Plays
For over four hundred years, Shakespeare experts, literary sleuths, and the reading public have been obsessed with uncovering the identity of the “fair youth” of Shakespeare’s sonnets: The beautiful young man to whom the Bard dedicated the romantic, and sometimes passionate, expressions of love.
When an English professor shares the story of a theory that may or may not reveal the secret, and how the evasive proof of that theory leads to a death, his former student becomes obsessed in the search as well, never aware that the relationship between Shakespeare and the beautiful young man echoes his own history with his handsome professor.
Nick Mathews is rehearsing his latest Off-OFF-Broadway musical, ALEXANDER WAS GREAT!, in which the legendary Greek warrior is depicted as a man-hungry, campy, gay party animal. When informed of this atrocity in the afterlife, the real Alexander is sent to earth as a mortal to protect his golden legacy by administering the “kiss of death.” The great Macedonian crashes a rehearsal in progress, out-performs the fame-hungry actor playing him, and is immediately cast in the show playing himself!
Complications result as the displaced actor seeks revenge, as Alexander must deliver a kiss, and the normally aloof director can’t understand his inexplicable attraction to the mysterious stranger. Boy meets demi-god, boy loses demi-god, boy gets demi-god, and all ends well romantically with a surprising and sweet final scene. https://akissfromalexander.com The score is written by composer/musical director Brad Simmons. The play has had revisions since its original presentation while retaining all its joy, warmth, style, and, most importantly, its gay-positive focus.
Julian Potter, the irascible, Scrooge-like producer of a small city's community theatre, decides not to do A CHRISTMAS CAROL this year, much to the horror of the theatre regulars. He books a touring musical in its place, but when less-than-ideal conditions prevent the tour from performing on opening night, the regulars, in order to save the theatre, propose to ad-lib their way through a performance of DICKEN'S A CHRISTMAS CAROL. They use any costumes, sets and props they can find. The performance is chaotic, hysterical, and bumpy In so many ways. Ultimately, though, the show's successful in the true nature of the Dickens classic.
The conventional image of gender roles in the American Civil War is incomplete. Men were not the only ones to march off to war. Women bore arms and charged into battle as well. Women lived in germ-ridden camps, languished in appalling prisons, suffered the pain of wounds, and died horribly but honorably fighting for their country and their cause just as men and boys did. In doing so, these defiant and courageous women also fought to escape miserable lives as third-class citizens, often trapped in conditions with no more hope for improvement than the slaves of the South. But they did not fight in petticoats!
WHEN JENNY COMES MARCHING HOME AGAIN is about the women who disguised themselves as men and enlisted in the armies of the Union and the Confederacy. For a heightened historical tone, it utilizes as its musical score public domain songs from the period by mid-19th Century composers and lyricist
Life in Manhattan is challenging for KC Hartmann, a bright young gay man who doubts his attractiveness. KC attends to life’s routine demands while waiting to meet “Mr. Right”, the man of his dreams. Through his job at a New York dating service, KC helps his friends and total strangers find their love matches, but KC’s Perfect Lover only appears in his dreams and romantic fantasies, which are startlingly similar to those scenes in famous novels and movies! But even beautiful fantasies are no escape when his real world begins to fall apart. In spite of multiple efforts by his closest friends to find KC a mate, a series of misfortunes threaten to make his life unbearable until he receives a mysterious letter, a letter containing a single theatre ticket and a cryptic message:
“Meet me tonight. With luck you just might Meet Mr. Right In the seat on your right.”
Hoping this is more than another doomed matchmaker attempt, KC attends the performance and waits to meet the mysterious man who will fill the seat on his right, and maybe the hole in his heart.
GEEZERS is a musical revue on the topic of senior living in America.With songs and comedy sketches, it touches on dating, exercise, health, medicine, retirement homes, family, relatives, etc. in comedy and humor.The script offered here is just an example of a finished product since there are numerous sketches and song that can be interpolated or rearranged to fit the talent available. Though the subject is senior life, the cast contains some "juniors" for contrast and the show can be enjoyed by junior and seniors alike.