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Also Note:
Due to the evolving nature of scripts, I reserve the right to make
revisions on all plays either independently or through
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the most current version of the requested script.
Full Length Plays (2 Act Format)
Whatever Notions
3 Women, 3 Men, 1 Boy (Age 10)
What–or who–would it take to free us from the notions that entrap us most? On an extraordinary autumn afternoon in the 1950’s, the DeKirk family may just find out.
Meet Evelyn, the mother, a former child beauty queen who longs to take top prize of Miss America. Victor, her husband, is a butcher who on his off time hunts for Communists and Nazis in the backyard. Rue, Evelyn’s younger sister, is a 3rd grade teacher whose soul feels the rhythms of the Beat Generation. Jake, Victor’s eccentric and closeted older brother, visits the house this day after returning from one of his many work related travels. Grandma, Rue and Evelyn’s mother, has an affinity for match making and pink flamingo lawn ornaments. Eddie, Evelyn and Victor’s 10-year-old son, has a fondness for tin cans and finding sanctuary in his tree house.
As is often the case, secrets and truths stir below the surface of these often humourous quirks and peculiarities. An unexpected visitor takes the members of the family on journeys where the line between reality and impossibility is often blurred. Where will they be, both individually and as a family, when they make it to the other side? Where will they be when they are once again left alone with each other?
What appears on the surface to be a period piece kitchen sink (and backyard) play evolves into a world of imagination that the sit-com writers of the ’50’s never dared to tread.
Losing Lulu Drayton
3 Men, 1 Woman
Shortly after moving into his new apartment, Eric, a gay white man, starts receiving messages from Reginald, an office worker with holy aspirations at the all African American Mt. Zion First Holy Miracle Baptist Church on Chicago’s South Side. At first annoyed by these calls, Eric eventually becomes fascinated with them–but also starts to wonder why he is receiving such calls. After a year, he receives a call about the death of church member, Lulu Drayton. He is thrown into a whirlwind of sadness, wondering why he cares so much for this woman he never knew. Through “conversations” with Reginald, Eric starts a campaign of spiritual and cultural connection to the black church as he searches for his own gay identity.
Meanwhile, Eric’s sensitive and quiet boyfriend, Scott, has not told Eric, “I love you” since the death of his mother a few months before. He has become emotionally and physically distant in their relationship. Eric begins to doubt the stability of their relationship. Scott befriends Tamron, an African American homeless woman (and former shampoo girl) who has been searching the city for her old phone number which she feels will lead her back to the man whose calls she misses…. Tamron’s own connection to Lulu Drayton and Mt. Zion is discovered, as well as the passionate fire in her heart and the destructive fire that burned down her home.
As the journeys of Eric, Scott, Tamron, and Reginald all intersect at Lulu Drayton’s funeral service, the results of these unlikely of relationships are discovered and they learn how one woman’s sin tore people apart–and brought them back together.
MisteRip
3 Men, 2 Women, Plus 1 Man & 1 Woman to play multiple roles
Audra has recently moved, and in unpacking, she rekindles her relationship with her childhood Doll that her mother bought for her at a yard sale. She decides that what she needs to complete her new apartment is the perfect end table. This search and her years of yard sale shopping lead her to Rip, a carnival huckster type character running a mysterious yard sale. There, the objects for sale, including a Vase and a Book, tell her strange tales about how they were lost by their owners.
As she returns to Rip’s sale, she suspects a connection between Rip and her missing brother, Jason. Meanwhile, Jason is not physically far from Audra at all, but mentally is on a Ride that leads him on a sky ride with kites, to the very theatre where the play is presented, memories of his own relationship with the Doll, and the night he got to be where he is. His only hope appears to be in the form of a Mailman who could quite literally deliver him to freedom.
We learn that Rip himself has orchestrated the events, with the help of the siblings’ minds–and that what he wants is the very thing that is synonymous with his own loss….
The Eulogy Stalker
3 Women
Many, if not most, of us had imaginary friends when we were young. A playmate. A protector. Perhaps more. They belonged in our own little world.
Or did they?
This is the story of two sets of people brought together by a fantastic experience. Bitchina (William), a New York drag queen/performance artist and his friend Rachel, a lesbian costume/fashion designer. Freddy, a Chicago casting director, and Shane, an adult video store owner.
