Plays produced in New York by the Atlantic Theater Company, Playwrights Horizons, and Soho Rep; on the west coast at Berkeley Rep, South Coast Rep, and the Mark Taper Forum.
The Joy of Going Somewhere Definite
Three out-of-work loggers, fueled by alcohol, God and song, set forth from a northwoods bar one night on a misguided errand of mercy. Raymond, Merle and Junior have met a stranger in the bar even drunker and lonelier than they are, and, after accidentally shooting him, decide to reunite the poor fellow with his estranged wife somewhere north of the border in Canada. Hampered at every turn by misunderstanding, confusion, stupidity, drunkenness, desire and mistaken identity, the chivalrous loggers resolutely attempt to do the right thing, while achieving precisely the opposite. In the end, wild certainty yields to a chastened amazement over what man won’t do for a little peace. [purchase]
People Be Heard
When a small town becomes embroiled in a brouhaha over the teaching of evolution in the schools, a single mom who moonlights as a stripper is unwittingly drawn into the fray and forced to confront values she and her community hold dear. PEOPLE BE HEARD is an offbeat, distinctly American ode to the freedom of choice and the power to effect change. [purchase]
The Johnstown Vindicator
The news that a local evangelist has been murdered throws “The Vindicator” into the crisis it’s been putting off for years. Jack, the city editor, grapples with the secrets of his dubious parentage, and manages to alienate Janet, his ace staffer, in the process. JJ, the cub reporter, stumbles in and out of competence, while Pepper, JJ’s nubile girlfriend, bypasses competence altogether and breaks into print—profoundly irritating the veteran Hump, who proceeds to drink himself out of a job. Carl, the minister’s son (and self-proclaimed patricide), can’t get anybody to believe that he killed his father (because he didn’t) so he shifts focus and proposes to Jack’s oddball mother, who, as it happens, orchestrated the murder as a boon for her son, who is trying to get the goods on Tucci, his arch enemy and long-lost brother. All very bizarre—but, in the end, evil is punished, good is rewarded, Mom expires, and the boys (finally) grow up. [purchase]
The Lively Lad
Jonathan Van Huffle, a wealthy but weak-willed widower, has promised his immensely spoiled daughter, Little Eva, a eunuch for her birthday. All the other girls have one. It’s an absolute requirement in her society, where the daughters of the wealthy are introduced to the joys and perils of sophistication by their personal eunuchs. The trouble is, Jonathan has also fallen in love with the scrumptious but scrupulous Miss McCracken, a progressive waitress at a tea shop who is adamantly opposed to the castration and sale of human beings. How can Jonathan reconcile the powerful desires of his daughter and his beloved? With the help and hindrance of a pair of nutty household servants, Little Eva goes on to triumph at the ball, though not in the way she or anyone else expects in this faux-Victorian comedy with songs. [purchase]
Daughters of Io
Two groups of spirited young women find their paths to independence intertwined when a progressive women's college in 1930s New England takes in a family of milkmaids fleeing an arranged marriage. Mismatched roommates Dody and Athena forge a connection as they help the country girls hide among the students, but when the loathsome and violent Brewster boys give chase to their runaway brides, the comedy of misunderstanding turns to chaos--and peace and prosperity can only come through righteous vengeance. In this unexpected twist on Aeschylus's The Suppliant Women, moments of music punctuate a lyrical tale of learning, love, and sisterhood. [free download]
The Virgin Molly
What begins as a simple investigation of the sexual orientation of Marine Corps recruit Molly Peterson turns into an absurd sideshow of sexual politics. Using all the tricks and tactics at their disposal, the Captain and his mad dog Corporal attempt to determine who among their hapless charges is telling the truth about what happened that night. [Free download}
Unpublished
Midwest Porn
