Fear of Clowns to be published

Just five days into the New Year and I've already got my first acceptance. Heuer Publishing just informed me that they'll be publishing my ten-minute comedy Fear of Clowns.

This is an old one. I wrote it in 2011, and it received its world premiere at the Millibo Art Theatre in Colorado Springs the following year. The play went on to get productions in Maryland, New York City (my only off-off-Broadway show!), and even London. (These photos are from the Maryland production.)

But then I didn't know what to do with it. Submitting a ten-minute play to contest after contest is incredibly time-consuming, barely worth the peanuts in licensing fees it might earn.

I figured the only way to make any money from Fear of Clowns was to get it published. But Pioneer Drama Service doesn't publish ten-minute plays, and I didn't have an in with anyone who does. So I set the script aside and forgot about it.

Then a year ago, I realized that Heuer, who already publishes my full-length plays The Last Radio Show and Kill the Critic!, has a ton of individual ten-minute plays in their catalog (yes, sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake).

The key to their success in this often challenging market? Simple. They offer their customers a package in which they can license an evening's worth of ten-minute plays for one low fee. The plays don't even have to be from the same playwright.

Fear of Clowns may be over a decade old, but its story is timeless. The play was inspired by that old joke about a man who visits a psychiatrist for his depression. The good doctor tells him to see Pagliacci, the world-famous clown who's sure to make him laugh. The man sighs. "But I am Pagliacci," he says.

For this play, I flipped things around. A clown visits a psychiatrist, but instead of depression, he suffers from a very unusual fear: he's afraid of people.

It's a very funny play, but it's sad too, and in it, I do some things with the offstage sound effects to heighten that sadness.

I've got one other ten-minute play that might be worth submitting to Heuer. I may write more. But first I want to see how this one does. If it does well, it may just open up a whole new (old?) field of playwriting for me.

Fear of Clowns probably won't come out until this fall. But if you'd like to take a look at it ahead of time, email me. I'll be happy to send you a free perusal copy.

Fear in London

Just got word that my 10-minute comedy Fear of Clowns will be produced next month at a pub named The Horse & Stables in London. I'm thrilled as this will be my debut in the theatre-loving UK.

Free copies of my 10-minute plays

By popular request, I'm now offering free perusal copies of my 10-minute plays. Please email me if you'd like to receive a PDF file of one or more of the following scripts.

These scripts are free to use in a classroom setting, but a performance fee is required if you produce them on a stage or in competition.

Students are encouraged to use these in competition. Teachers are encouraged to use these in production or for classroom use. In fact, I know of one high school teacher who has been using my plays to teach his students subtext (You're Driving Me Crazy #3 is fairly dripping with it).

The plays include:

You're Driving Me Crazy
Comedy, 5M/8F, 40min
Individual plays: 2M, 1M/5F, 2M/1F and 2F, 10min each

A collection of four 10-minute plays exploring the wacky world of driver's ed class. (Read a sample.)

Fear of Clowns
Comedy/Drama, 2M or 1M/1F or 2F, 10min

A clown seeks help from a psychiatrist for his lifelong fear of people. (Read a sample.)

The Wanderer
Drama, 2M, 10min

A middle-aged businessman seeks an explanation from his father after the old man is arrested for shoplifting. (Read a sample.)

If you like what you read and want to receive a copy of any or all of these plays, just email me your request and I'll send you a PDF. All I ask is that you give me the name of your school and the date and location of any performances.

Big night in the Big Apple

After one production got cancelled and another production got delayed when the director pulled out, I'm thrilled that tonight I'm making my off-off-Broadway debut.

Thespian Production is producing my comedy Fear of Clowns as part of their March Madness compilation of one-act plays. The show runs tonight through Sunday in a little third floor theater on W. 36th St, just a couple blocks west of Broadway.

I wish I could be there, but it's kind of hard to justify a $1500 trip for a 10-minute play. Still, I'll sleep well tonight knowing that my baby is in good hands and starting to take some big steps.

Break legs, all!

Six blocks from Times Square

A few months ago, I posted a sob story about my off-off-Broadway debut being cancelled. At the time, I'd contacted the producing company, Thespian Production, to find out why, but they never responded.

I've belonged to a few online playwriting groups and I know this would tick off most playwrights enough that they would give up on the theatre company. In fact, some playwrights would go further, passing the word around so that no more unsuspecting scribes would get duped.

I was tempted to do the same. But then, something told me to give them a second chance. I did, sending them my most successful 10-minute play to date, Fear of Clowns.

It worked. Thespian Production accepted it, and this time everything looks legit because the play is listed on their website and is scheduled to be performed at the Joria Mainstage Theater on West 36th Street in January.

The play they originally chose and then dropped, The Wanderer, isn't left in the cold. That one just got picked up by Oakland's Pan Theatre for their Anything Can Happen in 10 Minutes festival this month.

Not only is this the world premiere of the play, but it's also my West Coast premiere for any play I've written.

Sometimes things work out. Sometimes they don't. But you can give things a little boost if you just keep plugging away.

And you don't hold any grudges.

Magic time

Before I got my first play published last year, I'd struggled for 13 years to reach print in the world of books. But if I'd known then what I know now, I wouldn't have bothered.

Why? Because seeing one of your plays performed provides more satisfaction, more pleasure, more joy then any book could ever give you. And it's all because of that little thing called an audience.

I'm having these thoughts because last night I got to see the first local production of one of my plays.

All right. Strictly speaking, it wasn't my first. That happened last month, when "Anger Mismanagement" premiered as part of the 24SEVEN theatre project. But as I've described previously, that was a rush job. And besides, I was guaranteed production whether I came up with a masterpiece or pure drivel (I'll let the audience for that one decide which it was).

But last night was the first time a play that I'd written for general production was done locally.

The play is "Fear of Clowns." And I couldn't have asked for a better production.

"Fear of Clowns" is a 10-minute comedy about a clown who visits a psychiatrist about an unusual fear (I don't want to give that away as it's a big part of the fun) and it was done as part of the Millibo Art Theatre's annual "Ten Minutes Max" show.

What made this production so meaningful to me is that there was one point when I was sure the play would never see the light of day.

Late last year, I was deep in the middle of a rewrite on it when my playwriting software locked up. Feeling a sickening lurch in my gut, I rebooted the program.

When it came back to life, my worst fears were realized. The current version was gone, and all I could find on my hard drive were dusty old versions that bore little resemblance to the version I'd clawed from the shalelike strata of my mind.

Panic!

You can probably predict the next step. I tried to recreate it from memory, but as anyone whose ever been there knows, that's a fool's errand. I hit a wall, unable to find those words again.

That's when I thought back to a quote from humorist Garrison Keillor. I don't remember his exact words, but they were along the lines that if you lose a manuscript, forget what you wrote before. Write it fresh. It'll be better.

I tried. And he was right.

Freed from the shackles of my old words, I conjured up new words, new thoughts, new directions. I invented a whole new section of dialogue in which the clown describes his love for an aerialist ("She can fly.") and the difficulty he has expressing that love.

The dialogue was painful. It was heartbreaking. And it was exactly the thing I'd been looking for to add depth to my piece.

The performance went great, due in no small part to the MAT's Jim Jackson, a real-life clown who played my lead character with a bittersweet gentleness.

I was grateful for every laugh he got (never as many as you hope for, but always more than you deserve). But what really surprised me were the number of "awww's" from the crowd. I knew my play was sad, but it wasn't until I saw a world-class performer bring it to life that I realized how much the audience would welcome that gentle clown into their hearts.

Thank you, Jim--and the rest of the team at the MAT who gave it their all.

For this playwright, it was truly a magical night.