Mouse in the House is now available!

My 31st play with Pioneer Drama Service (and 35th play overall) has just been released! It's titled Mouse in the House, and if you love my crazy, over-the-top farces like It's a Madhouse! or Freaky Tiki, then you'll definitely want to check out this one! 

Rodent trouble

Mouse in the House is a full-length comedy about Jeff and Quinn, a young couple who see a mouse in the Victorian home they're selling just moments before their open house is set to begin. Their hard-driving realtor Moira has the solution. Call an exterminator--and fast!

But kindhearted Quinn puts her foot down, insisting that no traps, cats, or poisons be used. And so, unbeknownst to the others, each of the three calls an exterminator specializing in "humane" methods that include everything from kazoos to Viking weapons (after all, Quinn never said anything about swords and war hammers!).

The result? Pure havoc as the exterminators prove better at chasing off the potential buyers than the mouse!

Mouse in the House has a cast of 33, although with doubling you can perform it with as few as 18 actors. The play uses only a single living room set and runs about 70 minutes.

If you'd like to know which Netflix original series inspired Mouse in the House, check out my earlier post about the play here (you might be surprised!). If you prefer to read a sample from the script or review the ordering information, simply bop on over to the Pioneer website by clicking here.

The perfect town

I've posted about how lately I've been setting in my plays in oddly specific locales. Well, I continue this pattern with Mouse in the House, which I've set in Wabasha, Minnesota.

Why Wabasha? Bear with me. There are actually several parts to that answer.

The process of choosing the location started with one of the exterminators that were called. They're intended to be a legitimate exterminating company with the unlikely name of Sheldon's Touchy Feely Pest Control. The thing is that the exterminators happen to be avid Viking reenactors as well, which explains why they arrive with those nasty Norse weapons in hand.

Vikings? Yeah, that meant that the play had to take place in the great (and painfully frigid) state of Minnesota.

But which city? Well, as I said, the story takes place in an old Victorian. The home means a lot to Quinn--she grew up there, after all--and I felt it would seem even more meaningful if it had some history and some elegance to it.

When I Googled a list of Minnesota cities noted for their Victorian homes, the first one that popped up was St. Paul. Well, that city is just too big. I wanted to set the story in a charming little town.

The next few places on the list held more promise: Stillwater, Minnetonka, Rochester. I suppose any of those would do. But I also wanted the town to be quiet. Very quiet. One of the couples looking to buy the house got themselves into a horribly noisy situation with their current home (think planes, trains, and golf balls) so they're desperate to find a place that's way more peaceful and relaxed.

So my next step was to Google the quietest town in the Gopher State, and I was pleased that the answer was a place with a very musical, very Minnesota-sounding name: Wabasha. This picturesque town of 2500 flannel-wearing souls on the Mississippi River turned out to be perfect. The nearest airport is 40 miles away, there's not much train activity (other than the Holiday Train I refer to in the script), and golf courses are minimal.

It wasn't until later that I learned that the town was also the setting for Grumpy Old Men, the 1993 comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Which makes me very happy. Mouse in the House may not have an all-out brawl on the ice. But it's got plenty of grumpy characters.

I just hope it makes people laugh as much as that beloved film.

Mouse in the House to be published

It may be a week before Christmas, but I already got what I asked Santa for. Pioneer Drama Service just informed me that they'll be publishing my 35th play, Mouse in the House. And unlike the creature in that C. C. Moore poem, this mouse is definitely stirring!

The play is a wild farce in the spirit of my full-length comedies Bringing Down the House or It's a Madhouse! It has a cast off of 33, slightly smaller than those two plays. And it requires only a single living-room set.

Here's the synopsis:

To solve their financial woes, Jeff and Quinn are forced to sell the charming Victorian home that Quinn inherited from her parents. Unfortunately, just as their open house is about to start, Quinn spies a mouse in the upstairs hallway.

Their realtor Moira is mortified. She wants to hire an exterminator to get rid of the mouse before any potential buyers see it. Kindhearted Quinn, however, insists that no traps, cats, or poisons be used. And so, unknown to the others, each of the three calls an exterminator specializing in "humane" methods.

One uses kazoos, one uses Viking weapons (Quinn didn't say anything about war hammers), and one dresses in a mouse costume in an attempt to get rid of the rodent. The result? Pure havoc as the exterminators prove better at chasing off the potential buyers than the mouse!

How did I come up with the idea? Well, that's an interesting story in itself.

When I brainstorm ideas for new plays. I usually start with the location. I ask myself: what setting is fresh and new (for me, at least) and offers a lot of potential for humor?

That's how I came up with Freaky Tiki (Hawaiian resort), It Happened on Route 66 (1950's diner), and Whole Latte Love (coffee shop). But after completing my last play, Mall Madness (1980's food court), I was stuck. I couldn't think of a single setting that met my requirements.

Then one day, I was watching the Netflix series No Good Deed and as soon as I saw that it was set during an open house, it hit me. I don't always need a unique location. A unique situation can work just as well. And an open house is one situation that's rife with possibilities.

