Belmont Diary: It's a mystery to me

I love writing on commission. It gives me a deadline. The collaborative atmosphere helps me focus my writing. The money's nice. And it guarantees that the play will meet an unfulfilled need in the market.

In fact, my first two commissions, It's a Madhouse! and Bringing Down the House, were snapped up for publication by Pioneer Drama Service and have turned out to be way more successful than even I had imagined (I'm still waiting on the results from newly-published commission #3).

So yeah, commissions are the bomb. But there's something even better than a commission. And that's two commissions.

Today, I was deep into the third pass of another commission for Belmont Day School (#4 for those keeping score at home) when the theater arts teacher there offered me a fifth commission. I immediately said yes.

I mean, it should be a quick write. Like The Worst Fairy Tale Ever, which they commissioned from me last summer, it'll be a one-act comedy with minimal set and costume requirements and a cast of eight. The difference? This time it'll be a mystery.

Mysteries are a blast to write. Three of my first four plays were mysteries (The _urloined Letter, The Butler Did It!, and Rumpelstiltskin, Private Eye). Then I stopped for several years while I played around with other genres. But I always missed the form and I finally came back to it four years ago for It's a Madhouse! Now I'm eager to jump back into those deep, murky waters.

I don't have any story ideas. I'm going to have to do some brainstorming for that. But the school made it very clear they don't want the play to have the same meta, bumbling-cast concept as The Worst Fairy Tale Ever (or The Play That Goes Wrong, which inspired it).

Which is fine with me. I'm excited to do something totally fresh.

Oh, one more thing. Like The Worst Fairy Tale Ever, this play is being commissioned for in-class use only. This means that Belmont Day School will not be producing the play. And this means that the world premiere is up for grabs. Whoever agrees to produce it first gets it.

Interested? Then email me at the address shown on my Contact Me page and you'll be among the first to receive the script when it's complete. The mystery play is due September 1. The airport play is due October 1.

Two plays in three months? I guess I know what I'll be doing this summer!

Nutmeg State Latte gets some love

It's always exciting to see one of my plays gets nominated for a local theater award. Well, Woodland Regional High School's production of Whole Latte Love, didn't get just one nomination. It got five:

• Best Contemporary Play
• Best Performance by a Cast in an Ensemble Production 
• Best Standout Performance in a Male Role in an Ensemble Production
• Best Standout Performance in a Female Role in an Ensemble Production
• Best Scenic Design

They're called the Halo Awards and they're given out by Seven Angels Theatre in Waterbury, CT to over 90 participating high schools across the state of Connecticut.

Of course, Whole Latte Love may not win, and that's okay. As they say, it's an honor just to be nominated. Especially when you're up against such classic plays as Shakespeare in Love, Clue, Eurydice, and Puffs.

But I really, really want to win. And we'll find out exactly who does win on May 30 during the awards ceremony at Waterbury's Palace Theater.

Good luck, everybody!

My 14th year sales

Another theater season has come and gone, and I'm happy to say that this one truly was a banner one. But--and it's a big but--it had to be. Since I'm now a full-time playwright, and my playwriting income is only about a third of my old engineering income, I need to keep growing my royalties by a healthy percentage each year if I want to make a go of this.

The best way to do that, of course, is to get more productions. And the best way to do that is to write more plays. Which is why I've been working like crazy, cranking out plays quickly while maintaining the quality people have come to expect.

But not just any plays. It's also important to keep the market in mind and write what schools and community theaters are looking for. And a couple of results from the past year have me rethinking this whole thing.

More on that later. In the meantime, let's take a quick look at...

The numbers

A year ago, I saw a massive bump from the previous year. My production count was up 16% and my royalties were up--get ready for it--44%. Maybe I was a little delusional, but I was hoping for something similar this year. Unfortunately, I fell short. I had a total of 453 productions, which is up 8% over the previous year while my royalties were up 6%.

It's not that my new plays didn't do well. They did. It's just that some of my big hits from the previous year dropped off a little more than expected.

Still, I'm not worried. I've seen quite a few of my plays pop up again in a year or two so I'm hopeful that will happen again over the next twelve months.

And besides, that 452 count is an all-time record for me so I really can't complain.

The top five

1) The Enchanted Bookshop--118 productions

My most-popular play for the eighth year in a row was this magical comedy. That 118 is actually an amazing number because it represents the second highest production count this play has ever had.

The Enchanted Bookshop is truly the Energizer Bunny of plays. It just keeps going and going and going.

