Million Dollar Meatballs to be published

I just received the contract from Pioneer Drama Service for Million Dollar Meatballs. This is the play that I developed with the help of the talented students at Discovery Canyon Campus High School in Colorado Springs.

I'm especially proud of this one. I love a classic farce, and while I've written other, more adult farces, this is my first one for students. Community theatres will enjoy it too. It runs 90 minutes and has a cast of 12 (6M/6F), although many of the roles are flexible.

Here's the blurb:

Get ready for a comedy of epicurean proportions! Two bumbling jewel thieves are on the run from the cops when they duck into Chez Monyeu, a restaurant so bad no one has ever eaten there before (unless you count the mice). And that's just the start of their problems. Not only has Chez Monyeu's chef just quit, but the city's most powerful restaurant critic is about to arrive. In desperation, the restaurant's owner, mistaking the thieves for famous French chefs, insist that they make their Million Dollar Meatballs for the tough-minded critic. Insanity ensues as the pair try to keep up the ruse while hunting for the seven priceless diamonds they lost. Will the thieves get away with their crime? Where could the diamonds have gone? And why are the meatballs so crunchy? Find out in this deliciously funny farce.

Look for Million Dollar Meatballs in Pioneer's spring supplement in May. Or check back here. You can bet I'll post the link as soon as the play is available.

Back in the Big Apple

Michael Minn (michaelminn.net/newyork)

I'm back in New York this month. Well, not me, unfortunately, but one of my plays. You're Driving Me Crazy #3 will receive a staged reading in the Jewel Box Theatre on the 4th floor of the Abingdon Theatre building on March 28.

The play will be part of an evening of shorts titled Take Back the Rom-Com. Produced by NYCPlaywrights, the show hopes to prove that romantic comedies still have something to say in today's cynical world.

I don't know if my play contributes much to that discussion, but it does provide an interesting challenge to the cast. All eight plays are performed by the same six actors, and I suspect that mine is the only one that requires them to play characters much younger than they are, specifically 16-year-old driver's ed students. Should be a ton o' fun. I just wish I could be there to see it.

Break legs, all!