Tulsa's Spotlight joins the club

A big shout out to Tulsa's Spotlight Children's Theatre, which became the fifth member of my Five Timer's Club by booking a production of my millionaire cat comedy The Purrfect Crime for next March.

Inspired by NBC's Saturday Night Live, the Five Timer's Club is, of course, the esteemed group of schools and community theaters which have produced my plays five times.

The first four productions that Spotlight so graciously (and tastefully) selected? They were:

• The Enchanted Bookshop, December 2022
• How I Met Your Mummy, October 2023
• An Enchanted Bookshop Christmas, December 2023
• Madhouse!, March 2024

As I've mentioned previously in this blog, I visited Tulsa several times when my older daughter Ashley lived there from 2014 and 2016. I loved the city, being impressed with how clean and modern it was, with a wealth of wonderful ethnic restaurants and surprisingly underused freeways.

Sadly, although I remember seeing My Big Fat Gay Wedding at the American Theatre Company there, I never got around to seeing The Drunkard, the longest running production in American theater history (71 years and counting), performed by the main company at Spotlight itself.

As for the children's theater, it looks like they're not quite done with me. Their 2025 season schedule shows that they've reserved a spot for The Stinky Feet Gang in August.

Hmmm. Maybe it's time for a Six Timer's Club?

For info on all these plays an more, please visit my playwright page on the Pioneer Drama website.

Crazy in the Great White North

One of the things I like best about being a playwright for the amateur market--mostly schools and community theaters--is the amazing places where you get to be produced.

If I wrote for professional markets, I'd get produced in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, maybe a few of the regional theater hubs like Minneapolis and Seattle. And that would be it.

Well, I've been produced in all of those cities. But I've also been produced in quaint little hamlets with fantastic names.

Like Farmers Branch, TX.

Soap Lake, WA.

Knysna, South Africa.

Angels Camp, CA.

Punxsatawney, PA (of groundhog fame).

Locust Grove, OK.

Soddy-Daisy, TN.

Marceline, MO (boyhood home of my childhood hero Walt Disney).

Sadly, I've never had a production in my own fantastically named hometown of Beaver Dam, WI. But if I ever do, you can bet you'll hear about it here.

Anyway, now I can add one more amazing place to the list. The school district in faraway Inuvik, Northwest Territories will be performing You're Driving Me Crazy! at the end of this month.

I find this fascinating for several reasons.

It's my first production in the Northwest Territories, leaving the Yukon as the only Canadian province-slash-territory where I haven't been produced.

It's my first production in the Arctic Circle.

It's also my furthest north production. Four years ago, I had posted about a production of The Enchanted Bookshop Musical at an elementary school in Iqaluit, Nunavut. That was pretty far north, but not nearly as north as this one.

Inuvik is so far north, it enjoys 56 days of 24-hour sunlight in the summer and 30 days of 24-hour darkness in the winter. The coldest temperature ever recorded there is -70 degrees F, although the average daily high is -9 degrees F in January and a balmy 67 degrees F in July.

The town has a population of 3137, predominantly Inuit. And it offers plenty of watery recreation as it's located on the enormous delta where the Mackenzie River empties in the Arctic Sea.

Unfortunately, I can't find any information about my particular production. That often happens when a school district rather than a particular school licenses the play. But I feel honored that they've selected You're Driving Me Crazy! and I wish the cast and crew broken legs all around.

Oh, and just for fun, I did a quick check to see where my other compass extremes have been. Here are those:

Southernmost Production: Eight--count 'em, eight!--different shows at my friend Gemma's wonderful performing arts school Standouts in Wellington, New Zealand.

Easternmost Production: How I Met Your Mummy at Te Puke High School in Te Puke, New Zealand--just 314 miles north and east of Wellington.

Westernmost Production: You're Virtually Driving Me Crazy! by Hana Arts in Hana, Hawaii (on the island of Maui).

Can you tell I'm a geography nerd?

Okie Mummy on the tube

A big shout-out to Spotlight Children's Theatre in Tulsa, Oklahoma for yesterday's interview on the local ABC affiliate. Three young actors from their upcoming production of How I Met Your Mummy participated in the interview and did a great job fielding the host's questions. You can watch the spot here.

This same theater is performing An Enchanted Bookshop Christmas in December. Can't wait to see your next TV spot!

How I met your "Mumie"

Yesterday, I received something in the mail from my publisher. It was in a 4 X 5 envelope, nothing special, and I tried to guess what it was.

Sometimes Pioneer send me copies of my scripts, but those always come in a big Priority Mail envelope. And besides, I'd already received the ten free scripts of my latest play, The Real Pirates Don't Wear Tiaras, so I knew it couldn't be that.

