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!

Route 66 learns to sing (and dance)!

Musicals have always played a big role in my life. I was nine years old when I first fell in love with them, seeing You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown at my hometown community theater. I loved the songs. I loved the humor. I loved the performances. But I especially loved the fact that the actors were people I knew from around town. Seeing them bring those beloved comic strip characters to life was a new form of magic for me, and that magic continued for all the other shows I saw on that stage, from Mame to Camelot to 1776.

Not surprisingly, cast albums played a big role in my life as well. Every summer, when my family piled into our station wagon for our annual two-week camping trip--sometimes east, sometimes north, usually west--it was often cast albums that provided the soundtrack. Our favorite, the one we nearly wore through from replaying and replaying, was My Fair Lady. As I looked out the window, the spectacular mesa-dotted landscapes filled me with wonder, but a part of me found that Lerner and Loewe score to be just as wondrous.

Then there was the time I decided to crack open the big freestanding cabinet in our basement--the one which was primarily used to hold up my dad's ashtray and had remained unopened for years--and discovered it held a veritable treasure trove of cast albums. The shows represented were a little weirder than what the community theater or our summer camping trips offered. I remember Li'l Abner was there. And something called Fiorello! But West Side Story was there too. That album was the one I snuck up to my bedroom so I could fall asleep to those brilliant, heartbreaking melodies every night.

So yeah, musicals have always been important to me. But I never dreamed I'd help write one.

Which is why I was so thrilled six years ago when Pioneer Drama Service approached me about turning my play The Enchanted Bookshop into a musical. And why I'm just as thrilled that they've now offered to do the same for It Happened on Route 66.

The title of this musical jaunt down America's Highway? A very succinct Route 66.

Last time, Pioneer contracted Stephen Murray to provide the music and lyrics. This time, it's the prolific Scott DeTurk, who has worked extensively in TV and industrial films and has been produced at important regional venues like Denver's Buell Theatre and Minneapolis's Guthrie Theatre. And did I mention he studied under the late great Lehman Engel?

I'm excited to see what he comes up with. The play features not one but two romantic couples so I expect there will be some great love songs. But there's plenty of potential for comedic tunes as well, from diner owner Cookie lamenting Otis's gluttonous ways to Sally teaching Lovey that colorful diner lingo. Of course, seeing that the play is set in the 1950's, it's a no-brainer that the score as a whole will be inspired by those great early rock 'n roll songs.

Look for Route 66 to come out sometime in 2025.

Be careful what you wish for

I've wanted to be a full-time writer as long as I can remember.

Okay, that's an exaggeration. For most of my childhood, I wanted to be Walt Disney. Or at least an animator, which is what I thought Walt did. You know, sit around and draw cartoons of Mickey Mouse all day. It turns out he didn't, but that's another story.

For a brief period in my early teens, after devouring all of the James Herriott books, I wanted to be a veterinarian. Not in the mud-slogged farmyards of Yorkshire, necessarily. But somewhere.

Then, in tenth grade, I was introduced to computer programming, and I loved it so much I decided I was going to do that for the rest of my life.

Except that I didn't. But what I did end up choosing as a career--product engineering in the semiconductor industry--was initially inspired by those after-school hours spent coding on an old DEC in my math teacher's office (pretty high-tech in those days).

The muse calls

But all that time, I had one other passion. Writing. Not enough to write for the school paper, of course. That seemed like hard work--and a little dull.

No, I loved writing fiction. From high school on, I always had a short story or a novel or a screenplay I was working on.

By that time, I'd moved on from James Herriott to J.R.R. Tolkien so the bulk of my writing was in the fantasy genre. Elves. Dwarves. Swordplay. My first novel was about an escaped slave named Coran (shades of Conan the Barbarian), and was titled Requiem. Because pretty much everyone died by the end.

I never finished it. And that's because I didn't commit to working on it every day. I only wrote when I felt like it. When I felt "inspired."

But it sparked something inside me that kept me writing all through my twenties and thirties. After fantasy novels, I moved on to picture books when my daughters were little, then middle-grade novels when they entered those angst-torn years and Harry Potter was dominating bestseller lists.

I didn't hate engineering. Parts of it were really challenging and enjoyable. But as the years went on, I became more and more disillusioned and even bored with my career choice. And my longing to leave my career and write full time became stronger and stronger.

