
Matthew Ethan Davis
Playwright.Screenwriter.Actor
An Envelope in the Wind
An Envelope in the Wind is a haunted-house ghost-story comedy. Estranged sisters Amelia and Julie are reunited when they both inherit the same haunted house… which, minor detail, happens to have a history of murder.
Trapped in this crumbling house miles from anywhere — Amelia is confronted not just by complete amnesia about her entire life, which really complicates family bonding. Soon she begins to wonder if Julie is the devoted sister she claims to be… or just, well, something else. Someone evil?
Disappearing footprints appear on the ground. A mysterious child seems to materialize and vanish at will — and, inconveniently, only reveals herself to Amelia, leaving Julie deeply unsettled. Then, to terrify them both, someone… or something… can be heard stomping across the roof.
An intoxicatingly romantic police officer shows up to investigate “the murder in the house,” sweeping Amelia off her feet — but is soon followed by his sinister twin brother, who insists that the oh-so-romantic brother has been dead for years, and reality flies out the window like an envelope in the wind.
One set. Three actresses. One actor. Zero functioning phones.
Husbands
Husbands is a comedy about three married men who unexpectedly collide at the same table in a coffee bar—each convinced it’s their table, their one sacred hour of peace in an otherwise chaotic life. What begins as a ridiculous territorial dispute evolves into weekly meetings—ones they all secretly come to need. As their personal lives spiral in wildly unexpected directions—one man’s wife embarks on a gender transition, forcing him to navigate shifting dynamics within his marriage and himself; one man’s husband undergoes a complete sexual metamorphosis, upending their long-held roles and expectations; and one man, once drowning in homeschooling an overabundance of children, suddenly finds himself thrust back into the workforce when his wife leaves her job—only to discover he misses the chaos of parenting—the husbands’ gatherings transform from a battle of grievances into an unshakable bond. They come face-to-face with their own preconceptions, blind spots, and long-held beliefs, often realizing how utterly absurd their conflicts are. The intensity of their confrontations frequently collapses into uncontrollable laughter, leading to the most unusual of friendships. One set, three characters, lots of coffee.
Moonlight Takes the Stand
Moonlight Takes the Stand begins as a whirlwind romantic comedy that spirals into a courtroom trial. It all begins in a coffee bar. Devahn, a gay person of color music industry manager, just as divine and seductive as the rock stars he reps. He not just dresses the part but seems to radiate a kind of divinity. So ready to fall in love. Armed with bravado and swagger, Devahn seems unstoppable. But beneath the bluster is a vast void that drives him to become completely obsessed with Jeremy, a charismatic, kindergarten teacher. They meet and sparks fly, a whirlwind romance—until Jeremy abruptly asks if they can start over. He exits, re-enters, and the same scene begins again, only slightly altered. What feels playful quickly turns unsettling, as the story veers into a courtroom drama about domestic violence where testimony is given an interrogated. The men act out their relationship as evidence—slipping between the roles of lovers, defendants, and lawyers arguing the case. What starts as attraction spirals into accusations, fractured memories, and a volatile struggle over who controls the story. As past traumas intrude—echoes of childhood abuse neither has escaped collide. With the audience in the role of the jury, the play asks: What is reasonable doubt when the ghosts of love and violence are the only true living witnesses? Two actors.
Vagabond
Pennsylvania, 1853. Paul, a gay vagabond living on the streets of Philadelphia during the Industrial Revolution, risks his life for true love when he journeys to the mountains and falls for a small-town shoemaker. The shop is the last of its kind—where shoes are made by hand, one pair at a time—clinging to life on a dirt road in a forgotten town as factories wipe out its trade. Joey, a gentle shoemaker, has known nothing beyond this shop and its code of loyalty—until Paul arrives like a vision, almost mythic, with poetry in his heart and a dazzling smile. Paul claims a direct relationship with Christ, who embraces him as he is—a man who loves men. His presence awakens something in Joey that he has never had words for. But in a town where friendship means silence and survival demands conformity, that awakening threatens to unravel everything. Curtis, a fellow shoemaker, clings to a brittle vision of masculinity that leaves no room for difference. And Sean—the group’s father figure—is slowly drinking himself to death, not only from grief over his wife but from an inherited addiction that mirrors inherited morality: the belief that a man must die for wanting something outside the bounds of society. As their way of life is burned down by machines and fear, Vagabond asks a question that still haunts America today: What happens when identity, loyalty, and survival collide? Do we adapt—or get buried with the past?
An Abnormality of the Mind
Reader’s Warning: Contains material that may be triggering for survivors of sexual trauma.
Juror Dean Brady must help decide whether Lucas Silver — a convicted child sexual abuser on the autism spectrum — should be freed after 17 years in prison or confined indefinitely in a psychiatric hospital or jail. As Dean struggles to separate thin evidence from his own buried trauma, he’s pulled into a spiraling courtroom world where truth and fear blur. An Abnormality of the Mind is an unflinching courtroom drama about justice, memory, and the impossible task of predicting another person’s future.
Under New York’s Mental Hygiene Law Article 10, certain sex offenders who have completed their prison sentence can be retried to determine whether they should be released or remain confined — with the institution then deciding if they will ever be freed. A jury must determine whether the defendant’s mental state makes him likely to offend again. Lucas, who is on the autism spectrum, struggles to understand the proceedings, mirroring the jury’s own confusion in navigating vague predictions and conflicting testimony. The prosecution’s case is thin, but the stakes are immense: what if Lucas reoffends — and what if he wouldn’t? Dean’s struggle is intensified by his own childhood trauma, mirroring the victim in Lucas’s case, and he begins to lose himself in a hallucinatory courtroom world where fact, memory, and fear blur. The play probes the minds of abusers and survivors alike, exposing the relentless trauma they carry, and the impossible burden placed on a jury asked to predict the future. Through heightened theatricality, An Abnormality of the Mind examines a judicial system whose flaws can devastate the offender, the offended, and those yet to be harmed — raising urgent questions about justice, identity, and the fragile line between perception and reality.
