Plays
The Blue-Sky Boys
A play about the first Apollo moon landing and the people on the ground who made it happen. The Blue-Sky Boys dramatizes the imaginative and somewhat unorthodox creative process used by a group of maverick engineers to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of landing men on the moon and returning them safely to earth. There are extended sequences that dramatize the “encounters” they had with such influences as Buck Rogers, Icarus, Galileo, Apollo, the Red Baron, Louis Leaky and others. A story about the intersection of creativity and science, The Blue-Sky Boys is a play in two acts with an all-male cast. Although inspired by history, the play is a work of fiction.
Commissioned by the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology project. (more…)
The Poetry of Pizza
A Play in Four Slices
Professor Sarah Middleton arrives in Denmark to teach at the University of Copenhagen, only to find her life irrevocably thrown off course when she stops by the Vermundsgade Pizzeria one night for a pizza. She falls suddenly and unexpectedly in love with the pizza maker, Soran Saleen, a Kurdish refugee who wins her heart with his pizzas. Sarah and Soran’s unlikely courtship arouses the curiosity and passions of everyone around them (an assortment of Danish, Arab and American characters) setting in motion a rash of culinary courtships and a chaotic comedy of errors. (more…)
The Women of Lockerbie
A mother from New Jersey roams the hills of Lockerbie Scotland, looking for her son’s remains which were lost in the crash of Pan Am 103. She meets the Women of Lockerbie, who are fighting the US Government to obtain the clothing of the victims found in the plane’s wreckage. The women, determined to convert an act of hatred into an act of love, want to wash the clothes of the dead and return them to the victim’s families. The Women of Lockerbie is loosely inspired by a true story, although the characters and situations in the play are purely fictional. Written in the structure of a Greek tragedy, it is a poetic drama about the triumph of love over hate.
Winner, Silver Medal, Onassis International Playwriting Competition; and, the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award (more…)
Signs of Life
On a magical night in New Jersey, the stars talk to Abe, Sal gets a magic tattoo and a journey begins. Abe and Sal take off across the country, following the stars and looking for Birth and Life. Signs of Life is loosely based on the Sarah and Abraham story from the Old Testament–spun out of the Holy Land and onto the Interstate Highways of the American West. The play is a comic meditation on faith, doubt and spirituality.
Awards: Rockefeller Foundation playwriting fellowship; Gold Medalist, 2004 Pinter Review Prize for Drama; Winner, Jane Chambers Playwriting Award; Theatre Conspiracy playwriting contest; Hanover College/Lily Foundation Playwriting Contest, 2nd place. (more…)
Blue Moon Over Memphis
A Noh Drama about Elvis Presley
Written in a traditional Noh structure, Blue Moon Over Memphis is a meditation on loneliness. Judy, an Elvis Presley fan, makes a pilgrimage to Graceland on the anniversary of Elvis’s death. During the candlelight vigil, a mysterious man lets her into the Meditation Garden where Elvis is buried. Under the light of the blue moon, she meets the ghost of Elvis.
Published by Applause Books in “The Best American Short Plays of 2004” and in Japanese and English in the Journal of the Noh Research Archives in Tokyo, Japan. (more…)
Into the Fire
A woman’s awakening throws a community into chaos in this three-act play set in an isolated Alaskan fishing town. At the height of the crisis, a mysterious man is washed ashore, setting the town and it’s inhabitants on fire in more ways than one. Into the Fire explores betrayal, rebirth, and community in a style that can be best described as Magic Realism with an Alaskan twist.
Awards: L. Arnold Weissberger Award.; written in Mexico on a NEA International residency fellowship. Rhode Island winner of the Clauder Competition; finalist, National Play Award.
Published by Samuel French.
Development: National Playwright’s Conference (The O’Neill); Australian National Playwright’s Conference; New Plays Festival at Charlotte Rep; Urban Stages, NYC.
The Velvet Weapon
At the National Theatre of an unnamed country, in an unnamed city, a matinee audience rises up in protest over what is being performed on stage, and demands something new. They begin a performance of their own of “The Velvet Weapon,” a play by an unproduced playwright of unknown talent. Inspired by the Velvet Revolution in the former Czechoslovakia, The Velvet Weapon is a humorous examination of democracy told through a battle between high-brow and low-brow art.
Awards: CEC ArtsLink grant; New Jersey Council on the Arts Playwriting Fellowship. (more…)
The Cheechako Treatment
Commissioned by America-in-Play (Artistic Director, Lynn Thompson) a new theatre company that encourages playwrights to examine America’s dramatic past as a tool to enrich their current work. The Cheeckako Treatment is a creative response to The Contrast by Royall Tyler (written in 1787) and several skits from late 19th century minstrel shows.
Wet Willies
Encounters with bears in Alaska, the terrors of writing and a trip to Wet Willies carwash are told in this one-woman performance piece about fear, deliverance and the power of language.
Of Men and Mountains
Landscape and desire, mountains and men. Of Men and Mountains is a one-woman performance piece that explores the body, the land and the loss of home.
