What was lost in the fires

I've got a story for you today. A true story. A personal story.

It happened in 1992. I was working as an engineer for a semiconductor company in Tempe, Arizona. I was slated to present a technical paper at an engineering conference in Los Angeles, and as a sort of impromptu mini-vacation, I decided to bring my wife Tammy and our daughter Ashley with me, Ashley was only three months old at the time and cute as a button.

I gave my presentation on Friday, and on Saturday we decided to take a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu, a town I'd visited before but Tammy had not (obviously that goes double for Ashley).

The first place we stopped was Zuma Beach. Since it was October, we had the place almost entirely to ourselves. We didn't put Ashley in the water--it was a little too cold for that--but she loved digging her chubby little hands in the sand and she was completely mesmerized by the waves pounding again and again against the shore.

When it came time for dinner, we decided to stop at a funky little Thai restaurant--really just a shack-- just north of the beach and on the other side of the highway. It was quiet inside, and dark. It seemed the perfect place for a relaxing dinner (Ashley was as well-behaved a diner as she was an airline passenger).

We were promptly seated at a table next to another couple, which I thought was weird as we were just about the only parties in the entire restaurant. Tammy and Ashley sat with their backs to a young woman. I sat across from Tammy, facing the man across from the woman.

Before we'd even ordered, the young woman turned to Tammy and lavished praise on how beautiful Ashley was. We thanked her. She mentioned that she was expecting, and we congratulated her. And then she introduced the two of them--being sure to use their first names only. Her name was Linda and the man's name was James.

I thought they might be celebrities so I took little peeks of them during our dinner. The woman seemed vaguely familiar, but she was wearing sunglasses, even in the darkness of the restaurant, and I couldn't quite tell who she was.

I looked across at the man and when he looked back at me, he had the look of someone who desperately wanted to be recognized. But no. I didn't recognize him at all.

After dinner, we paid our bill and said a quick but warm goodbye to the couple. As we headed toward the exit, we noticed that three of the servers were huddled around the stand, pointing at the couple and giggling.

That's when Tammy turned to look back at the couple. "I think I know who that is," she whispered to me. "That's Linda Hamilton." Movie fans will remember her from The Terminator and Terminator 2, the latter of which she'd starred in just the year before. 

It would be another six years before I figured out who the man was. Tammy and I were watching the 1998 Oscars at a friend's house when they announced who'd won Best Director. A tall, thin, blond man took the stage, and as he hoisted his statuette in the air shouting "I'm king of the world!", I immediately recognized him as the guy from the restaurant.

It was, of course, James Cameron. The film, Titanic.

I'd met other celebrities before. I had a nice talk with Amadeus playwright and screenwriter Peter Shaffer at a theater seminar in Colorado Springs. I had an equally nice talk with America Ferrara at the screening of a small indie film she'd appeared in, also in Colorado Springs. And when I was about ten years old, I met Buddy Ebsen on a film location in Monument Valley, where the old hoofer entertained me and my family with a quick little jig.

But meeting Linda Hamilton and James Cameron was the best celebrity meet of them all, because it wasn't a celebrity meet. It was just two couples having a friendly chat over dinner. 

That restaurant burned to the ground this week in the Palisades fire.

Thousands of people have suffered unfathomable loss from the fires currently burning in southern California. Some have lost homes. Some have lost family members. Some have lost everything. 

It has broken my heart reading all of the stories, and I wonder how long it'll take those affected to return to a semblance of normal life. Maybe never.

So my heart goes out to them today. And my prayers. And my deepest, dearest hopes for some sort of recovery.

In the midst of so much devastation and loss, one cozy little beachside restaurant may not count for much. But I know I'll never forget it.

A look ahead to 2025

It's always the same thing. Every year about this time, the major media outlets collect a purportedly random sample of the general population and breathlessly ask them the same question:

What resolutions have you made for the New Year?

About half those people come up with some inspiring, aspirational goals that promise to get them back in shape, buy them some quality time with their family, and cure their bad breath.

The other half of the people take a more practical approach. They refuse to make any resolutions, explaining that they're all a waste anyway since everyone gives up two weeks in.

I'm somewhere in between.

I recognize how difficult it can be to stay true to such life-changing objectives. But I also recognize how important it is to try to improve ourselves, all through out lives.

That's why I don't call what I make "resolutions." I call them "goals." To me, at least, that makes them sound less threatening, less final. 

No, I don't always meet my goals by the time I say I will. But you know what? I've found that I often meet them years later.

In 2022, I set a goal of becoming an adjudicator for the ariZoni Theatre Awards. I didn't make it that year, but I did the following year. 

In 2019, I set the goal of leading a workshop at the Arizona Thespian Festival. I didn't get in that year, but I did in 2023.