Unfortunately, my wife Tammy never made enough money to support us, and we had two girls to put through dance class and theater and eventually college. I felt trapped. So I kept wishing and hoping and dreaming that I would eventually be able to quit my job and write full-time.

A golden opportunity

I finally got that chance in 2016, when I was laid off from my job in Colorado Springs at the ripe old age of 53. I still wasn't making enough money from writing to live on, but I had nine plays with Pioneer Drama Service so that at least brought in something.

It took me ten months to find a job, and in that time, I managed to finish writing six plays and published four of them. I had a blast. But it was time to get back to engineering.

The new job took me to Phoenix, where my wife and I had briefly lived early in our marriage, so it was a happy return. And the job was good--and high-paying. I kept writing, but I figured I would keep the job until I was 66, when I would finally have enough money to allow me to retire from engineering for good.

Then January 17 happened. I showed up a little late for work that morning, and as soon as I sat at my desk, my boss came over to ask if I had a few minutes to talk. He ushered me into the human resource representative's office, and I was promptly informed that I was being laid off. Or, in the terminology of the company, my "position had been eliminated."

I'd been fired or laid off three times before in my career, and each one of those times it was painful. Depressing. Humiliating.

Not this time. I was now 60 years old and I had 24 plays with three different publishers. All I could think about, as the HR rep rambled on about the severance package, was that this was it. This was the chance I'd been hoping for.

I had quite a bit more money saved up than the last time I was unemployed, I was too old to get an engineering job, and now I would be forced to prove to myself, to my wife, to the world that I could support myself as a playwright.

A new beginning

That was six months ago today. And I couldn't be happier. I love working from home. I love being in control of my time. I love not having a boss to answer to or meetings to attend. But most of all, I love creating stories.

How productive have I been? Well, I revised a play I first wrote eleven years ago and got it accepted for publication. I put the finishing touches on another play after it received its world premiere in March and got that one accepted for publication. I wrote a short play--my first in nine years--on commission, and it's now slated for in-class use starting this fall. I gave my publisher approval to adapt one of my plays into a musical. I wrote two full-length plays. And I published one, with another one due out any day now.

Oh, sure. I'm still applying for engineering jobs, just in case a good offer pops up. I even got an on-site interview from one. But the result of that was pretty much what I expected. Companies just aren't interested in hiring 60-year-old engineers.

So I finally got what I wished for. I'm a full-time writer. And I'll be a full-time writer for the rest of my life.

People tell you to be careful what you wish for, and I get that. Sometimes things don't work out the way you expect.

But I've found that the opposite is just as true. Be bold with what you wish for. Because sometimes things work out even better.

George Washington Ate My Homework is now available!

For the first time in ten months, I have a new play out! George Washington Ate My Homework is my 23rd play to be published by Pioneer Drama Service and 25th play overall. For the full scoop, including a synopsis, script sample, and ordering info, please visit the play's web page.

I may have struggled when I first tackled the story, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. There's a lot of funny dialogue and as well as some high-energy action (particularly with the way Florence Nightingale dispatches two of the nastiest pirates ever to sail the seven seas).

But the play also teach students what makes historical figures like Cleopatra, Albert Einstein, and H.G. Wells so great. And have you ever heard of Dr. Grace Hopper? I hadn't when I started writing the play, but in doing my research, I discovered that much of our modern-day computer technology is due to this groundbreaking pioneer.

In this play, she gets her due.

Something else I learned about was how time travel theory has changed over the years (turns out Albert Einstein wasn't right about everything!) and how some scientists currently think it might work, if it ever does. 

I don't go into excruciating detail on this in the play, just enough to pique the interest of any budding scientists in the audience.

Anyway, take a look at it. I think you'll really like it.

You might also learn a thing or two. I know I did.

Belmont diary: Third time's a charm?

Just kidding with that blog title, of course. Because I feel like my first two at-bats with Belmont Day School went very well indeed.

Theater Director Christopher Parsons must feel that way too, because he just emailed me that the school has approved a third playwriting commission for me.

This one is different. Way different. Instead of a full-length for their seventh- and eight-graders, they're having me write a 20- to 25-minute one-act for their sixth graders. And while the first two plays required massive casts--like 38 to 40 actors--this one calls for a much more economical eight.

