PLAYS
Full length, one act, musical theater, opera, dance theater
FULL LENGTH
THE HIROSHIMA DAUGHTER
The play is set in the 1950s. ROZ, a crusading journalist, brings horribly scared MIYOSHI, a young Japanese artist, to the U.S. for reconstructive surgery. Miyoshi becomes a media darling after Roz introduces her to the nation on the popular television program "My Three Wishes," BROOKS, a former diplomat and Roz’s wartime lover, warns her that Miyoshi puts a face to the consequences of nuclear warfare, raising the ire of Congressman HAWKINS and threatening Roz’s fund-raising efforts to bring over additional young women disfigured by the bomb.
Cast of ten: 4 women (1 Asian American, 1 Black, 2 white), 6 men (White)
SCRIPT SAMPLE: Act One, MIYOSHI recovers from her first surgery; ROZ asks her help, and she has an unexpected guest.
ONE GOOD TREE
In a broken corner of America, DAVID, a gay teenager, takes the lives of his father, a self-appointed minister, and his mother with the family shotgun. Then confesses online. SANDY, David’s lawyer, enlists NAVEEN, an Indian American therapist, to help her build her defense. If David will let them. Right now he won’t. Populist provocateur WELLINGTON FISK has all three in his sights.
Cast of five: three men (1 White, 1 South Asian, 1 open casting), two women (White).
SCRIPT SAMPLE: Act One, NAVEEN interviews DAVID and shares his diagnosis with SANDY with unexpected consequences.
SLEEPING WITH THE DEAD
CURT, gay and white from a Midwestern political family, returns to the family home to die of AIDS. VINCE, his Black nurse, is tasked with caring for Curt and keeping him out of sight while his brother TERRY runs for re-election as mayor, a position their father once held.
They clash even as Curt finds Vince reminds him of WAYNE, his late lover, who now visits him in his dreams while Vince deals with a no-win relationship with a married man.
Cast of eight: 6 men (3 White, 3 Black), 2 women (White)
SCRIPT SAMPLE: Act One, after CURT’s return home, VINCE takes the vitals of a very distrustful CURT.
COLORS AT SUNSET
In a gated community in New Mexico, JANICE and ALEX deal with a son fresh from rehab, a penniless sister who's fled her married Italian conductor, and an aging father badgered by the UNINVITED GUEST that only he can see... while in Mexico, collapsing economically due to climate change, a charismatic leader - LA MADRE - arises galvanizing the country. Where are boundaries in a world where borders - within families, between countries - are both porous and policed?
Cast of nine: 5 women (1 White, I Asian American, 3 Latinx) 4 men (2 White, I Black, 1 Latinx), two actors play multiple parts.
SCRIPT SAMPLE: Beginning of Act Two, LA MADRE addresses the nation. The FAMILY reacts.
A GOD BY ANOTHER NAME
Two actors rehearse (Act One) and perform (Act Two) a new two-character play at a regional theatre. JOANNA, an ambitious young actress looking for her big break and PETER, an aging gay actor whose partner leaves him during rehearsals, play passionate doomed lovers, a guileless college student and a manipulative Catholic priest. Love, hate, remembering lines... and crossing them.
Cast of two: 1 man, 1 woman (open casting)
SCRIPT SAMPLE: Act Two, their director having flown the coop, PETER and JOANNA make the play their own.
A GREENHOUSE DETERMINATION
The AUDIENCE are cast as members of Gaia2, a survivalist underground colony set in the future where the world above them has become almost uninhabitable due to the climate apocalypse. They must decide whether to eject a COLONIST who may have put their community at risk based on evidence presented by two EVALUATORS. They vote with their cell phones.
Cast of three: open casting
SUMMER CROSSING
At the dawn of the “American” Century, Tammany Hall politician CHARLES CALAHAN is taking his beautiful wife LILLY and their three children to Europe for the Grand Tour, having risen through the Tammany ranks and married above himself.” Aboard ship, he befriends JAN, a Czech immigrant in steerage who has been rejected at Ellis Island,. Jan sees Charles as his ticket back to the America, even ashe is distracted by the attentions of the unhappy Lilly.
Cast of 13: 9 men, 4 women. (open casting)
SCRIPT SAMPLE: Act One, LILLY questions CHARLES’s motivations and teaches JAN to dance.
OLYMPIC NOTIONS & SUPPLY
SOO is an embittered Korean widow who has witnessed her store being looted in the L.A. Riots. LEMONT, an African American postal worker and recovering alcoholic, appears at the store, offering to help her clean it up, responding to Rodney King's appeal, "Can we all get along?" Soo rebuffs him at first but a guarded friendship develops, to the confusion and distrust of their respective families, particularly KINNY, LeMont’s alienated son.
Cast of eight: 4 women (2 Asian American, 2 Hispanic), 4 men (2 Black, 1 Asian American, 1 White)
Excerpt: Act One, KINNY confronts LEMONT. SOO offers him a startling proposition.