And, in one my longest gestating goals, in 2016, I'd hoped to publish both Kill the Critic! That finally came to pass last year.

So I think it's important for you to set yearly goals for yourself. Even if you don't achieve them right away, just the act of putting them down in black and white makes them more likely to happen in the first place.

And so with that bit of unasked for advice, I give you my goals for 2025. 

1) Finish six plays.

Admittedly, this is an aggressive goal, one more than the number of plays I finished last year. But I can't let up. Now that I'm trying to make an actual living at writing, this level of productivity has to be the new normal.

2) Publish six plays

This I have less control over. I may write the greatest play ever written, but if it doesn't meet the needs of my publishers, they're not going to publish it. So it's vital for me as I'm writing to keep in mind what the market needs. And for the amateur market, that largely means plays that are easy to produce: few props, few or no lighting and sound effects, a single set. And always, always, some kind of hook that'll get eyeballs on the script and, eventually, butts in seats.

3) Get a picture book accepted for publication

I've been trying to break into the picture book market now for--whoa!--twenty-eight years. Some of those years I'd write three of four manuscripts that I submitted to publishers (and were promptly rejected). Other years I didn't write a thing.

But now that I'm writing full-time, I've decided to kick start my picture book writing again. In October, I submitted a humorous picture book titled Okie and Firecracker to my agent, Stephen Fraser at the Jennifer Di Chiara Agency. I haven't heard back from him yet (which reminds me, I really need to check in with him!), but I assume it's still making the rounds of the New York publishing houses.

In the meantime, I'm allowing the ideas for some new picture books to simmer in the back of my brain. The last picture book only took me a week to write so it fit in nicely between plays, when I'm often stuck for ideas and need to fertilize my gray matter by working (and playing) in a different genre for a while.

4) Foster gratefulness

Lately, I've tried to include a more touchy-feely goal in my yearly to-do lists. Last year I focused on mindfulness. This year, I'm going to focus on gratefulness.

As a perfectionist, I find it all too easy to obsess about things that are going wrong. But there's a lot more going right in my life right now and I want to boost that by reminding myself of those things. If anything can bring more good into my life, it's being thankful for the good I already have.

5) Spend more time with Honey

I haven't written much about Honey the Wondermutt on these pages, and I should. She's been a wonderful part of our lives for ten years now. And that passing of time has been weighing on me more heavily this last year.

Honey's a lab/beagle mix that our daughter Ashley got from a shelter in Tulsa when she lived there. We don't know much about her previous life. But we know she was abused. She has a scar on one of her back legs to prove it, probably from being tied up by a chain.

She was super scared at first. So scared of the world that she didn't want to go for walks. So scared of me that if I came into the room where she was, she would leave.

But eventually she came around. She learned to love walks. and when I started giving her pieces of my banana, she learned to love me as well.

A year later Ashley ended up in Tucson. A year after that we ended up in Phoenix. Ashley moved in with us after she lost her job in late 2018 and Honey quickly made herself at home in our home. She loved watching the neighbors go by from our courtyard. She loved running around our backyard (when she wasn't digging holes in it). She loved sniffing every single plant, it seemed, on our walks around the neighborhood. But most of all, she loved sunning herself on our back patio.

And that's why, when Ashley moved back to Tucson in 2023, she left Honey with us. It was the hardest decision she'd ever made in her life, and the most unselfish. But we all knew that between Ashley's job and her newfound passion for trail running, the alternative was to keep Honey cooped up alone in a tiny apartment for twelve hours a day, and she'd never be happy with that. Not after she'd experienced the doggy glory of rolling in fresh-mown grass or sticking her snoot in the perfumy richness of a lantana plant.

Honey turns eleven at the end of this month. She doesn't run like she used to. She's too stiff for that. But she still finds much to be happy about. And that's why this year I want to carve more time out of each day to just be with her, to savor the quiet moments as well as the playful moments, while she's still with us.

So, yes, it's important to me to learn to be grateful. But I expect the one who's going to teach me is Honey.

A look back at 2024

Wow, what a year. What a crazy, messed-up, wonderful year.

A scant 364 days ago, when I first laid out my goals for 2024, I thought I'd de spending my weekdays the usual way. Start the day by fighting the morning commute. Grind out 8 or 9 or 10 hours at my technically challenging but often boring day job. Fight the evening commute back home. Squeeze in a couple hours for dinner and TV with my wife. Then try to crank out a couple pages of writing before collapsing into bed, utterly exhausted.

It worked. I mean, I built my playwriting career that way. But it wasn't fun. It wasn't fulfilling.

Then January 17 happened and everything changed. For that was the day I got laid off from my day job. I looked for a new job for several months, but at the age of 60, I knew I wasn't exactly a hot commodity. So it didn't surprise me that no offers came.