The set and plot requirements are particularly loose. The school had laid out very specific guidelines for what became It's a Madhouse! and Bringing Down the House, but for this one they're only asking that the set be minimal (no backdrops or complicated set pieces) and that the story be in the fairy tale or fantasy genre.

Ironically, though, that makes the writing tougher. The story requirements for the first two plays acted as writing prompts for me, and I only had to toss a few ideas around in my head (and at the dinner table) before I was able to break the story.

Not here. Fairy tales present an extremely large canvas. Do I write an original one or a parody? If it's a parody, do I base it on a well-known story, a more obscure one (hello, "Hans-My-Hedgehog"), or a mishmash of several of them? And which ones do I choose?

Another challenge is related to the reason Belmont Day School hired me in the first place. DEIB goals are a big deal for them, as they should be for everyone, and in the past, Chris had difficulty finding plays that met those goals.

So they're a big deal on this play as well. There can't be any gender, racial, or cultural stereotypes. But the classic fairy tales are built on stereotypes. You've got the brave prince. The helpless princess. The foolish peasant. And on and on.

Well, I've got to figure out a way to subvert all those. Or maybe not subvert them, because even playing with them can reinforce them in a way. No, what I have to do is bypass them entirely.  

Oh, there's one other difference with this commission that I should mention. The school won't be giving the play a full production. They'll only be using the script in class to practice their performance skills. This frees me up to submit the play to my publisher as soon as it's written (it should be completed by the end of August).

So that's good. But if I ever want the play to get a full production, I'll need to make it work for a broad spectrum of schools and theater companies, maybe even as a competition piece. 

Whew. This is going to be a toughie. But that's okay. I love a good toughie. 

If you'd like to hire me to write a play for your school or theater company, you can find all the deets on my Work With Me page.

I look forward to collaborating with you!

Tennessee Route 66 wins Pioneer photo contest

A big congrats to Mt. Pleasant Middle School in Mt. Pleasant, TN, for winning Pioneer Drama Service's annual photo contest. The winning photo can be seen at the top of this post, which came from their production of my 1950's diner comedy It Happened on Route 66. The contest judges noted that the photo won for the dynamic action and expression of the young actor as well as the fine detail of the costumes and sets.

I remember seeing the school's production photos when I first came across them on Facebook last November, and I couldn't be prouder for their well-deserved victory now.

For their prize, the school gets $250 towards their next Pioneer production and this awesome photo will be included on the cover of Pioneer's fall catalog.

But wait, there's more! Caledonia-Mumford Middle School in Caledonia, NY received an honorable mention for the action-packed photo below, a fun glimpse into their production of my treasure hunt comedy It's a Madhouse! They earned this honor for capturing the madcap energy of the play and for the keen attention detail in the set.

Well done, all! And don't forget to enter next year's contest, which should open sometime in the spring!

Kill the Critic! to be published

A couple of years ago, when I learned that my old-time radio comedy, The Last Radio Show, was going to be published, I mentioned in a post that it had been a long time coming. And it was. Five and a half years long, to be exact, from world premiere to publication offer.

Well, it turned out that was nothing. Heuer Publishing has just accepted my backstage farce Kill the Critic! for publication, one month short of eleven years from world premiere to that glorious, glorious publication offer.

A long and winding road

To tell you the truth, I'd given up on the play a long time ago. And that hurt. Because the original response to it was nothing short of phenomenal. 

I'd produced the world premiere at a small performing arts center in Palmer Lake, CO, with my friend Nancy Holaday directing. I was nervous at first because I didn't know what I had. But the audience loved it. The laughter was constant, the applause was enthusiastic, and the comments from the audience afterward were overwhelmingly positive.

I had a soft spot for that production for another reason as well. My daughter Brooke played the ditzy debutante Melanie Monzoni in that production (that's her on the left in the photo at the bottom of this post), and the feedback on her performance was just as positive as it was for the show itself. Some people even told me they thought she stole the show. As a proud papa, of course, I had to agree.

The play went on to get a staged reading that year at the McLaren Comedy Festival in Midland, TX, coming in a close second in their play competition. It also came in second in that year's Robert J. Pickering Award for Playwriting Excellence.

Do the hustle

With high hopes for success, I pushed it hard, submitting the script to as many theaters, contests, and publishers as I could find. In 2015, it got its second production with the Stage Presence Players in Austin, TX.