It's the only one of my plays that theaters repeat, sometimes as often as once a year. It's also the only one of my plays (besides The Enchanted Bookshop Musical) that regularly appears in professional theater seasons alongside such big-name works as Clue, Matilda, and Into the Woods.

2) It Happened on Route 66--48 productions

For the second year in the row, my second-most-popular play was this 1950's romantic comedy. And I couldn't be happier.

I love this play. I love the characters. I love the humor. I love the cool diner setting. And I'm grateful that so many people around the country seem to love the play as well.

I can't wait to see how well the brand new musical adaptation Route 66 does this year.

3) Bringing Down the House--36 productions

My third-most-popular play was this backstage comedy. What's especially impressive is that this was only a partial year for the play. It wasn't even released until August.

I've got be honest. This one surprised me. I never dreamed it would be this popular. I wrote it simply because a school commissioned me to write it. They wanted a play about a musical rehearsal that keeps getting interrupted so none of the characters actually get to sing. As a result, the play calls for a lot of different musical tracks which are only played for a few bars.

The play is pretty quirky in other ways as well. There's a swordfight between a group of confused protesters using the handles of their protest signs against a band of sledgehammer-armed demolition workers, There's another swordfight involving actual swords. And then there's a dance involving aliens, pirates, and several crates of dynamite.  

The reason I think it's so popular is just the sheer size of the play. It calls for a cast of 40, similar to my play It's a Madhouse!, which has also been wildly popular. So it's clear that a lot of schools are interested in plays that give a large number of students an opportunity to perform.

And this one definitely does. Unlike some plays that achieve their large cast sizes by plugging in a nameless chorus, my plays always give each character a name, a unique personality, a specific goal, and at least a couple of lines guaranteed to get a laugh. 

So one of the changes I'm planning to make in my career is to focus a lot more on huge-cast plays like this--even if they're not commissioned.

4) The Enchanted Bookshop Musical--27 productions

My fourth-most-popular play was this musical adaptation of The Enchanted Bookshop. This was another surprise because those 27 productions are the most it's received since its inaugural (and COVID-shortened) season of 2019-2020 and a big boost from last year's 15 productions. I don't know what happened to bring it back to life, but I like it.

5) You're Driving Me Crazy!--25 productions

My fifth-most-popular play was this collection of four driver's ed-related shorts. Ten years in, it's still getting a healthy number of productions.

Earlier this month, Pioneer released The Worst Fairy Tale Ever, my first one-act play since You're Driving Me Crazy! and I'm already hearing from teachers who tell me how excited their students are to perform it. So I think that's going to be a big play this year. And I'm going to watch it closely because I may start writing a lot more short plays.

Honorable mentions

I do want a give a shout-out to three plays that placed a very close sixth. These include Million Dollar Meatballs (also in its tenth year), It's a Madhouse!, and How to Enchant a Bookshop, which all snagged 24 productions.

It's a Madhouse!, of course, has a one-act version titled simply Madhouse!, and if you combined the two of them, they would account for an impressive 47 productions. So even though the first of those two plays dropped off my top five this year, the pair remains a production powerhouse.

Finally, this was the first full year for How to Enchant a Bookshop and I find that particularly interesting because when I first submitted the play, there was some concern that it might cannibalize sales from the other Enchanted Bookshop plays. Seeing that two of them are still in my top five, it's heartening to know this didn't happen.

Final thoughts

So yeah, it was a good year. Sure, I wish some of my plays had done a little better and that my royalties had grown a little more. But still, it was a record-breaking year in many ways and I couldn't have done it without you, the drama teachers and theater directors who've chosen my plays over the years.

So let me just leave you with a large and very heartfelt...

Mall Madness to be published

Good news! For the first time since December, I've got a new play accepted for publication. It's titled Mall Madness and it's being published by Pioneer Drama Service, my 29th play with them. This light-hearted comedy has a cast of 16 (6M, 8F, 2E), uses a single set, and runs about 75 minutes.

Write what you know

After the unexpected success of It Happened on Route 66, I'd decided I wanted to write another play capturing the spirit of a particular decade. But which decade?

Well, since I'd already done the 50's, there was only one obvious choice: those totally awesome 80's. I've always loved the 80's, and not just nostalgically. It was a huge decade for me in real life as well.

It was the decade when I graduated from high school. The decade when I met my future wife. And the decade when Tammy and I got married.

