Survival Island is now available!

Hot on the heels of my 3rd play with Heuer Publishing (and 36th play overall) comes the publication of my 4th play with Heuer Publishing (and 37th play overall).

Survival Island! is a full-length comedy about eight contestants on a TV reality show who must learn to survive for real after the host and crew of the show fall into a volcano. The play has a cast of 10 (1M, 1F, 8 any), uses only a single simple beach set, and tuns about 75 minutes.

I've already spoken about my inspiration for the play. I've shared one of my favorite scenes from the script. I've also posted some great photos from the world premiere at Jacksonville Performing Arts in North Carolina, where it was a big hit.

Executive director Nikki Dyba said audiences absolutely loved the play, but what she really raved about was how great an experience it was for the kids (the word "EPIC" may have also have been used a couple of times).

I think that's because the roles are surprisingly meaty for kids. Sure, the characters are fun and over the top, but they're grounded in the real-life personality types we so often see on TV reality shows (as well as in real life itself!).

There's the hardcore gym bro. His hyper-competitive female rival. The laid-back surfer dude. The stuffy anthropology professor. The manipulative executive chef. The shy librarian. The self-absorbed fashion icon. And the greedy investment banker.

Together, they forge a fragile compromise in order to get themselves rescued. But as their resources grow increasingly limited, we see how each character's flaws contribute to the chaos that follows.

The world premiere was performed by upper elementary students. But it could just as easily be done by middle schools, high schools, colleges, community theatres, and even (like many of my plays!) retirement centers. Seriously, this is a comedy for all ages.

Want to know more? Then be sure to visit the play's web page.

Fear of Clowns is now available!

I'm thrilled to announce that Heuer Publishing has just released my 3rd play with them and 36th play overall. The play is titled Fear of Clowns and it also happens to be my first published ten-minute play.

I think it'll fit in well with my other Heuer plays. Like Kill the Critic! and The Last Radio Show (and the upcoming Survival Island!), it's a little dark, certainly darker than any of my Pioneer plays.

But don't let that scare you. It's also very funny--the world premiere in Colorado Springs got a ton of laughs. It's just that the humor comes across in a sad, tragic-clown kind of way. And it's my only play that doesn't have a happy ending.

Fear of Clowns is a breeze to produce. It features a cast of two (one clown and one psychiatrist) and requires no set beyond a couch, a desk, and a couple of chairs.

But it does require sound effects. Or should I say, one very key sound effect.

At the opening of the play, the psychiatrist is working at his desk when he hears the sound of laughter coming from outside his office. The stage directions describe it as "loud, raucous, annoying even, like a bad TV laugh track".

That laughter is the reason Jocko insists in seeing the psychiatrist today. He detests the sound of it, and he doesn't understand why it seems to follow him everywhere.

Now I don't want to give away any spoilers, so I won't share with you the psychiatrist's final advice to the clown. But I will say that the only thing that really changes by the end of the play is that laughter. For as Jocko exits, the stage directions state that it "sounds different now--colder, crueler. Or does it?"

I really want that laughter to land like a gut punch to the audience. If done properly, it will.

Oh, and if you want to read about the play's unusual history or the classic joke that originally inspired it, be sure to check out this post from January.

Survival Island! to be published

Just two months into the new year and I've already got two new plays accepted for publication, both with Heuer Publishing.

I already told you about my first ten-minute play, Fear of Clowns, which was accepted last month. Well, today I got the news that the company will also be publishing my reality show satire, Survival Island!

I'm very happy about this. Heuer has been getting a healthy number of productions for The Last Radio Show and I'm confident they'll do equally well with this comedy about a team of reality show contestants who must learn to survive for real when the show's host and crew meet an untimely (but comical) end.

The play has a cast of 10 (1M, 1F, 8 and), uses a single beach set, and runs about 75 minutes.

I've talked before about the inspiration for the play (think Gilligan's Island meets Lord of the Flies). I've also posted several photos from the world premiere at Jacksonville (NC) Performing Arts in November. So all that's left for me to do is to share one of my favorite scenes.

This is the scene in which the contestants learn of the demise of the crew. We meet six of the eight contestants here, each of which is an over-the-top version of the types of contestants you see on shows like Survivor! and The Amazing Race.

KEANU:  (ENTERS LEFT wearing CHASE's safari hat.) Whoa! You dudes are missing it! The view from the top of the volcano is totally tubular!

EDITH:  Sorry, Keanu, but we have bigger problems to worry about.

SHANNON:  Like what are we going to eat?

ANDREA:  And how can we build a shelter?

BUFFY:  (To KEANU.) And where did you get that hat?

KEANU:  What? This hat?

BUFFY:  Yeah. It looks just like Chase's hat.

KEANU:  Gnarly, right? I found it at the top of the volcano.

ANDREA:  Wait a minute. You found Chase's hat at the top of the volcano? 

KEANU:  Yeah. So?

ANDREA:  So did you find Chase?

KEANU:  No. Why would I find Chase?

ANDREA:  Because he should have been under the hat!

KEANU:  Oh, right, right. (Thinks.) No. I didn't see Chase anywhere, but I did see, like, a profusitude of footprints.

EDITH:  Really? Where?

KEANU:  Oh, man. They were all around the edge of the volcano. And here's the weird part. They were all pointed in the same direction.

EDITH:  And which direction would that be?

KEANU:  Toward that ginormous hole. You know. The big orange one.