Tennessee Stage Company expressed an interest in producing it, but when they found out they would not get the world premiere, they quickly lost that interest.

The play reached its high water mark in 2016 with a staged reading at Theatre of Note in Hollywood, CA, which remains one of only two performances I've ever had by a professional theater company.

And then it just kind of... died. No other theaters wanted to produce it. The play didn't place in any other contests. And every publisher I submitted it to rejected it.

I understand why my regular publisher, Pioneer Drama Service, gave it a thumbs-down. The play is much too risque and dark for their catalog. But I don't understand why publishers like Playscripts and Dramatic Publishing weren't interested.

So I shoved the script in a drawer (or, to be more precise, a folder on my laptop) and forgot about it.

Back to life

But the play kept tugging at the back of my mind. It was, after all, The One That Got Away.

I have three other full-length plays that have never been published, but they don't bother me because they hadn't had such an auspicious start. And Kill the Critic! is funny. Like really funny. It's my one true farce, with mistaken identity and sexual innuendo and lots of doors slamming and opening and slamming shut again.

In fact, now that I think about it, it may be my funniest play. The Last Radio Show has, I think, the wittiest dialogue. It's a Madhouse! features the most over-the-top characters. But only Kill the Critic! has the constant, outrageous physical comedy that audiences love.

So I returned to it late last year, racking my brain once more to figure out where else I could send it. And in checking my submission log, I realized that for some reason (undoubtedly a stupid oversight on my part), I'd never submitted it to Heuer Publishing.

Which is weird. They already publish The Last Radio Show, and their sister company Brooklyn Publishers publishes my Hollywood mystery Lights! Camera! Murder! (they're releasing my kid's climate change comedy The Real Reason Dinosaurs Went Extinct later this year). And both publishers go a little darker than Pioneer. It was a perfect fit.

So I sent off it off to Heuer in September. And today, I got the word that they're going to publish it

Sweet, sweet success.

I guess if there's a lesson in all of this, it's to never give up. If you really believe your work is good, and it has received a lot of positive feedback, keep pushing it. If it's meant to find a home, it will.

But it might be a long wait.

Curtain up

And so, for the first time ever on this blog, I now share a scene from Kill the Critic! It's the opening scene, and I like it because it gets right into the action, setting up the premise and showing us the contrasting personalities of the two leads. 

ACT ONE

Lights up. BERTRAM enters, his hands tied behind his back, a wastebasket over his head. TREVOR enters behind him holding a knife.

TREVOR: Don't move. (Locks the dressing room door.) Now where can I put him? I know. The bathroom. (Peers into the bathroom.) No. I might need to use this. (Closes the door.) How about the broom closet? (Looks inside, picks up a dead rat off the floor.) Yeesh! I wouldn't put a dead man in there. (Tosses the rat back in and shuts the door.) Aha! The wardrobe! (Throws open the wardrobe. It's crammed with old costumes. He tries to grab them up in one armful, but the knife gets in the way. He switches the knife to the other hand and tries again. Big surprise. The knife is still in the way. Finally, TREVOR has a brainstorm. He places the knife between his teeth—and immediately cuts his lip.) Ouch! (Touches at his mouth, sees blood.) Damn it! And on the night of my Broadway debut!

(TREVOR goes to the mirror to look at his wound. Tired of waiting, BERTRAM shakes his head until the wastebasket falls off.)

BERTRAM: Stanton. I should have known it was you.

TREVOR: Put that back on!

BERTRAM: You can't even play a kidnapper convincingly.

TREVOR: I said put that back on!

BERTRAM: I'll bet that's a stage knife too. 

TREVOR: What, this? No, I just cut myself with it.

BERTRAM: Well, you bleed like a real actor.

TREVOR: Thanks— (Pause) Now cut that out! That's exactly why I'm doing this! 

BERTRAM: You don't appreciate my wit?

TREVOR: Yes. I mean no. I mean, that's not wit. That's just the same venom you write your reviews with.

BERTRAM: Good actors don't read reviews.

TREVOR: They read you.

BERTRAM: Yes. Well, that's one of the advantages of being the most powerful theatre critic in New York. So how are you going to do me in?

TREVOR: What?

BERTRAM: The method. The means of execution, man. Strangulation, perhaps? A quick blow to the head? Wait. I know. You're going to subject me to a soliloquy. 

