Free Perusal Script of The Last Radio Show

Two weeks ago, I told you about an incredible offer from Pioneer Drama Service: five full perusal scripts of my plays for the amazing price of zero dollars and zero-zero cents.

Well, this week it's a different play with a different publisher but the same low, low price. Heuer Publishing is offering a free perusal copy of my play The Last Radio Show. All you have to do is visit this web page, then click on Download Free sScript. (Note: If you access the page on your phone, you may need to fill out your name, organization, and email address.)

The Last Radio Show is one of my funniest plays and is a lot of fun because it gives the actors an opportunity to make those old-timey sound effects like using coconut shells for the sound of horse hooves or crumpling cellophane for the sound of a campfire.

The play has a cast of 10 (5M/5F), a single set, and runs 90 minutes. Here's the synopsis:

It's 1948, and KUKU Radio is on trouble. Their broadcast tower keeps falling over. The electric company is about to shut off their power. And now they're losing actors, one by one. Can this ragtag crew keep the show going? Or will they be shut down for good?

This hilarious farce brings back the Golden Age of Radio, with crazy commercials such as Kindling Krunch ("the cereal that's like having your own National Park--in a bowl!), and even crazier shows, like The Thing With Two Spleens and Tex King, The Humming Cowboy.

Don't touch that dial! This is radio like you've never seen it before!

But be sure to download the script soon. The link expires on Monday, September 9.

Free Read Friday

Subscribers to Pioneer Drama Service's newsletter are already familiar with Free Read Fridays. At the end of each week, Pioneer promotes one or more plays from their catalog by providing a link to a free downloadable copy of the complete script.

My plays have appeared on Free Read Friday several times in the past, sometimes on their own, sometimes as part of a themed collection (recent themes have included Children's Musicals and Christmas in July).

It's always exciting to see what plays they offer. But today I'm especially excited because for the first time, Pioneer is devoting the week's theme to a single author's works. And that author happens to be, well, me.

The five plays they selected are tied together in three key ways. They're all 60-80 minutes in length. They're all single-set. And they all feature my unique brand of humor (Pioneer's words, not mine😁).

The five are:

It Happened on Route 66

It's a Madhouse!

George Washington Ate My Homework

Million Dollar Meatballs

Whole Latte Love

Unfortunately, if you don't already subscribe to the newsletter, it's too late to download these. But I'd still urge to subscribe as soon as possible because the next four Free Read Fridays will also cover five free perusal scripts.

Pioneer calls it their Five-for-Five, and I think it's a fantastic deal. Where else can you get 25 perusal scripts--a $200 value--for free? The themes they'll be offering are Halloween shows, murder mysteries, fairy tale courtroom comedies, and contest pieces.

And yes, you can unsubscribe at any time. To add your name to the growing list of subscribers, just fill out their form here.

Kill the Critic! is now available!

I'm thrilled to announce that my 4th play of the year and 28th play overall has just been released by Heuer Publishing. It's called Kill the Critic! and it may be the funniest play I've ever written.

Set in 1955, Kill the Critic! is about Trevor Stanton, an impulsive young actor who kidnaps New York City's most powerful theater critic to prevent him from writing a negative review. There's just one problem. Trevor accidentally poisons the critic, and as showtime nears, he must take increasingly desperate measures to hide the corpse from a parade of outrageous characters.

It's the perfect showcase for a young male actor with serious comedy chops, especially if he's skilled at physical comedy. There's a ton of it in this play. But he must also have the endurance of an ox because Trevor has a whopping 511 lines and is on stage for the entire play, much of it running around in a frenzy.

And then there's Bertram Finch, the theater critic himself, who has much fewer lines but spends the play being dragged, shoved, carried, propped up, and manhandled a dozen different ways as a corpse. 

If you're a fan of my other, family-friendly plays, be aware that Kill the Critic! is not that. Some of the story revolves around alcohol, although none of the characters are ever drunk. Guns are drawn, as is a very dangerous frying pan. The play includes a few gags about sex, with Trevor's matronly co-star asking him whether he's sleeping with her only to get a part in the play. There's also some extremely mild cursing (three damns--that's it).