Sometimes they send me catalogs or a T-shirt with the logo of one of my plays, but those also come in bigger envelopes.

Sometimes they sent me contracts to sign, or copies of contracts that I've already signed, but I didn't have anything in the pipeline so I knew it couldn't be that either.

I was stumped.

So I tore it open. It turned out to be the first foreign language translation of one of my plays. A publisher in Switzerland, Theaterverlag Kaliolabusto, had negotiated the exclusive right to license How I Met Your Mummy in Switzerland and translated the script into German so that they could market it there.

The situation is a win-win-win. Kaliolabusto gets a play with a proven track record, Pioneer gets the play into a country they normally wouldn't have access to, and I get my usual royalty for any performances they license.

In fact, Kaliolabusto has already licensed a performance in that country, although when it first popped up on the Pioneer website over a year ago, I didn't realize that it had been in German. The group that had put on that performance was Sofa-Theater in the historic village of Hindelbank.

I don't expect a lot of productions from Kaliolabusto. Switzerland is a small country, of course, and even their most popular plays don't get more than 7 or 8 productions a year. But it makes me smile to know that one of my works is now being done in another tongue.

Wie wundervoll!

Catskills mummy wins awards

A big shout-out to the Sullivan County Dramatic Workshop of South Fallsburg, NY and to the talented individuals who took home TANYS (Theatre Association of New York State) Awards for their recent production of How I Met Your Mummy.

Kristopher Rosengrant received a Meritorious Achievement in Acting for his performance as that knee-knocking, lily-livered security guard Melvin (see above).

Harold Tighe and Jim Schmidt received a Meritorious Achievement in Set Design and Construction  for their colorful, artistic take on the O. Howe Dulle Museum.

And Dawn Perneszi and Jenny Silverman received a Meritorious Achievement in Costume Design and Construction for their simple yet pitch-perfect costumes.

Congratulations, everyone!

Set ideas for How I Met Your Mummy

A while ago, I posted photos from Rumpelstiltskin, Private Eye showing some of the costumes that were designed for the two main characters. My thought was that other performing groups would get ideas from those designs--or be inspired to go off in their own direction.

Well, that post was so popular I decided to do it again, only this time I wanted to focus on set ideas. And what better play to use than my museum play, How I Met Your Mummy,

When I wrote the play, I purposely kept the set requirements to a minimum. There are no doors or windows and only two entrances, making it perfect for schools and community theaters with limited space. Here's how the script describes it:

The exhibit consists of a single room dominated by a sarcophagus lying horizontally on a platform CENTER. A work table is STAGE RIGHT with a yardstick, rope, and other miscellaneous tools as well as a folding chair just LEFT of it. There are two exits, one STAGE LEFT and one STAGE RIGHT. These lead to other exhibit rooms and should be open archways. The STAGE LEFT exit also leads to the restrooms.

It's what you do with that space that counts. Some groups went all out, constructing pillars, statues and an elaborate sarcophagus covered with hieroglyphics and Egyptian-style art. Others kept things simple, using just a hand-painted paper backdrop and a plan wooden box to set the scene.

Well, I think it's all great! No matter what size budget you have or how experienced your crew is, I'm sure you can find inspiration in these awesome sets:

Sunshine mummy

The Ideal School of Advanced Learning in the Sunshine State (Royal Palm Beach, to be exact) recently performed How I Met Your Mummy and they've posted the entire show on YouTube (see above). The kids did a fantastic job, making all of the characters bigger than life and getting a ton of laughs in the process.

How I met my mummy

I rarely see my own plays. This year, I expect to get around 200 productions, but I'll only see two or three of them. So when it does happen, it's special.

This week, my wife and I are visiting our daughter Ashley, who lives in Tucson, so I took a side trip to see a production of How I Met Your Mummy at the American Leadership Academy, a charter school in Queen Creek, a suburb of Phoenix. As Executive Director Bill Guttery told me, it's a hugely successful school, having expanded from just one campus and a hundred-some students in 2009 to eight campuses and thousands of students today.

The drama program is no afterthought here. The auditorium is state-of-the-art and theatre director Leslie Infalt is highly experienced, knowledgeable and fully committed to her students.

This was the first time I had seen this particular play, and after the show, one of the actors asked me if they had lived up to my expectations. I told her the truth. They had surpassed them.

The play has one of my simplest sets, but the stage crew, led by construction teacher Bill Pollard, made the most of it, employing a few elegantly designed pieces to capture the creepy atmosphere of an after-hours museum.

The cast was just as fantastic. The audience was small (the school's football team was playing that night), but the actors really put their hearts into their performances--and got a lot of well-deserved laughs along the way.

