life. NOW, 20 years later, Emily is all grown up, married to a soldier, and living on a military base on Governors Island in the middle of World War II- But Stella didn't risk everything for her daughter to grow up and be an Italian wife.
Production History (Workshops): Rising Sun Performance Company Laboratorium & At Home Artists Project
House on Fire
Megan is promoted at her company asked to make a public statement about the man she officially accused of sexual misconduct.
Production History: Primary Stages Detention Series, Madison College Performing Arts, Me & My Masks Monologue Competition
Dead Man Walking
Jack's worried about his little brother Petey because he's got a good job, a nice apartment, and a soon-to-be fiancé that everybody hates. Jack's looking for the right time to talk to Petey about his life choices - maybe during the proposal wasn't it.
Production History (Workshops): Chain Theatre Festival, East Los Angeles College American College Theater Festival & The Five Borough Plays Festival