Students at St. Mary’s Elementary School are preparing for Confirmation, but fourth grader Beatrice and her coterie threaten to boycott the ceremony due to their doctrinal differences with Catholic orthodoxy. At the same time, low enrollment figures and a strange influx of turtles threaten the very survival of the school. The situation worsens when Mikey, Beatrice’s classmate, shoots one of the turtles in the girls bathroom causing his father Richie, bent on reviving the city’s economy by creating a pornographic video industry in an abandoned factory, to get involved. Porn, parents, children and turtles come together in an astonishing revelation that somehow manages to save Confirmation and St. Mary’s. Amen. [Free download]
Vagabond
Wynn believes that he is destined for Hollywood glory just like his mythical father. But he pursues this destiny it in ways that are not likely to lead to success. He abandons his sister Heidi who has just given birth to their child — the oddly precocious Baby. Then, in an attempt to gather story material and street cred, Wynn commits a robbery that goes horribly wrong. He ends up in a Texas prison and, after more missteps, on death row. Meanwhile, Heidi flourishes in Hollywood. Reunited with the androgynous Baby, the two make a brilliant success in Dive Dive, an all-girl submarine adventure written by Burt Denmark, Heidi and Wynn’s famously absent father. Wynn manages to finish his autobiographical epic, Vagabond, before he is hanged, but it’s stolen by Burt Denmark, posing as a priest at his son’s execution, and later passed off as a Burt Denmark original. A sad and cynical ending, some might say, but look at it from Wynn’s point of view. He did what he had to do to write the picture he had to write. And, it’s getting made! [Free download]
The Huntsmen
Devon has dreams, dark dreams, that lead him into trouble, all the trouble there is—and into song. First he kills a girl, accidentally, then panics and kills his father. He goes on to kill a prostitute, a pair of hitchhikers, even his first love. Lost in a fog of denial and disassociation, Devon lurches from killing to killing, finding psychological refuge in songs he’s learned from his mother and her boyfriend — sunny doo wop ballads he sings a capella backed up by an imagined group called The Huntsmen. [Free download]
The Year of the Baby
Kenny and Donna, newlyweds, are a bit simple. Donna wants a baby and innocently borrows the neighbor baby, feeding it lettuce like you might a baby rabbit. The police get wind of all this and Donna and her husband Kenny leave the baby and beat it out of town. They end up at an old motor court bypassed by time and the interstate which is owned by the elderly and peculiar Luther and Martha., who allow Kenny and Donna to stay in exchange for work around the place. Time passes. Donna gets pregnant. Kenny and Donna, coached in birthing by a shade tree mechanic with a sideline in midwifery, birth their own child, which Martha steals. There’s a fire, another narrow escape, and finally a song, as this is a play with songs. [Free download]
Shaker Heights
Buddy and his sister Gertrude’s property abuts the golf course and country club. Richard, a touring pro, happens to meet Gertrude meet when he smacks an errant drive into Gertrude’s back yard during a tournament. The two are smitten with each other, which threatens, and soon enrages, Buddy, who is in love with his sister. Things heat up further during the course of the tournament, sparking an effort by Richard and by Gertrude’s friends to free her at last from the psychological clutches of her problematical brother, a complicated fellow, playing a more complicated game than golf, and ready now to go to war for Gertrude’s affections. [Free download]
Wholehearted
Wholehearted is a love story. To please the gods and bring much-needed rain, a pair of hard-luck farmers produce a surreal romance in their local grange hall. The lovers are Warren, an emotionally constipated son of privilege, and Luisa, a penniless Brazilian poet. When Warren learns that his childhood home is up for sale, he buys it and asks Luisa to join him there. Scenes from the past reveal the source of Luisa’s sorrow and the events that set Warren on the road to emotional ruin. All the while, local farmers Titus and Beaury perform heart transplants, human sacrifice and lines from The Merchant of Venice — a comic concoction that leads Warren and Luisa to find true love. And it rains. Free download]
Aux Cops