All of this may make the play inappropriate for some high schools and that's fine. But if your high school has performed shows like Moon Over Buffalo (alcohol!) or Mamma Mia! (sex!) or Guys and Dolls (guns! alcohol! also sex!), I'm confident you won't consider anything in this play objectionable.

Of course, most community theaters won't have those concerns, and a high-energy farce like this would be perfect for them.

The play runs about 90 minutes, has a cast of nine (4M, 3F, and 2 roles that can be any gender), and uses a single set representing a backstage dressing room.

If you love comedies, you really owe it to yourself to check out Kill the Critic! Just visit the play's web page, where you can download a free script sample and view some of the crazy photos from the original production.

Ontario Bookshop Musical makes the grade

  

I love those profiles TV stations do of small towns in their area. It's a great way to remind us that every town--no matter how small--has a wealth of things they can be proud of.

Milwaukee PBS made one for my own hometown of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin four years ago and it was fun to see what host John McGivern considered notable about it. Wayland Academy, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, and the Beaver Dam Area Community Theatre are three that any proud Beaver would agree with (sadly, there was no mention of it being Fred MacMurray's hometown).

Well, apparently Smiths Falls, Ontario has plenty to be of proud of too, because this picturesque town on the Rideau River was recently profiled by the Canadian Broadcasting Company. And what they focused on was the town's historic train depot, originally built in 1912. Not only is it the home of the very cool Railway Museum but the Station Theatre, which is where the Smiths Falls Community Theatre performs.

And guess what play they're rehearsing right now? None other than The Enchanted Bookshop Musical (to see it, skip ahead 4:43 in the video above). Host Robyn Miller interviews a couple of volunteers and the young actress playing Margie, and it sounds like it's going to be a fantastic production. I already love the set!

The show runs August 16-25 so if you're in the area, be sure to check it out. This is one theatre company that's definitely on the right track (sorry!).

Bringing Down the House is now available!

When Belmont Day School first approached me about writing a large-cast play--no, make that huge-cast play (we're talking 40 roles!)--I expected it to be tough.

I mean, how do you come up with that many characters? How do you manage them on the stage? And how do you make sure every role is meaningful?

As is turned out, it was tough. But there were two steps I took to simplify things.

Making each role count

The first was to group characters together. I had the six members in the family. I had three ghost hunters. I had five tourists. I had five cheerleaders. And so on and so on. This made it easier to manage the characters because it allowed me to move them around in groups.

The second was to assign different personalities to each character within a group. For the cheerleaders, for example, I had a tough one, a sweet one, a bossy one, a confused one, and a perky one. In each situation they faced, I knew exactly how each of the characters would respond and I knew that each of those responses would be unique to that character.

It worked. The play was, for me, an artistic success, telling the amusing, action-packed, and yet emotionally powerful story of a dysfunctional family becoming, in the end, functional.

But it was a financial success too, as the play (along with its one-act adaptation) garnered 74  productions in its first full year of publication, placing it second on my list of popular plays.

Apparently, a lot of schools are interested in huge-cast plays. And it makes sense. After all, it allows them to involve a lot more actors in their program, including kids that may not have performed before but are eager to trod the boards with a small but laugh-worthy role.

An odd request

Well, now my second huge-cast play is out, and I have even higher hopes for it. This one is titled Bringing Down the House and, like that other play, it has a cast of 38 (7M, 5F, plus 26 roles that can be any and extras). The play is about a struggling theater company that's forced to throw together a show in just two hours when they learn that the theater they rented is about to get demolished.

Sound crazy? It is. But there's an added twist that makes this one irresistible. Belmont Day School requested that it be a musical without songs.

What's that you say? How is that even possible? Well, the idea they came up with is that during the rehearsal, the various performers would prepare to burst into song, but each time they do, they get interrupted before they can even sing one note.

I loved it. And that's what led me to the concept of the theater being demolished in the first place. I mean, how can you even rehearse a musical when you have to deal with an endless array of intruders, from an annoying child actor to a publicity-hungry politician, and from a group of confused protestors to the bumbling demo crew itself?

The play is wild. It's fun. It's hilarious. And--big surprise!--it's easy to produce.