Walking Upside Down
Walking Upside Down is an absurdist comedy set in London, where Walker, a banker nicking fake loot to prop up his self-esteem, fumbles through life with Ryan, his lover, whose memories of how they met are as wobbly as jelly on a trampoline. Then there’s Paige, a cabaret singer who only knows one bloody song and has the peculiar habit of being swept clean off her feet by a howling gale while everyone else enjoys a bit of calm. The trio wrestles with the slippery nature of reality—from the baffling moment when Walker’s therapist of ten years swears blind he’s never seen him before, to the agonizing dilemma of whether to clap when Paige belts out her tune to an audience of absolutely no one—a decision so grave it might as well be a matter for Parliament. They slip, they stumble, they take a right tumble—over each other, over Reality, over Absurdity—flailing like drunkards on an ice rink, all while desperately trying to keep their chins above water as the universe stands at the shore, chucking rocks in just for a laugh.
Lost Ticket Stubs on the Carnival Grounds
Lost Ticket Stubs on the Carnival Grounds is a comedy about three women and a man whose lives unfold in an absurdist world of magical realism and poetic storytelling. Ivy yearns for a child with Jude, a man so fragmented he exists in an alternate reality—lost between the terror of the future and the bliss of imaginary flowers drifting from the sky. Ruby and Olivia’s passionate love compels them to plan a wedding repeatedly—only to forget it each time, tangled in a whirlwind of lace and tulle where devotion dissolves into chaos. Together, the four navigate the crumbling splendor of an amusement park where love is both ephemeral and eternal, memory is unreliable, and time dissolves. Through heightened language, absurdist storytelling, and moments of playful clowning, the play becomes a poetic meditation on impermanence, connection, and the strange magic that holds everything together—until it doesn’t.
Loving Diamond
Loving Diamond is a gay romantic comedy about a man caught between cosmic faith and comfortable realism. Diamond once believed he was a mystical conduit to God and the universe. But engaged to the pragmatic and skeptical Chester — who frames Diamond’s spirituality as a kind of delusion — Diamond has buried the part of himself that feels miraculous.
Then Aiden returns.
Aiden is Diamond’s one true love — who vanished five years ago in addiction but has now re-emerged, sober and transformed. Unlike Chester, Aiden has always believed in Diamond’s divine calling. He even prays to him, treating Diamond’s rituals as sacred rather than pathological.
Aiden doesn’t come back alone: he brings a young homeless girl he hopes they can raise together — the family they never got to be. Diamond hides his engagement, torn between the safety Chester offers and the spiritual freedom Aiden rekindles.
Everything combusts when Chester walks in as Diamond and Aiden are on the brink of rekindling their love — and Diamond is forced to confront the ultimate dilemma:
Will he choose a life where he fits in, or a life where he feels infinite?
Sleep With Me At Your Own Risk (a love story of insane proportions)
A one-man play about a gay man with a sleep disorder and the chaos it brings to his 36-year marriage. What begins as a comedic journey—walking out of the apartment naked, swimming on the floor—turns terrifying as the sleepwalking grows violent. The comedy fractures, revealing a desperate search for answers, understanding, and safety. Ultimately, this is a love story—a testament to a gay couple who stays together no matter what. They not only survive but thrive. The play invites exploration of multi-sensory production qualities.
Ticket to Eternity
Ticket to Eternity is an absurdist comedy about Dan Daniels, driven by his parents to become a famous actor when all he really wants is to be a waiter. The absurdity thrives in such locations as Café Fame and The Denial Bar and Grill, with his mother leaping out of character to stop Dan from succumbing to his desire before flying to heaven to complain to God—causing his father’s soul to fly out of his mouth. An ensemble of four actors plays all the extravagant characters, using heightened language and theatrical exploration of space. Fame, lust, identity, family ghosts, reality turning inside out—Ticket to Eternity moves through the perilous space of Dan’s mind.
Falling Awake
Falling Awake is a romantic comedy about the afterlife, blending the chaotic reality of a struggling downtown newspaper with the supernatural. Suzanne and Denise begin as sharp-tongued adversaries in the offices of Downtown Village News, but when their co-workers — Jeremy, a frazzled ad salesman, and Phoenix, a magnetic spiritual columnist — both die, the women become unlikely allies in a search for them across worlds. The supernatural manifests itself on stage, from ghosts emerging out of office clutter to Phoenix reappearing as a star cluster spiraling through the universe, taking Denise by the hand to lead her to God.
The play follows how people try to keep love alive — and themselves afloat — in the wake of loss, capturing the absurd, fragile, and unexpected ways they reach for connection when death starts to feel less like an ending and more like another kind of deadline.
Riptide
Content Warning: This play may be triggering for survivors of sexual assault. If you are sensitive to these topics, please consider whether this material is right for you.
Adrian Bradley has spent years building a life with the man he loves, holding onto recovery from sex addiction with everything he has. But one slip—one night—jeopardizes everything. Caught in the relentless pull of his addiction, Adrian embarks on a desperate fight to reclaim his life. Rehab is just the beginning. The real battle comes when he confronts his mother—his perpetrator—in an encounter so shattering it nearly destroys him. Returning home, raw and broken, he begs the man who once stood by him to take him back. Their love is forever—but is that enough for the relationship to survive?