Nobody loved the 80's as much as we did. Cruising around in my black, rusted-out Chevy Nova. Bopping out to bands like A Flock of Seagulls and The Go-Go's. Catching flicks like The Breakfast Club and Say Anything.

It was a wonderful decade to be young and in love.

So I had to laugh when, thirty years later, our teenage daughters became fans of the exact same bands and movies (rusted-out cars not so much). If they loved the 80's, then I figured there must be a lot of kids who would love to relive those golden days of yore onstage.

Choosing a setting

It Happened on Route 66 took place in perhaps the most iconic of 50's settings: a highway diner. So what was its equivalent in the 80's? Where did 80's teens gather to hang out and, well, just be teens? 

Nothing quite clicked. An arcade? Too hard to recreate on a stage. A video store? Kids didn't really hang out there for long. A school dance? Those had been done to death. 

Finally, at dinner one night, I mentioned my conundrum to Tammy. And, as so often happens, she immediately had the answer.

The mall food court.

I loved the idea. A food court is a rich, fertile ground for humor, with all the tacky restaurants and the potential for awkward social situations. It would be simple to stage, only requiring a few tables and chairs. And as far as I could tell, nobody had ever set a play in a food court before.

Next up: the plot

But what would the play be about? I knew Pioneer already had a couple of plays set in the 1980's, the musical Totally Awesome 80's and its slimmed-down version The Awesome 80's. And they're a lot of fun, basically big mash-ups of the famous movie plots and characters from that decade. 

I wanted to do something different. Think, think, think. Well, let's see. Another fun part of the 80's were the products that had seemed so modern and cool at the time but had since either faded from sight or become just a normal part of our everyday culture. You know, like Rubik's Cubes. And chicken nuggets. And Air Jordans. And boomboxes.

But I still had a problem. How do you build a story out of those?

I wrestled with this question for months. Then my wife and I watched a cheesy Hallmark movie titled Trading Up Christmas. It's about a successful young businesswoman from the big city (of course) who returns to her small town to help her financially-challenged sister get a home. How does she do it? By trading up from a simple Christmas stocking.

I had my plot! (Who says Hallmark movies are a waste of time?) From that point, the writing just flowed out of me and I completed the script in a couple of months. 

The madness begins

I'm very happy with how it turned out. Here's the synopsis:

It's the 1980's, and there's only one place you'll find all the cool kids (and not so cool kids) on a Saturday afternoon: the mall.

That's where Elwood is mooning over the queen bee of the school, Chanel. Elwood longs to take Chanel to see her favorite girl band, the Lipsticks, but he knows he has two strikes against him. One, he's a Dungeons & Dragons-loving nerd. And two, the concert is completely sold out.

Elwood's luck seems to turn when he helps out a mysterious young woman who rewards him with a pair of tickets to the very same concert. But before he can ask Chanel to go with him, brutish high school quarterback Brock swipes the Trapper Keeper where Elwood has hidden the tickets.

There's only one way to get the binder back from Brock without tipping him off to the treasure inside: Offer him a brand new pair of Air Jordans in exchange, Unfortunately, Elwood can't afford such pricey shoes. But if he trades a boombox for the shoes, and a Walkman for the boombox, and so on and so forth, Elwood might finally get the tickets by giving up the one thing he values most: a cheap D&D miniature!

And yes, the boombox from the movie Say Anything does play a key role. As does a very important tray of chicken nuggets.

Mall Madness should be released before the new school year opens this fall.

The Worst Fairy Tale Ever is now available!

I am beyond excited to announce that Pioneer Drama Service has just released my 29th play with them and my 33rd play overall. Titled The Worst Fairy Tale Ever, it's a fast-paced comedy with a cast of 8 and a run time of just 20 to 25 minutes.

The play had an interesting development process. It was first commissioned by  Belmont Day School in Massachusetts for use in their 6th grade theater arts class. 

After working out the bugs with them, I promoted it on the High School Theatre Directors and Teachers group on Facebook. South Florence High School in South Florence, South Carolina, snapped it up and they gave the play its world premiere in a student-directed production in November.

Shenandoah High School in Shenandoah, Iowa also responded to my post, and they took the play to their district speech contest in January and the state-level contest in March.

So the play appeals to many different age groups, from elementary school all the way up to high school. It would also work well as a TYA production performed by adults.

What makes it so adaptable? Well, I think it's because the play is a piece of cake to produce, with no set requirements beyond a single stage cube and no costume requirements beyond a few hats. And while the story is simple, the vocabulary is just challenging enough to offer some real meat for young and not-so-young actors alike. 

