Alan Stewart
Playwright
Dr. Alan Stewart aside from being a veterinary internal medicine specialist is also an award winning playwright. He dedicated his first chapter to helping animals and preserving the human animal bond. Now he dedicates his playwriting to dramatizing important ethical questions and often uses animals to help with those questions. His play In Our Bones was a semifinalist in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Gary Marshall Competition and received a “rough read” from Playwrights Foundation; Of a Feather was the finalist at Madison New Works Laboratory. A short play, Final Fire was produced by UpMarket productions. His plays are often described as five plays in one because they are so dense. With his background as a doctor and decades of practice and having the privilege to witness amazing stories his brain overflows with theatrical ideas. Animals are excellent entrees to human tribulations because we express raw emotions with them. He loves challenging audiences with unresolvable dilemmas often involving ethics and science and yet leaving them with a heartwarming sensibility. Life is not simple. Animals make it better.
For a veterinarian he immersed himself in a strong liberal arts education at the University of Chicago and has taken playwriting classes at the Dramatist Guild Institute, Berkeley Rep, ACT, Playwrights Foundation and HB Studios. He is a member of the Kennedy Center’s Playwriting Intensive. He is currently working on a TV pilot set in a 24/7 Emergency Specialty Veterinary Hospital. A world he knows very well.
Plays
Lullaby for Winnie
A diagnosis of ALS forces a famous director and a former great actress to heal their relationship and work together on a play about euthanasia. The problem is the actress is the director’s estranged mother. As both their personal and artistic journeys collide, the tension builds toward a poignant, shared reckoning.
Unconditional Love 2.0
Unconditional Love asks the question, "What happens when science outpaces wisdom?” The implications and ethics of a new gene editing technology gets examined using four characters that face life changing decisions that can all be helped by this new technology that can happen tomorrow. Unconditional Love 2.0 races forward questioning every step of the way, “Just because we can, should we?”
In Our Bones
Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas navigate survival in Nazi-occupied France, facing moral compromises as Jewish lesbian artists. This play explores the conflict between self-preservation and complicity during times of political upheaval. It is the untold story of Gertrude and Alice, yet told with love, respect and humor. It also asks how far are each of us willing to compromise our values to survive in a hostile environment.
Of a Feather
A war veteran suffering from PTSD, and a self mutilating, Great Green Macaw are brought together by a neuropsychologist in an unlikely, yet profound healing relationship. Of a Feather is a play told with dialogue and dance that explores the transformative power of the human animal bond.
McEvitt’s Dog Park
Five people and their dogs fight to save their beloved dog park from being turned into an arts complex, uncovering, unexpected bonds in the process. In the second act, the actors transform into their dogs, deepening the exploration of love, community, and belonging.
TV Series
The Animal Miracle Center
A compassionate veterinarian suddenly able to transform into a werewolf and communicate with his patients, fights to unmask the genetic military experiment that left him with coveted but terrifying abilities. With supernatural elements and real world stakes, this high concept series, E.R. meets Grey's Anatomy and collides into Stranger Things, but maintains the heart of All Creatures Great and Small.