Want more? Then be sure to visit the New Play Exchange for the full synopsis, cast list, and a 20-page sample. 

Belmont diary: Bringing Down the House to be published

Great news! I just received a contract from Pioneer Drama Service for my backstage comedy, Bringing Down the House. You know what that means. It's going to be published! For those keeping score at home, this is my 24th play with Pioneer and 27th play overall.

I've said so much about the development of this play already that I don't know what else to say except I couldn't be happier. This far into my playwriting career, I'm still extremely grateful for every single publication.

Especially this one. Sure, it had a couple of advantages going for it. First, it was written on commission, so I knew that it met at least one school's needs. And second, it has been through the grind of a rehearsal and production cycle, allowing me to work out the bugs before submitting the script to Pioneer.

But still, it's a bit of an oddball. It's my first play with a swordfight, except that it actually has two, one with actual swords, one with protest signs and sledgehammers (plastic, of course). It's also my first play with a dance number, although I leave the music and choreography entirely up to you.

So yeah, I took some big swings with this one, but I think it paid off. This is one of my funniest plays by far. And every one of the 38--count 'em 38!--actors in the show will not only get a laugh but a meaty role to bite into.

I shared a scene a few months ago when I finished the final draft. That scene, however, was from the middle of the play, so let me now entice you with the opening scene.

ACT ONE

AT RISE: The Edgar Street Theatre, morning. JERRY, DALE, MERLE, and HARLEY ENTER LEFT carrying four crates to add to the four already onstage. JERRY and DALE set their crates down.

JERRY: All right. I think that's the last of the dynamite.

DALE: Wow. Eight crates. Are you sure we need this much?

JERRY: Of course, we need it. We're not doing a fireworks show here. We're bringing down this building!

DALE: Fireworks show! Ha ha! Oh, Jerry! You kill me! You really kill me!

MERLE (Sets his crate down gently.): Slowly... slowly... (HARLEY sets his crate down with a crash.)

JERRY: Harley! Be careful with that!

HARLEY: But it's heavy!

JERRY: I don't care if it's heavy. Don't you remember your training?

MERLE: How could he remember it? He slept through it.

HARLEY (Remembers fondly.): Best nap I ever had.

JERRY: Yeah, well, you need to start using that brain of yours. Dynamite is dangerous. The slightest movement can set it off.

HARLEY: Oh, right, right. Now I remember.

JERRY: Good. Now let's go get our tools so we can start drilling the holes for the dynamite in these columns.

MERLE: Wait. You mean we're just going to leave the dynamite here?

JERRY: What's the big deal? We're coming right back.

MERLE: I know, but what if someone comes in here and jostles the crates around?

JERRY: Who's going to do that? Nobody's used this building for years.

MERLE: Well, I still think it's dangerous.

JERRY: Oh, yeah? Well, you think too much.

DALE: Hey, Harley! Did you hear that? Jerry says Merle thinks too much and you don't think enough. Maybe if you put your brains together, you'd think the right amount!

JERRY: And you talk too much.

DALE: Aw, come on, Jerry. I was just appreciatin' your humor.

JERRY: Yeah? Well, don't. (JERRY, DALE, MERLE, and HARLEY EXIT LEFT.)

If you want to see more, including the synopsis, cast breakdown, and a 20-page sample, you can visit the play's page on the New Play Exchange.

I guarantee you'll get a real "bang" out of it.

My 13th year sales

When I set out to write this post, I was going to use the word "gangbusters" to describe how this theater season went for me. But then I went back to look at what I wrote last year and realized I'd used that same word then.

So what word is stronger than gangbusters? Stellar? Dynamite? Fantabulous? Nifty?

Okay, so maybe my favorite thesaurus app throws in a few clunkers. The point is you can pick any one of those words and they wouldn't do justice to how successful this year was for me. Here are just three of the highlights.

I had a total of 420 productions, 16% more than my previous record of 362, set all the way back in that pre-COVID year of 2019. 

My royalties were an impressive 44% higher than my previous record, which was set just last year and which I'm definitely not getting to share here (sorry!).

I also added three new amazing countries to my life list, making a grand total of 24 (still no South America though!).