And that's how I became a full-time writer. Not by making a bold decision to quit my job or by falling into a pile of money from a long lost uncle or winning the lottery. No, I was pretty much forced into it, with a pink slip in one hand and a cardboard box of desktop photos under my arm.

It's been nothing short of wonderful.

Why? Well, I can't explain it any better than Gloria Steinem did years ago: "Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else."

That's exactly how I've always felt. And now, I have much more time not to feel I should be doing something else.

That additional writing time has really paid off. Sure, I've been writing a lot more plays. But more importantly, I've been writing better plays.

Having a longer stretch of time to write each day has allowed me to dive even deeper into my stories, to really think about what motivates my characters, to make their actions more compelling, to make their endings more satisfying.

And guess what. It has also helped me achieve two of my goals for the year.

So with that painfully awkward segue, let's see how I did with those now seemingly ancient goals:

1) Finish three plays

Success. When I thought I'd only be writing part-time, this goal seemed quite aggressive. But writing full-time, it turned out to be a piece of cake. As it turned out, I finished five. And one of them, my backstage comedy Bringing Down the House, is already a big hit, booking 38 productions in its first five months of publication.

I'll take that any day.

2) Publish three plays

Success. Again I went well beyond my goal, publishing five new plays. That makes this my most productive year yet.

Those plays are:

George Washington Ate My Homework

Bringing Down the House

Freaky Tiki

The Real Reason Dinosaurs Went Extinct

Kill the Critic!

On the other hand, two of the plays were held over from 2023, when they'd first gotten accepted for publication. On the other hand, I'll be heading into 2025 with three new plays in the editing queue at Pioneer so my backlog is growing, as they say in the biz.

Those plays are:

Too Many Ghosts

The Worst Fairy Tale Ever

Route 66

3) Travel to Hawaii

Failure, and for the second year in a row. But this year it wasn't my fault. I got laid off, remember? And while that allowed me to live the professional lifestyle I've always wanted, it did mean Tammy and I had to cut back on expenses.

The first to go was restaurants. We used to love dining out, trying an exciting new place or revisiting an old favorite every weekend. Giving that up hurt. But pricey trips to places like Palm Springs or San Diego, had to go as well. That hurt only a little but less.

That doesn't mean we're cooped up in the house every day. We do go to local festivals, especially if they involve the blues, Greek food, or wine. As an adjudicator for the ariZoni Theatre Awards, I'm able to see eight or nine plays a year for free. And Tammy and I support our daughter Ashley by cheering her on at the three or four ultramarathons she runs each year. These usually take place in gorgeous locations throughout Arizona and the Southwest and we share the costs with Ashley, making this an economical way to explore a part of the country we love.

Maybe we'll be able to travel again in a couple years, after I've built up my play portfolio a little more. In the meantime, I'm happy to travel vicariously by practicing my Italian every day and watching the occasional Rick Steves rerun.

4) Be more present

Okay, this is a tricky one. When I made this goal, I noted that there was no way I could possibly measure it. The only way I'd know whether I'd met it or not was to be honest with myself and judge whether I'd really gotten out of my head enough. And looking back over the last twelve months, I though I could honestly say: Sort Of.

I mean, I'm getting better. I'm taking more time to enjoy meals, to really think about what I'm eating and savoring every bite. And when Tammy and I walk our dog, the illustrious supermutt Honey, I've been focusing on the beautiful views around me rather than all the things I have to do when the walk is over.

But then I looked back at my goals over the last several years and realized I wrote almost the exact same thing in 2022, even down to the details about meals and walking Honey.

So maybe I didn't make any progress this year. Either way, I've got a long way to go. And that's why I'll keep working at it in the new year, even if I don't make it an official goal. After all, mindfulness--along with finding your purpose and fostering meaningful relationships--is one of the keys to living the Good Life. And I've already got the other two.

Jacksonville PAC joins the club

This last Saturday was a big day for comic Martin Short as he was finally ushered into Saturday Night Live's Five-Timers Club, having hosted the show five times since 1986. 

My own Five-Timers Club, for schools and communities theaters who've done five productions of my plays, may not be nearly as famous, but I like to think the members are just as laudable as old Marty.

And the club now has a sixth member. My friends at the Jacksonville Performing Arts Company (that's the North Carolina Jacksonville, not the Florida one) just booked their fifth production of my plays.

What's crazy (and highly appreciated!) is that four of those productions were for The Enchanted Bookshop Musical. The theater company first produced it in March 2020, performed it again with two different youth groups in 2022, and are now about to start rehearsals for their 2025 production.

I guess they really like it!