ANDREA:  (Panicking.) The ginormous hole? Keanu, are you telling us Chase and his entire crew feel into the volcano. 

KEANU:  Huh? Oh, whoa! I guess I am!

SHANNON:  Oh, no! That's awful!

BUFFY:  Did you happen to see Chase's backpack, Keanu?

KEANU:  Backpack?

BUFFY:  Yes. You know. Canvas bag. Shoulder straps. Usually some kind of designer label.

KEANU:  Nah, dudes. I didn't see anything like that.

OTHERS:  Auggghhhh!

BUFFY:  I can't believe they're gone!

EDITH:  I know! Such a tragic loos of human life!

BUFFY:  I was talking about our cell phones!

MICHAEL:  How are going to contact the base camp?

SHANNON:  How are we going to contact our friends and families?

BUFFY:  How are we going to contact our agents and business managers?

SHANNON:  I knew it. We're all going to die. We're going to die a slow, agonizing death from dehydration. And starvation. And that horrible volcan erupting all over us!

I expect the play will be released this fall. In the meantime, if you'd like to read the whole script, email me at todd.wallinger@gmail.com and I'll send you a free perusal copy. Or read the synopsis and cast list on the New Play Exchange.

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 the back room of a pub in 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 an 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.

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.

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.

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. 

The Last Radio Show is now available!

After five and a half years of rejections and almost a full year in the editing queue at Heuer Publishing, my 1940's radio comedy The Last Radio Show is finally available!

It's my twenty-first play to be published, but only my first with this particular publisher, so I'm excited to see what they do with it.

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

It's 1948, and KUKU Radio is in trouble. Their broadcast tower keeps falling over. The electric company is about to shut off their power. And 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. 

Of course, the best part of those old-time radio shows was the sound effects, and this play features over two dozen of them, most of which can be produced from simple household items.

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

I truly believe this is one of my funniest plays, if not the funniest. The radio sketches feature a seemingly endless array of rapid-fire gags, the behind-the-scene action is crazily frenetic, and each of the characters are over-the-top in their own quirky way.

So why didn't the play get picked up right away? Well, it can be a bit of a challenge to produce. Just as in those long-past days of radio, the actors have to hold the scripts they read from, and that requires some juggling when those same actors have to make the various sound effects in the sketch.

The nice thing is that the use of those scripts means that the actors have much less to memorize than they would in a regular 90-minute play. 

Also, the climax of the play features a single character--the geeky office boy Jimmy--performing the final sketch, including nine different voices and over a dozen sound effects, all by himself.

But it's well worth it. At the end of his bravura performance, Jimmy collapses to the floor in triumph, and this is the one moment in all of my plays that always earn a show-stopping ovation from the audience. 

Up for the challenge? If so, be sure and visit the play's web page, where you can read a sample of the script and view photos from the original production.

The Last Radio Show to be published

Wow. That was a long wait.

Five and a half years after the world premiere of The Last Radio Show--and five and a half years after first submitting it for publication--my old-time radio farce finally got that big thumbs up. And from a new publisher for me, Heuer Publishing.

I'm thrilled--and a little shocked.

When I first submitted the play to my main publisher, Pioneer Drama Service, I thought it was a slam dunk. The play was a big hit when it premiered at the Block Box Theatre in Colorado Springs. And it fit in well with the kind of plays I already had published there.

There was just one problem. Okay, two problems. 

First, the main character--a mild-mannered office boy named Jimmy--has what amounts to an eight-minute monologue at the climax of the play when he saves the radio station by performing all of the parts in a superhero show. (Fortunately, he doesn't have to memorize it. Just as in the old days, all of the radio shows are performed from scripts that the actors hold in their hands.)

And second, the play is somewhat hard to produce, requiring dozens of sound cues and, as it turned out, a sort of juggling act as the radio actors switch back and forth between their radio scripts and the sound effects they have to make.

Pioneer passed, saying the play was too complicated for the schools that make up the bulk of their customer base.

Still, I managed to get a second production of The Last Radio Show in 2017 from Johnston Heights Church in British Columbia (so far one of only two members of my Five-Timers Club). I was told it was a huge hit there as well.

So I submitted it to all the usual suspects. Eldridge Publishing. Dramatic Publishing. Heuer Publishing. YouthPLAYS. All four rejected it.

I started to think it would never get published.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the trash bin. In 2020, my mystery/comedy Lights! Camera! Murder! got published by Heuer Publishing through their youth-focused subsidiary Brookyn Publishers. It did okay too, getting two productions in a year hard-hit by the ongoing COVID crisis.

So I decided to approach them with it again. After all, this strategy worked for me once before (Pioneer originally rejected Long Tall Lester before accepting The _urloined Letter).

After three months of review, The Last Radio Show was finally accepted it for publication, this time by Heuer itself. They focus more on the community theater marker so it makes a lot of sense.

I couldn't be more excited. When I first produced the play, I'd promised my insanely hard-working cast and crew (we threw the play together in three weeks) that their hard work would be rewarded when the play got published. I kept them up to date on the latest developments from the submission front, and they kept me up to date on their latest theater adventures. To be honest, it was kind of depressing to tell them about the rejections, but they kept the faith--and today that faith was rewarded.

If there's a lesson in all this, I suppose it's to never give up in a play or a book or whatever it is you're working on, even if it's been rejected by every publisher in the civilized world (speaking of which, exactly how many publishers does the uncivilized world have?). It may get a second chance at life.

Just don't stop writing. Or, come to think of it, submitting.