The story itself works on three levels. At first glance, it appears to be a straightforward fairy tale about a king who offers half his kingdom to whoever can defeat the dragon ravaging the land. But the actors performing the play-within-a-play pretty much botch it.

The actor playing the knight tapes his lines to the back of his shield. Another actor insists on stealing the show with a ridiculously drawn-out death scene. The actor playing the dragon is too shy to even step onto the stage. And the narrator gets so fed up with the cast's antics that she quits the show entirely.

Think of it as the Brothers Grimm meets The Play That Goes Wrong.

Only as the play progresses does it become clear that the story goes deeper yet as one of the actors has an anxiety attack about his performance and the rest of the cast quickly improvise an ending to help him feel the love.

Want more? Then just head over to the play's web page, where you can read the synopsis, download a script sample, and order your own perusal script.

Enjoy!

Bringing Down the House for real

Sometimes schools primarily choose a play because they like the playwright. Sometimes it's because they like the playwright. And sometimes it's simply because it works with the cast they have.

Well, St. Lawrence Seminary High School in Mt. Calvary, Wisconsin may have had the best reason of all for choosing Bringing Down the House, my comedy about a struggling theater company that's forced to rush things when they find out the theater they rented is going to be demolished the very next day.

As it turns out, the school had recently demolished a building of their own, and they thought it would be fun to perform a play that marked their "year of demolition."

I mean, you don't have to tear down any buildings to do this play. But if you want to, that's fine with me.

Belmont Diary: A high-flying comedy

They say that theater is the most collaborative of art forms. I actually think cinema deserves that title. I mean, watch the credits of any big budget movie (if you can stand it) and you'll see the names of hundreds, even thousands of people, who contributed--way more than even the most elaborate Broadway spectacle. 

Still, theater is a strong second place. You've got the director, who shapes the production. You've got the producer to provides the funding. You've got the cast to bring the story to life. You've got the stage manager to keep the show running smoothly. And you've got designers and crew members to take care of all those technical details that really make a production sing (even if it's not a musical!).

The missing link

There's just one person left out of this equation. The playwright.

Oh, sure. The playwright may be involved in the original production, serving as a general advisor or answering queries as to the intent of the text. But often the playwright is viewed as an annoyance, even an impediment, by the director, who's striving to birth her own vision for the show. Sometimes, the director even bans the playwright from the rehearsal hall.

Of course, after the play is published, any subsequent productions are done without any input from the playwright whatsoever. As a result, the playwright performs much of their work alone, whether it's in a well-appointed study or a lowly garret. And that can really hinder their creativity.

Which is why I really value the relationships I've formed with the theaters I work with. Jacksonville Performing Arts Center in North Carolina will be working with me on the world premiere of my reality show comedy Survival Island! this November. And then there's Belmont Day School in Massachusetts, which has just hired me for my fourth playwriting commission.

Two of those earlier commissions, It's a Madhouse! and Bringing Down the House, have become huge hits, while the third one, The Worst Fairy Tale Ever, will be released by Pioneer Drama Service any day now. So I'm eager to work with them on a new play, even if it means I've got to shelve it for several months while I wait for the world premiere. It'll be worth it, though, because the feedback I'll get from the theater staff (and eventually the audience!) will be invaluable in making the play the very best it can be--something I can't really get any other way.

An idea is born

This time, instead of them hiring me to dramatize a story they'd already defined, we decided to brainstorm some new concepts together (through email). Theater director Christopher Parsons came up  with ten of them, and the one that grabbed me was one titled Train Station Tales. Only as soon as I read that, a couple of thoughts quickly sparked inside my brain.

What if instead of a train station, the play was set at the boarding gate of an airport? And what if the  flight was cancelled due to snow and the passengers were forced to spend the night there?

It had everything: Conflict. Humor. Drama. And lots of potential for human connection.

Oh, one more thing. Like my first two commissions, this one is for another monster-sized cast, somewhere between 38 and 40 actors. The airport idea lends itself to this as well, and I can already envision a dozen vignettes featuring the sometimes-crazy, sometimes-heartwarming, but always human stories you find at the airport.

A rose by any other name...

The first draft is due in early September so I've got plenty of time to work on it. Meanwhile, I still have to come up with a catchy title. Here are just a few of the ones I'm mulling:

Snowbound.

Stuck at the Airport.

Thirty Minutes Till Boarding.

Missed Connections.

Thank You for Your Patience.

Ah, I'll think of something.