The other production? That was for Whole Latte Love, a coffee shop comedy with its special blend of magic.

Maybe I should start ordering some Five-Timers club jackets?

The Worst Fairy Tale Ever to be published

Some Christmas presents come wrapped in pretty paper and bows. Some come in fancy gift bags. And some come in a simple 5x7 envelope.

Of course, they're all good, but this afternoon I was especially excited to see that familiar envelope in my mailbox because it came from Pioneer Drama Service and it contained the contract for my latest play, The Worst Fairy Tale Ever. That's right. They're going to publish it, making this one-act comedy my 28th play with Pioneer and my 32nd play overall.

Since the play was commissioned by Belmont Day School, I've already spoken at length about its development (namely, here and here and here) so I don't have anything more to say about the play at this time. Instead, I'll do something I haven't done before and share an excerpt from the play.

This scene occurs near the beginning of the play after the narrator--the only member of the cast who's read the script--informs the actors that they're just going to have to wing it.

NARRATOR: (Reads.) A long time ago in a land far, far away, there was a king named Roderick (Pause.) I said, there was a king named Roderick! (Pause. Calls OFF LEFT.) King Roderick! Yoo-hoo!

KING: (ENTERS LEFT out of breath, adjusting his crown.) Sorry. I forgot which part I was playing.

NARRATOR: You're King Roderick.

KING: Oh, right. Thanks for clearing that up.

NARRATOR: (Reads.) Now King Roderick was a very wise king—

KING: (Poses dramatically.) Two plus two is four!

NARRATOR: (Reads.) But he was also very sad.

KING: (Sobs.) Oh, why is two plus two always four? Why can't it ever be five?

NARRATOR: That's not why you're sad.

KING: It's not?

NARRATOR: No. It's because your page has brought you horrible news.

KING: Let me guess. The peasants are about to storm the castle?

NARRATOR: No.

KING: The queen is about to storm my man cave?

NARRATOR: No. Well, yes. But that's not as horrible as what the page has to say.

KING: It's horrible enough.

NARRATOR: All right. Well, if you must know, a giant, fire-breathing dragon has crossed the border into your kingdom and is attacking the peasants.

KING: I don't know. I still think the man cave thing is worse.

PAGE: (ENTERS LEFT.) Your Majesty! Your Majesty! I bring horrible news! A giant, fire-breathing dragon has crossed the border into your kingdom and—

KING: I know. The narrator just told me.

PAGE: (To NARRATOR.) Hey! That was my line!

NARRATOR: Sorry. He wormed it out of me.

I expect The Worst Fairy Tale Ever to be released this spring. In the meantime, if you'd like to see the synopsis and cast breakdown, just hop on over to the play's web page on the New Play Exchange (subscription required--and highly recommended!).

The big three-oh-oh-oh

Two years ago, toward the end of the COVID-19 epidemic, I'd set a bold goal for myself. I'd just reached by 2000th production. It took me 8 years to get my first 1000 productions and 4 years to get my second 1000 productions.

What was my goal? That it would take only three years to get my next 1000 productions.

Well, I guess I wasn't bold enough because it took only two years (and four months, to be exact). As a matter of fact, I reached that milestone this week as Loyalton High School in Loyalton, CA-- a small ranching community not far from Reno, NV--booked a production of An Enchanted Bookshop Christmas.

This play continues to be one of my evergreen properties, snagging a healthy number of productions year after year after year. And the audience response has been phenomenal. In fact, I just came across a Facebook post where a mom mentioned that her girls couldn't stop talking about the Book Fairy and were begging their parents to take them again.

You can't beat enthusiasm like that.

So how long until I reach 4000 productions? Well, I'm not going to be greedy and expect to get there in a year.

Eighteen months will be fine.

Sunhine State Butler earns a rave

When you write for amateur theater--that is, schools and community groups--actual published reviews are few and far between. So one comes along, it's a real treat. Especially if it's a rave.

That was the case today as online magazine Florida Theater On Stage published a review of Curtain Call Playhouse's production of my very British mystery/comedy, The Butler Did It! This ambitious theater company has making the rounds of South Florida with the production. They opened November 16-17 in Pompano Beach, moved on to Sunrise for a single performance on November 24, and are now settled in at Boca Raton for two weekends of shows.

Reviewer Britin Hailer had lots of good things to say about the play, but I especially like how she wrapped up:

"The Butler Did It! is a roller coaster of reveals to keep you guessing up until you realize the little clues planted along the way were leading to a perfect finish. If you love murder mysteries, and even if you don't, we heartily and rousingly suggest you attend Curtain Call Playhouse's current production for a rollicking good time."

A big thanks to director Gary Solomons and the rest of the cast and crew for putting your heart and soul into the production. Sounds like it paid off nicely.