After the show, I spent some time signing autographs and talking to the students. Bill also showed me how he built the sarcophagus and the oversized lock used to fasten the sarcophagus (I wish I'd seen it before I'd written the production notes for the script!).

Visits like this always remind me what theatre is about. Sure, it's partly about the art. And it's partly about the entertainment. And it's partly about the skills that are learned as a result.

But more than anything else, theatre is about people. It's about learning to work with a team of like-minded artists to create something new--and discovering something about ourselves in the process.

I'd like to give a great big thanks to everyone at ALA. You really made me feel welcome.

And a special thanks to Assistant Director of Academics Raleigh Jones, who sent me the photos shown here plus a whole lot more. Believe me when I say I'll always treasure them.

Let loose the mummy!

My seventh play--and third new play of the year--has just been published. How I Met Your Mummy is a classic farce that runs 85 minutes and has a cast of 11 (5M/6F). Here's the blurb:

In this hysterically witty, spine-tingling farce, the O. Howe Dulle Museum is about to unveil their latest find -- a mysterious mummy named Yo-Wut-Sup. There's nothing dull about this museum considering everyone wants to get their hands on this ancient man! A pushy reporter vows to prove Yo-Wut-Sup is a hoax. A wacky mystic intends to sneak him back to Egypt. Three high school students want to use him in their low-budget horror film. And two clueless robbers plan to steal the mummy, if only they can figure out what one looks like. Can Melvin Trimble, the world's most cowardly security guard, stop all of them considering it's his first night on the job? Or will he be left taking the "wrap"? And why are there, not one, not  two, but three creepy mummies roaming the halls? Now museum, now you don't!

As I come across photos from productions of my plays, one thing has struck me again and again. Many schools and community theatres are performing the plays on a shoestring, with very little room for an elaborate set. In fact, many of the productions have no set at all. Instead, they're mounted in an empty corner of a classroom or school basement.

I think that's great. Theatre is a wonderful thing, and space or budget limitations shouldn't prevent students and small town audiences from reaping the benefits of it. But that does pose a significant challenge for me in my own writing. How can I make my plays simple to produce while maintaining a professional level of storytelling?

For this play, the answer was simple. I did away with the set. All you need is two exits, a sarcophagus, a table and a chair.

The costumes are fairly detailed, and there several props and sound cues that need to be provided. But overall, it's one of my easiest plays to produce.

For ordering info and a sample from the script, please visit the play's webpage.

The mummy awakes

I just received the contract for How I Met Your Mummy, my seventh play to be published by Pioneer Drama Service.

As previously mentioned, this play won the 2015 Beverly Hills Theatre Guild Play Competition for Youth Theatre. Like Kill the Critic! and Million Dollar Meatballs before it, How I Met Your Mummy is a farce in the classic sense, with snappy one-liners, hilarious mix-ups and tons of physical humor.

It may also be the easiest of my full-length plays to produce. There are few technical requirements and no need for a set at all. All of the action takes place around a single sarcophagus that can be as simple or as elaborate as you want. The only real challenge is the need to provide three similar-looking mummy costumes, only one of which needs to be changed into and out of during the course of the play.

When I was kid, I used to love watching old monster movies, especially funny ones like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein or, yes, Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. Well, this play is a throwback to those wacky comedies of old. It's about the world's most cowardly security guard, who must protect the O. Howe Dulle Museum's new mummy from being stolen, only to discover that there are, not one, not two, but three creepy mummies roaming the halls.

How I Met Your Mummy will be released in Pioneer's spring supplement this December. That catalog, by the way, will also mark the first appearance of my driver's ed comedy You're Driving Me Crazy.

Beverly Hills mummy

I just learned that my new play How I Met Your Mummy won the 2015 Beverly Hills Theatre Guild Play Competition for Youth Theatre, also known as the Marilyn Hall Award. Loyal readers of this blog may remember that my play Rumpelstiltskin, Private Eye won the same prize last year.

The play has a cast of 11 (5M/6F), uses a simple unit set and runs about 90 minutes.

Here's the blurb:

The O. Howe Dulle Museum is about to unveil their latest find--a mysterious mummy named Yo-Wut-Sup--and everyone wants to get their hands on him! A pushy reporter vows to prove Yo-Wut-Sup is a hoax. A wacky mystic intends to sneak him back to Egypt. Three high school students want to use him in their low-budget horror film. And two clueless robbers plan to steal the mummy, if only they can figure out what one looks like. Can Melvin Trimble, the world's most cowardly security guard, stop them? Or will he be left taking the "wrap"? And why is there one --no, two--no, three creepy mummies roaming the halls? Now museum, now you don't!

I'll be submitting it for publication later this year. In the meantime, if you'd like to read a copy for possible production, send me an email. You could be the first to produce it!