Following Bitchina’s mother’s funeral when he was a child, he meets Frederick, an imaginary friend. Frederick was all things such a friend is. And more.
Then, quite suddenly, he became real and ran away.
Flashforward to present day, Bitchina and Freddy meet up again in a New York club during Bitchina’s show. The play flows poetically between realities to tell their story as Freddy confronts the meaning of his existence in fantasy, and Bitchina relives the drama that shaped his sensitive gay being. Rachel and Shane, both seekers of truth, are faced with learning that the ones they love most aren’t quite the people they though they were.
The play explores fantasy, magic, realism, and surrealism, and asks the question, What do we do with something that’s no longer needed?
One Acts/Short Plays
Coffee Boy
1 Man, 1 Woman
Originally produced by Heartlande Theatre at Performance Network, Ann Arbor, Michigan, as part of their annual Play By Play marathon of short plays, June 2005.
Teller, an office receptionist, makes the coffee. Jean, another office employee, always manages to finish it. As they attempt to fight off the doldrums of office life, fantasy segments ensue revolving around the empty coffee pot–and ultimately take them to the brink of the forbidden.
Drats (a farce of sorts.)
3 Men, 2 Women
Poor Brett. On this night he gets up to use the bathroom and discovers a rat scampering across his path and into the bathroom. Terrified, he buries himself under his blankets hoping the rat won’t eat him. Meanwhile, his roommate Zandra (not Sandra!) has called 911 for assistance. Andrew, a studly police officer, arrives on the scene. Both Brett and Zandra desire him, and though Andrew embraces Zandra, a flirtatious signal or two is sent Brett’s way.
While they’re off on their mission to catch the rat, Rat appears. She is an enchantress dressed all in black–an actress hired to play the rat since rats cannot speak. She embodies the rat’s persona as she tells of her middle-of-the-night observations of the roommates. But as the play goes on, she steps outside of the rat and into her true self, confessing her own feelings toward Brett that she knows will never be requited.
As Zandra tells a ghost story that connects those sticky rat traps with a Demon Lord of the Underworld and his plans to take over the world, a mysterious droning is heard. The next morning when Brett has a run-in with Harrison, his co-worker at his temp job, they all soon discover that the ghost story is quite real. When Andrew and Zandra (and Rat) go in search of Brett, they all end up prisoners of the Underworld. Only through Rat’s love of Brett and a little known demon antidote can their lives–and the world–be saved.
In the end, lessons of tolerance and understanding are learned, realizations are made, and love is in the air–or at least a couple kinky fantasies may come true….
TYA (Theatre for Young Audiences)
Goldilocks & The Three Bears
Large cast with parts for both adults and children.
Contains royalty-free and classic songs.
Originally produced by the Marquis Theatre of Northville, Michigan. Directed by Ernie Nolan, August-September 2003.
A new and expanded version of the classic story co-written with director Ernie Nolan.
Troublemaker and teller of tall tales Goldilocks is on a picnic at Mount Blueberry State Park with her classmates from Mount Blueberry Elementary School (including bully Billy Joe and worry wart Lulu Sue, etc) and her teacher, Mrs. McGillicutty. The class is joined by Ranger Dan (who happens to be afraid of bears and whose heart Mrs. McGillicutty yearns to capture.) As they go on an expedition to find the rare and mysterious Cucamonga bird, Goldilocks stays behind. Alone with the baskets, she meets Baby Bear, whose parents, Buelah and Bertrum, have warned him about humans and the germs they spread.
When she is reunited with her class, she tells of her bear sighting. Her classmates, not believing her, dare her to go into the woods and prove it. Thus begins Goldilocks’ coming upon the bear cottage and the classic scene ensues. As the bears chase Goldilocks through the woods, they are joined by her class–and the chorus of bees who act as messengers of Mount Blueberry. When Baby Bear falls into Mount Blueberry Pond, rescue efforts help forge stronger bear-human relationships. Old rivalries are dismantled and understanding and tolerance is gained–and love blooms like a honeysuckle rose between Mrs. McGillicutty and Ranger Dan.
