Born in Brooklyn before Brooklyn was hip, I had my first play, Peanuts and Cracker Jack, produced at Case Western Reserve University, which transferred to a run at the Cleveland Playhouse, with followup productions at the Arkansas Repertory and Mint Theater in New York. Other productions include Urban Affairs (four one acts, Case Western), Casa Neurotica (New York Theater Festival), Heaven (reading, Sandy Spring Theater Festival). New plays include Stanislavski's Methods, a comedy (3m 3f) about a down at the heels Russian classical theater doing Shakespeare, and Lost Souls, a multi-ethnic comedy of identity. Member Dramatists Guild, New Play Exchange..
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Plays
In the 90-minute, 2-character play (1f, early 40s; 1m, 25-28), set in 1950, a young and inexperienced Jewish lawyer for the New York public defender's office is asked to represent a female German-American WWII radio propagandist, imprisoned for treason, for her parole hearing. Except she's doesn't want to leave prison. It's an allegory--and the closest I could get to putting the White House and lying government officials on trial on stage.
A scientist on the lam meets a disgraced journalist to ghost write his memoirs in a claustrophobic motel room outside Washington. And a priceless statue. Pinter meets the Maltese Falcon. Two characters, no intermission, no break. 2m, but easily gender-neutral.
The play looks at extraordinary people dealing with extraordinary times, times of extreme political and social change and peril. Petey Lee is the arrogant and selfish leading actor of a hugely successful comedy radio program in 1933 Berlin, who has to deal with the attacks on his freedom and his show along with his long-time cast and writers, including his brother. The play then takes all of them to 1947 New York, where they deal with the repercussions of their European political resistance, and the Blacklist. Both funny and serious, it shows the courage and humanity needed to create art and survive in treacherous times, and how heroes and heroines are often the most flawed of people.
Two rabbinic students deal with questions of Jewish identity in different ways. Frank, whose student congregation is a cemetery, finds a family of so-called "conversos"--nominal Catholics whose families were converted forcibly during the Spanish Inquisition but secretly kept their now watered down Jewish rituals--in an East Harlem tenement going coop. Meanwhile, in a pilot project from the school, his roommate, another rabbinic student, is asked for definitive proof of his ethnicity.
Stanislavski’s Methods is a one set, two act comedy (3m, 3f) that takes place in a rundown Russian classical theater. The theater’s producer, Evgeny Stanislavski, is the great grand nephew (he thinks) of the famous director, and like his theater, has fallen into a state of disrepair. He has no paying subscribers, little audience, and is hounded by creditors. He owes so much back pay to his company of actors, and “fees” to various bagmen that he is in danger of losing the theater.
Grusha, his leading actress--both on stage and, formerly, off--and Elena, his bookkeeper and a would-be actress, try to console him, to no avail. But a proposal from a shady friend of his to bring a notorious American action film actor and his assistant to the theater for a one-night fundraising performance could fill his coffers--and bring Evgeny and Grusha back together.
The play blends elements of classical farce, with modern fast-paced comedy, a strong story, and good comedic roles for women.
The relationship of a young third baseman for the New York Yankees and his older manager, through a baseball season.
Successes
Lies will be part of the Scripted Brussels theater festival in Belgium, May 2020.
Lies received a reading at the Baltimore Playwqrights Festrival, December 2019.
Lies is the Grand Prize winner of the 88th annual Writer's Digest writing competition, over 5,000 entries in 9 genres.
A scene from Petey's Parade was performed as part of the Baltimore Playwrights Festival series of new plays.