RECKONING ANGEL
MATHIAS, a successful writer, burnt out and sickened with fame, and SARA, his younger wife, have retired to an abandoned farm on an isolated island off a coast. FRANC, a young man, appears on their doorstep, insisting he is the man’s illegitimate son and that he's come for his "inheritance" which he refuses to name.
Cast of three: 2 men, 1 woman (open casting)
SYMPHONY PASTORALE - A life in Four Movements
A 50-minute birth-to-death choral play in four movements with an ensemble of five actors performing multiple roles including JOHN, his family, a radio, frogs, an amusement park, and his irregular heartbeat in the last moments of life (among other things) -all of which is conducted as if it were music.
Cast of six: 3 men, 2 women, conductor (open casting)
Excerpt: First Movement, JOHN, against his best efforts, is born. Now it’s his PARENTS’ turn to raise him!
ONE ACT
SOCIAL SCIENCE
An ACADEMIC delivers a paper on race relations, only to discover his representative “BLACK MAN” is actually White and his “WHITE WOMAN” is really Black and each has a will of their own. Identity meets hilarity.
Cast of three: one woman (Black), one man (White), one open casting
YE OLDE MYSTERIE PLAYE OF THE NATIVITY
Backstage at an Elizabethan Nativity play, AGNES, wife of MERBERT the guild master sponsoring the performance and the leading lady cast as the Virgin Mary, thinks it's a lousy part and wants it rewritten for Mary Magdalene – locking horns with MAXIMUS, the director.
Cast of six: 2 women, 4 men (open casting)
SOLO
SALES MANAGER works over sales force – and the audience – by building them up, tearing them down – and playing them off against one another.
Cast of 1: open casting
MORNING TEA
JOYCE visits her elderly mother FRANCES concerned she has taken in and is caring for Aunt Bea, a neighbor dying of cancer, only to learn their relationship is deeper than she could have ever imagined.
Cast of two: 2 women (open casting)
HOME MOVIES
GEORGE and MARJORIE are showing their home movies and you’re invited. But their memories conflict as vacations, holidays, and a senior prom flicker before us until one clip of Marjorie crying in the kitchen halts the show.
Cast of seven: four women, three men (open casting)
FOR STRAIGHT WOMEN WATCHING GAY PORN
To help MARIA get over her funk after being dumped by her boyfriend, her girlfriends present her with a unique way for her to fuck him over - with surprises for all.
Cast of five: four women, one man (open casting)
MUSICAL THEATER / OPERA / DANCE THEATER
GRAB THE SUN! - Book for Musical
GRAB THE SUN! is a contemporary retelling of LYSISTRATA set in an inner city high school about two teenagers RAINY and CLEVE. Rainy wants a better life for herself while Cleve joins a gang that gives him an identity he finds nowhere else. When Rainy’s younger brother JAMAL is shot, she is galvanized to adapt the Greek play they’re studying in DEREK’s theater class for the school musical, organizing the girls to update it and renaming it GRAB THE SUN! - only to come into conflict with their boyfriends and in particular, Cleve.
Cast of 29: 4 women, 5 men (leads & supporting) 7 women, 7 men (students, gang members), 3 women, 3 men (double cast)
SCRIPT SAMPLE: ACT ONE, Scenes 5 & 6, RAINY convinces class to join in creating GRAB THE SUN!, only to find CLEVE opposes the idea.
CRAZY NORA - Opera lilbretto
Based on a true story, Irish immigrant NORA POWER In 1820s Philadelphia becomes embroiled in a conflict between the charismatic FATHER HOGAN and the newly appointed BISHOP CONWELL over her parish church St. Mary’s, unaware Hogan is falling in love with her, culminating in a riot inside the church with Nora accused of being Hogan’s whore. The next morning finds Nora bereft and madly rambling atop the Friends almshouse, refusing Hogan’s help.
Nora becomes a professional dun or debt collector, dressed in a top hat and a man’s great coat, bitterly independent with her own debts to collect.
Cast of 11: 3 women, 8 men (leads & supporting) and chorus (open casting)
SCRIPT SAMPLE from Act One: NORA urges HOGAN to invite BISHOP CONWELL to the parish school where she teaches, with unfortunate consequences.
DANCETELLER/BEFORE FOREVER
I was Playwright-in-Residence with Danceteller, a modern dance company that used spoken material in their performance works. I collaborated with Trina Collins, the company’s artistic director and choreographer on three full-length performance pieces, including BEFORE FOREVER which explored the lives and challenges of men and women dealing with HIV-AIDS using their own words either used to dance-driven monologues or their recordings mixed with music to create soundscapes for the dancers.
BEFORE FOREVER was performed on the both coasts with an edited version performed in high schools. We were also invited to Russia by People’s Friendship Theatre of Moscow to create a Russian-American version that we toured in Russia and Lithuania.
ARTICLE: I wrote about our experiences in Russia and Lithuania in a front page story for Philadelphia’s CITY PAPER titled “Seven Dancers & 20,000 Condoms.”