Aux Cops (short for Auxiliary Police, and pronounced Awks Cops) is a comedy about working class wannabe Sidney DiPolito who yearns to be an auxiliary policeman, an unpaid volunteer for the New York City police department. Others in the cast include: The Lieutenant, an NYPD lifer; Danielle, Sidney’s frustrated wife; and Pooty, a street girl who wants her good name restored; oh, and Otto — who knows what Otto wants, but whatever it is, he’s going to get it. In the end, Sidney DiPolito, hero cop, solves not one, not two, but three interlocking crimes, thereby bringing peace to heart, home and community. [Free download]
One Act Plays
Something About Baseball
A mysterious intellectual from Berlin Arrives at Spring training in order to learn something about the game of baseball. In the course of her investigations she develops an interest in learning how to actually play the game and in the team’s star pitcher — an interest that is actively discouraged by the team’s crusty manager. She learns how to hit so well that some gamblers lay stakes on whether or not she can hit a home run. Complications ensue. [Free download]
A Day at the Beach
Harold has gotten his mother pregnant. His brother Anthony is furious. Father is worried about his boat. It’s a difficult day for all involved — except mom, who is happily taking the sun on the shore. [Free download]
The play requries a cast of four, an elderly man and woman and two middle-aged men. Non-traditional casting applies.
Dive! Dive!
Naive Hollywood newcomer Heidi is discovered Hollywood fashion in a coffeeshop by a director looking for the perfect Eva Braun for Burt Denmark’s panty-puller Dive! Dive! about an all-female German submarine crew. On location, the director is in a state because he still can’t find a “nuanced Hitler, a Hitler for now” to play opposite Heidi. That’s when Baby, Heidi’s lost infant, fathered by her bad news brother Wynn, shows up in the arms of the aggressive casting agent who found them. Baby is a brilliant Hitler. The chemistry is perfect. Dive Dive is a hit. [Free download]
The play requires four actors, two female, two male and on non-specific gendered actot to play a baby. Non-traditional casting applies.
Falderal
Falderal, a comedy with songs, is an hysterical rather than historical take on a battle between General Washington’s forces and those of General Howe, the British commander. The year is 1776. The action takes place in and around George Washington’s camp on the banks of Arthur Kill, a narrow channel separating Staten Island and Amboy, New Jersey. At the suggestion of Washington’s manservant, Jerusalem, the generals decide to engage in a Falderal, or theatrical competition, rather than risk themselves and their men in another bloody battle. The British lead off with a bit of Shakespeare’s Cleopatra. Washington and his men counter with brash American hip-hop. A reclusive Native American sage, Deep Eye, called upon to judge the event, concludes that neither side wins, neither loses, nobody has died and the Native Americans are the ultimate winners as one day they are going to retake the land with profits from their casinos. [Free download]
The play requires a cast of seven actors: one Native American, male or female, six others to play .Continental Army and British soldiers (any color or gender) and a backup group of four actors who can sing a bit. Non-traditional casting applies.
Dumb Wedding
Dumb Wedding is a marriage comedy. The play is called Dumb Wedding because it was a dumb idea for the couple to get married in the first place, but also because no one speaks. There is no dialogue. It’s at the point in the wedding ceremony when the minister asks if anyone present objects to the union. In this case, someone does — the groom’s boyfriend. The bride and groom are horrified, furious, embarrassed and crestfallen by turns The minister, mostly at a loss. The boyfriend — delighted to be the author so much chaos. And chaos there is — weeping, arguing, making up, counseling — it’s a hot mess. Adding to the fun — and the challenge — the whole event, accompanied by a violin, is performed in silence without a word being spoken.
Dumb Wedding requires four actors, two male, two female, and a musician. Non-traditional casting applies.
Rushmore
Gazing up at Mount Rushmore Bobby mentions to his brother Did that one of the presidents up there looks like their momma. Did tells Bobby he is mistaken, that all the presidents up there are men. The ensuing argument leads the sightseers back through a thicket of long-held resentments, ending in a reconciliation. Of sorts. [Free download]
Two male actors, 40’s. Non-traditional casting applies.