The top five

The Enchanted Bookshop was my best-selling play for the seventh year in a row, with a whopping 109 productions. That's the most it's had since 2020 (actually, the 2019-2020 season, with the tail end of that season being clipped due to COVID-related theater closures). While most of my plays drop 50% or more within three years, this play has shown incredible staying power. In fact, its production count has dropped only 30% in five years and had held pretty steady the last two years. Besides that, the play got me my 22nd and 23rd countries this year with productions in Abuja, Nigeria and Jakarta, Indonesia. And did I mentioned it already has 43 productions booked for next year? Wowzuh!

It Happened on Route 66 was my second best-selling play with 57 productions, this being its first full year of relief. And that's a whole story in itself. For years after writing The Enchanted Bookshop, I've been trying to replicate its success, but my subsequent eight plays received only a small fraction of that play's productions. Then along came this love letter to the Mother Road, proving that a completely different story--if it's the right story--can get halfway there.

If the success of It Happened on Route 66 was a pleasant surprise, the numbers for It's a Madhouse! were an even bigger surprise. This crazy treasure hunt farce got an impressive 41 productions this year (again its first full year), making it my third-place play. But if you combine that number with the 33 productions received by Madhouse!--its one-act version and my fourth-place play--you get a total of 74 productions--almost Enchanted Bookshop levels. And the royalties for this one-two punch were 82% of the those that my top-earning play received.

Two new hit plays in one year? I'll take it.

With 24 productions, fifth place goes to my coffee shop comedy, Whole Latte Love. This was the play's first full-year as well, but it was down a bit from the 28 productions it got the year before, mostly because that year was practically a full year. It's too early to know for sure, but I expect that this love-filled play will continue to pull healthy numbers over the next few years.

But wait, there's more

Further down the list, I have to give a shout-out to my restaurant farce Million Dollar Meatballs, which has been going strong for nine years now. And by strong, I mean it has gotten 20 or more productions every year except for the two COVID-affected years. As Adam Sandler would say, not too shabby.

I was kind of blown away by this one, but An Enchanted Bookshop Christmas is defying the play-aging odds. This was its fourth year of publication and it somehow managed to earn more royalties this year than it did in any of its previous three years. Like 50% more. This has never happened to me before. A little elfin magic? I have to wonder...

Finally, I have to mention my collection of driver's ed skits, You're Driving Me Crazy!, which, like Million Dollar Meatballs, continues to receive 20 or more productions a year in this, its ninth year. Even more amazing, this year the play got me my 24th country, with a production in Rzeszow, Poland. 

The big question

I've been racking my head lately, trying to figure out why my last four plays have done so well. In last year's wrap-up, I suggested that it may be because I've been concentrating more on single-set, contemporary plays. I'm sure that's helped, but it doesn't explain why my cat inheritance comedy, The Purrfect Crime, has never done super well.

Then I realized that all four plays came after my two-year hiatus from writing plays to try to break into novels and screenplays. How did that go? Not well.

But maybe I learned something in those two years. I spent so much of that time studying the Hero's Journey and learning to apply those lessons to my novels and screenplays that my plays may have benefited as well. I feel like they're stronger now. Tighter. More character-driven.

I know they have a lot more heart.

Anyway, I want to thank all of the schools and theater companies who performed my plays this year. I love you all!

And if you enjoyed my current plays, just wait. There's more great stuff right around the corner. Stay tuned!

Finding Winona

Setting has always been of the utmost important to me. Often, the germ of an idea for a new play comes not from the plot or a character, but from the setting, whether that setting is a creepy mansion, a failing French restaurant, or a bookshop.

So I suppose it's ironic that the setting of my plays rarely includes a specific city.

Location, Location, Location

It Happened on Route 66 is the big exception. From the get-go, that play has been about capturing a specific time and place, so when I first sat down to write it, it was important to me to set it in a real town along the Mother Road and to bring that town to life through the specificity of the dialogue and the richness of the characters.

During my initial brainstorming, I considered several small towns along that fabled highway. Tulsa. Amarillo. Flagstaff.

But when I remembered that famous line from the song "Get Your Kicks on Route 66," I knew that Winona, Arizona had to be it.

Route 66 Trivia: Being east of Flagstaff, Winona is the only town that's out of order going east to west in that song.

It didn't hurt that I've lived in Arizona for the last seven years so I already knew what small Arizona towns are like. However, I've never been to Winona itself.