Keeping things simple

Since the play is a backstage comedy, you can use your own bare stage as the set, adding only a few minor items like a table, chair, and two building columns.

The props are fairly minimal as well, although there are two swordfights--one with real swords and one with sledgehammers and protest signs (trust me, it makes sense)--so you'll have to prepare for that.

As for the costumes, those almost entirely street clothes, with a few hard hats and professional outfits thrown in for good measure.

Okay, enough jabbering. You want to read the full synopsis, don't you? Well, you can find that on the play's web page, along with a free script sample and ordering info.

Hopefully, you'll have a lot more than two hours to rehearse this show.

The Real Reason Dinosaurs Went Extinct is now available!

I've set my plays in a lot of colorful locations. A pirate ship. A Texas ranch house. A restaurant straddling the border between two mythical countries. But if you'd told me that one day I'd write a play set in Antarctica, I'd have thought you were crazy.

And then I wrote The Real Reason Dinosaurs Went Extinct.

Incoming!

Of course, the Antarctica this large-cast comedy is set in isn't the frozen wilderness we know today, but the lush rain forest of the long-ago Cretaceous Period. So long ago, in fact, that the famous Chicxulub asteroid--you know, the one that wiped out the dinosaurs--hasn't struck the earth yet.

But before the play is over, it will.

That in a nutshell is the concept behind The Real Reason Dinosaurs Went Extinct, which was published today by Brooklyn Publishers (yay!). Of course, that doesn't even begin to tell the whole story. 

This blurb, however, does:

Think the dinosaurs were just helpless victims of the asteroid that crashed into ancient earth? Well, they weren't--and this large-cast comedy tells the whole hilarious tale!

As the play begins, two dinosaur scientists discover the asteroid just three days before it's due to strike. When they try to warn the plant-eating citizens of Fernville, however, they get mocked and ridiculed. After all, the scientists have been predicting doom and gloom for years. But when one of their predictions finally comes true, and the town is attacked by a pack of hungry meat eaters, the plant eaters realize that some dangers are too serious to be ignored.

 

Now it's up to a clumsy young dinosaur named Snaggleclaw to venture into the Crags--the very heart of the meat eaters' territory--and bring back a special crystal that offers the plant eaters their only hope of survival. Can Snaggleclaw convince the meat eaters to cooperate? Or will he end up becoming a late-night snack? Find out in this action-packed, easy-to-produce play that teaches the importance of working together while sneaking in a ton of fun facts about the world of the dinosaurs.

Easy peasy

The Real Reason Dinosaurs Went Extinct has a cast of 21 (4M/5F/12E plus extras) and a run time of 90 minutes. And while all of the actors play animals, the costumes are a breeze! The only items you'll need are color-coordinated baseball caps and T-shirts: green for the plant-eating dinosaurs, gray for the meat-eating dinosaurs, and brown for the early mammals.

It was so easy to produce, in fact, that a kid's theater group in New Zealand threw a full production together in just one week!

I've spoken before about what this play means to me. So let me just add that I had a lot of fun writing it. More importantly, young actors will have a lot of fun performing it. After all, how many plays allow them to stomp around and roar like dinosaurs?

For complete details on The Real Reason Dinosaurs Went Extinct, including a script sample, production photos, and ordering info, please visit the play's web page.

Freaky Tiki to be published

Well, I'm flying high. I just received the contract for my 26th play with Pioneer Drama Service, and 30th published play overall.

Aloha 'Oe

This one's a comedy titled Freaky Tiki and it's set at a Hawaiian resort loosely inspired by the partly idyllic, partly creepy one in the HBO dramedy The White Lotus. Of course, the sex-charged plot lines of that Emmy-winning show would be wildly inappropriate for the schools that form the bulk of my customer base, but I figured I could do something clean and funny with that lush, tropical setting.

That something came from another favorite show of mine, The Brady Bunch.

Anyone who grew up watching the sitcom, like I did, will remember the famous three-episode arc in which the Brady visits Hawaii and youngest brother Bobby discovers a tiki figure which brings no end of bad luck to the family.

But I didn't want to copy that plot. I needed a twist.