Home Funeral
Bernard’s home funeral movement is getting underway. The corpse is in the kitchen and the mourners— Bernard’s friends and followers— are assembling for the first service. And Bernard, as the leader of the home funeral movement, does have a following—albeit small and eccentric. All goes off well— or as well as can be expected— for his first foray into what he expects will become a burgeoning enterprise. [Free download]
The play requires five actors, three male, one female, and an excellen singer, preferrably a child. Non-traditional casting applies.
Johnny & Rosie
Johnny’s a 1930’s gangster. Very traditional, very neurotic Rosie is his very commonsensical moll. Despite a total lack of evidence, Johnny has gotten it into his head that there exists, somehow, somewhere, nude pictures of Rosie, which would embarrass him. Rosie’s successful at convincing him otherwise until it comes out that she once sat for a nude painting for the artist Muldoon. Uh-oh. [Free download]
The play requires two actors, one female, one male, both 20’s/30’s. Non-traditional casting applies.
Children’s & Family Plays
The Only Child
The Only Child is a fable about a cold-hearted child, as told by Mister Ice Cream, an ice cream cone. Tina, in an effort to become again the only child she was before the birth of her younger siblings, tricks little sister Lolly into running away with the circus and younger brother Toby into escaping before he’s sent to the Home for Bad Boys. Despite her parents’ anxiety over their missing children, Tina will not relent and tell what she’s done. With the help of his faithful Powerboy toy, Toby escapes the Home for Bad Boys and locates his sister Lolly at the circus where she has recovered from her failure as a trapeze artist and become a wildly successful clown. The two head home to rescue Tina whose cold-heartedness has landed her in a vat of frozen ice cream in the basement storeroom of their father’s ice cream business. [Free download]
The Only Child is a play with songs, requiring six adult female actors, three female, three, male. Non-traditional casting applies.
The Adventures of Por Quinly
Por Quinly hates birthdays, particularly his own. Giving into a tearful reverie down by the river where his mother has warned him never ever to go, Por Quinly is borne off by the Mister River into an adventurous search for his missing father, Quinly the Elder, the Great Beard of Norway, writer of The Broken Spoon, and My Awful Family. On the way to the Land Beneath the Sea Por Quinly meets up with friends Little Dippa, a little girl his age, and Mel, a rough and tumble sort, along with secret helpers MacBirthday, Gnumptious the Deep, Lobster and the King of Tears. To be sure, Por Quinly reunites with his wandering father before arriving back home, but not without encountering the evil Scattermonger who lives in the Sorrows which Por Quinly must pass through. [Free download]
The Adventures of Por Quinly, is a play with songs. also requiring seven actors—two female, five male—to play fourteen roles. Non-traditional casting applies.
A Por Quinly Christmas
Quinly the Elder, the Great Beard of Norway, writer of Ho Ho Hokum and Christmas Costs Money dislikes Christmas intensely. And so does his son, Por Quinly. That is until he is taken on a great adventure by the aptly named Christmas Tree, who actually is a Christmas tree — a singing Christmas tree. They travel to the mall in search of Santa Claus but are blocked by the dread Doctor Shopperlifter, who lives deep in the Undermall where he takes the shoppers he kidnaps and turns them into wax figures with the help of his slimy henchman Mister Roach. On his journey to find his missing father, Por Quinly acquires sdekicks Leonore Snow and Horrible Henry, as well as snowpeople Lord and Lady Snow, Judge Naught and others who help him rescue his father from Doktor Shopperlifter’s wax machine. Por Quinly ends up home at last under the tree, having received his father’s blessing and looking very much forward to Christmas this year. [Free download]
A Por Quinly Christmas, sequel to The Adventures of Por Quinly, is also a play with songs. also requiring seven actors—two female, five male—to play fourteen roles. Non-traditional casting applies.