Until today.

My wife and I were in Flagstaff to cheer on our daughter in her first 38-mile ultra-marathon, and the day after the race, as we headed back to Phoenix, I managed to talk them into buzzing through the tiny town. After all, it's only 13 miles east of Flagstaff--a quick jaunt, no?

I wanted to see how close modern-day Winona was to the quaint roadside town of my imagination. I especially wanted to see if there was actually a diner there. And could it possibly be named Ookie's?

Gettin' My Kicks

I've always loved Route 66 towns. Tulsa makes a big deal about being the birthplace of the highway, apparently because the guy who first pushed for it came from there, and I remember taking a picture of a big Route 66 sign on one of the bridges over the road downtown.

Not the largest Route 66 sign in the country.

Flagstaff is pretty much built along the old highway, with many Route 66-themed burger joints and other restaurants stretched along its length.

But my favorite Route 66 town has to be Williams, Arizona. We spent a weekend there a couple of years ago and absolutely loved it. That town, by the way, calls itself the Gateway to the Grand Canyon, even though it's 54 miles away from that big hole in the ground. But there's no bigger town closer to the canyon, so I guess they can get away with it.

Route 66 Trivia: Williams was the last town on Route 66 to be bypassed by Interstate 40.

What I love about Williams is that even though it's pretty small, it really crackles with life. And that's due its ties to the Main Street of America.

The main drag is lined with neon signs that hark back to the time when Route 66 was in its heyday. And it seems that every other shop in town sells some kind of Route 66 memorabilia. But the town also has some great restaurants and brewpubs, and a killer view of an extinct volcano named Bill Williams Mountain to the south.

Prices are cheap in Williams.

So I had high hopes for Winona. The town had lived and died by its connected to that legendary highway so I figured there would still be a lot of remnants from its glorious past.

My pre-trip research held promise. It revealed that a gas station named the Winona Trading Post had been built along Route 66 in the late 1940's. It was the main business in town back then, and--miracle of miracles--it's still in operation today in the same sand-colored, cinder block building. What's more, a photo of an old postcard I found online showed that the sign on the store boasted a cafe.

I had my diner!

What once was.

An inconvenient truth

I'm not embarrassed to tell you that my heart was racing a little as we pulled off I-40 onto the frontage road that led to the gas station.

That's when it saw it. The cafe sign was gone. There was no diner anymore. The building had been turned into a convenience store.

Let me correct that. An extremely tacky convenience store.

Smiling on the outside. Crying on the inside.

Of course, they had some cheap little Route 66 trinkets for sale. There was even a little exhibit of historical items from the road on display. But sadly, no sign of the cafe itself.

Still, I stood in that store for a few minutes and tried to imagine the millions of travelers who'd passed through the cafe over the years. Who were they? What were their stories? And did they ever order the all-you-can-eat special?

I went outside and looked around. I smiled to see that there was a garage next to the store. I later learned it had been built in the late 1940's or early 1950's so my play wasn't completely accurate when it said that the nearest garage was in Flagstaff. But I thought it funny that there was a tow truck out front, just like the one from Ed's Towing that Sally told Lovey was getting repaired.

Looks fine to me.

As for the rest of the town, it mostly consists of a few dozen houses scattered over the foothills to the north (Winona has never been incorporated so I have no idea what the population is). But I instantly recognized one sight that loomed over the town like a dark cloud on the horizon.

It was the Darling Cinder Pit Mine, which Sally referred to as the largest cinder pit mine in the country. When I got back home, I went online to reconfirm this fact. Turns out it's actually just the largest cinder pit mine in the state--and might not have even held that title in 1955, when the play was set.

Clearly, Sally got some bad info.

Not the largest cinder pit mine in the country.

After taking a few pictures, I climbed back into our car and we headed home.

Final thoughts

Was I sad that I didn't get to see the cafe where It Happened on Route 66 might have happened? Sure. But then so much of that once-vital highway has been lost to time, I shouldn't have been surprised. And I wasn't.

Still, I'm happy I went, if only to get a sense of what might have been. I'm even happier to see how popular the play has been with schools and community theaters. The sets I've seen photos of do a fantastic job of bringing to life the diner I'd hoped I'd see. And in this way, on stages all across the country, Ookie's Diner remains open for business.

May it never close.