Lucky charms

As I was doing my research for the play, I discovered something interesting. It turns out that in Polynesian culture, tikis are not bad luck at all bit are considered good luck, bringing power, knowledge, wisdom, and wealth to their owners.

That gave me my twist. What if the staff of the resort blames a string of bad, even disastrous, luck on a tiki that was left behind by a mysterious guest, only to see all of the bad luck turn into good luck at the end?

There was just one problem. I still had to figure out exactly what kind of bad luck befell each of the guests.

I brainstormed for weeks, but none of the ideas I came up with felt quite right. Frustrated, I put the script away.

New eyes

When I came back to the script a couple months later, my path became clear. And that's because I realized I needed to make the curse more specific. The tiki didn't just bring bad luck to whoever touched it. It made them lose whatever was most important to them.

This allowed me to play around with the concept of loss. What different kinds of things can people lose?

Well, obviously, you can lose a valuable like a pricey engagement ring. This inspired a pair of characters: an obsessive young man determined to carry out the world's most elaborate wedding proposal and his sweet but suspicious girlfriend.

You can lose your voice. This led me to a controlling, past-her-prime opera singer and her harried assistants.

You can lose a person. That gave me a group of technology-challenged matrons who wander away from a hike led by the resort's perky activities director, only to become hopelessly lost in the rain forest.

Then, just for fun, I had the resort's hot-headed French chef lose the giant lobster he was planning to cook for dinner. This was the link that tied everything together, since the crazy chase that ensues leads to an even crazier chain of events in which the lobster ends up solving everyone's problems. And everyone's happy.

As I say in my synopsis, sometimes bad luck is simply good luck in disguise.

An excerpt

Want a little taste? Here's the beginning of the play, in which we meet the hapless staff:

ELAINE: Good afternoon, staff. As you know, we here at the Wobbly Palms Resort pride ourselves and being the finest two-and-a-half star resort in Hawaii. And if it hadn;t been for that incident in the goat yoga class last year, we'd still have that third star.

KIKI: Sorry, boss. I didn't think the goats were going to be that big.

ELAINE: Those weren't goats, Kiki. They were yaks.

KIKI: Tomato, tomahto.

NALANI: You would not be saying that if you had to clean up after them.

ELAINE: Look, I know you're all trying to do a good job, but you've got to try harder. The owners are already struggling to make ends meet. If we scare off any more guests, they'll be forced to close the resort for good.

KIKI: They can't close it down!

SPENCER: This is the oldest resort on the North Shore!

MAURICE: What weell we do? Where weell we go?

ELAINE: The unemployment line, probably. But the reason I called you all here was to share some good news. I just got word that a representative from the world's largest hotel chain will be visiting us, and if he likes what he sees, he just may buy the resort.

KIKI: That would be great!

NALANI: We would finally have the money to fix up this dump!

SPENCER: We could all save our jobs!

MAURICE: When ees thees person coming?

ELAINE: I don't know.

MAURICE: What ees hees name?

ELAINE: I don't know that either.

MAURICE: Well, how weell we know who he is?

ELAINE: We won't. That's the point. He needs to stay incognito so that he can objectively evaluate our cleanliness, our efficiency, and most of all, our hospitality. That's why it's important for all of us to remember our motto.

NALANI: We have a motto?

ELAINE: Yes, we have a motto! Come on! What do I always tell you guys?

NALANI: Stop snooping through the guests' belongings?

ELAINE: No, not that thing. the other thing.

MAURICE: Do not throw a temper tantrum in front of ze guests?

ELAINE: A good idea, Maurice, but not what I would call a motto. Spencer would you like to try?

SPENCER: If you drop one more bag, you're fired?

ELAINE: No, no, no! Our motto is every guest deserves the best!

(The STAFF mumbles ad-libbed comments like "Oh, yeah," "Right," and "Now I remember.")

If you subscribe to the New Play Exchange, you can read the full synopsis, cast list, and a 20-page sample on the play's web page. If you don't subscribe, you might consider it. For just $12 per year, you get access to the biggest, most easily navigable play database on the web. I've been a member since it first launched in 2015, and while I was a bit skeptical at first, I've become a huge proponent. Give it a spin!