I tossed around the idea of having a murder occur at an open house, but that seemed a little too dark for me. So then I imagined what else could go wrong during that open house. I thought about the couple having their pet hamster get loose, or their pet snake. But then I realized the only really good idea is to have a mouse running amuck in the house.

And not just any mouse. This mouse would be their neighbor's super-talented movie star mouse (think Stuart Little if that film had featured a real live rodent instead of a CGI figure).

It was a natural. All I had to do was throw in a few crazy exterminators, a money-hung realtor, a pair of obnoxious HOA officers, a confused pizza delivery person, and I had my plot.

Oh, one more thing. Mouse in the House wasn't its original title. I actually submitted it to Pioneer as Eek!

Personally, I loved the title. To me, it instantly created a picture in the mind of what is was about--and a funny one at that.

But it immediately ran into problems. When my editor Brian received my email featuring the one-word subject line of Eek!, he freaked out, thinking I'd found a mistake in the script they'd just released (my one-act comedy, A Fine-Feathered Murder). Needless to say, he was relieved to learn that subject line was merely the title of my latest play.

Then when I received the acceptance email today, Brian addressed the title again. He said that when the staff there started reviewing the script, some of the readers thought it might be a ghost story or a mystery.

It made a lot of sense. To me, "eek" always meant someone had seen a mouse, but a quick Google search showed that, yeah, some people use it for ghosts as well. And Merriam-Webster simply defines it as an interjection "used to express surprise or dismay". Which I guess includes everything you might be scared by, from spiders to zombies to public speaking.

So I agreed to dump that title. Fortunately, Brian already had another one ready to go: Mouse in the House.

I liked it. A lot. It tells you what the play's about. And it makes it clear that the play is a comedy.

I still have a couple months to see if I can come up with something even better. But for now, Mouse in the House it is. Look for this furry farce to receive a spring release.

No, not that kind of spring.

Belmont diary: Start the engines

I've completed the first draft of my airport comedy. It's titled Thirty Minutes Till Boarding. And it's a monster.

104 pages. 40 characters. One high-energy dance number that can boost the cast size to 50 or more. And lots and lots of luggage.

It's my biggest play to date. But that's not the only reason it was such a bear to write. It's also the first play I've written that has multiple storylines.

A new journey

My other huge-cast plays, It's a Madhouse! and Bringing Down the House, only had one storyline. Five or six characters drove the plot while the rest of the characters interacted in some way with the main ones in order to advance the plot.

There's one big advantage to doing it this way. It makes it very easy to follow the Hero's Journey template. After only, I only had to create one journey.

Thirty Minutes Till Boarding, on the other hand, has multiple storylines. Fourteen, to be exact.

Some of the storylines have two characters. Some have three or four. The biggest one has six. But all of the characters are the heroes of their own story.

Writing it this way was fun but also extremely challenging. The biggest challenge was just coming up with all those different stories.

But there was one other big challenge. To keep the play under two hours, each storyline had to be very short, no more than ten minutes. How could I make those stories satisfying, with a complete narrative arc for each character, in just a few minutes?

There was only one answer. I had to use a simplified version of the Hero's Journey.

Six steps to story

Instead of the the 15 beats of Save the Cat!, which I usually use for my plays, or the 12 beats of The Writer's Journey, which many screenplays use, I settled on six that each of these stories had to have:

1) Status Quo--We meet the characters, find out what makes them tick, and discover what their goals are (a lot to cover in just a page or two).

2) Catalyst--An external event prevents the characters from achieving that goal.

3) Turning Point--A new complication raises the stakes for the characters.

4) All is Lost--The character seems to fail in their mission, usually because they're approaching the goal in the wrong way.

5) Final Victory--With a different approach and a newly reenergized effort, the characters finally succeed in achieving their goals.

6) Reward--We get a glimpse of the new normal, which shows us how the characters have been changed by their journey (usually, but not always, for the better).

I'm really happy with how the play turned out. I think it's really funny and really heartwarming, maybe my most heartwarming play to date.

It's also makes a great ensemble piece. No character has more than 63 lines, and 3/4 of the characters have at least 20 lines.

That magic number

One last thing. As I said, this is my biggest play, both in length and cast size. It's a Madhouse! and Bringing Down the House both ended up with 38 characters. That seems to be a magic number for me because my first draft of Thirty Minutes Till Boarding also had 38 characters.

But Belmont Day School really wanted 40 characters. I'd have to add two. What would their story be? 

Well, that's where the old axiom "write what you know" came into play.

I thought back to my own experiences flying commercial and I remembered the time a middle-aged lady squeezed into the seat next to me, her hands clutching something wrapped in foil. She sat there with it on her lap, admiring it, the whole time we were waiting for the plane to takeoff. 

Finally, it's twenty minutes later, we're in the air and she unwraps this thing. It's a chili dog. Like a loaded with everything chili dog. Ketchup. Mustard. Relish. And, of course, a lots and lots of onions.

She could have eaten it in the restaurant. She could have eaten it at the gate. But no. She carried it onto the plane so that all 150 passengers could appreciate this stink bomb.

I had my storyline. All I needed to do was move it into the airport, add a couple of brothers, give them a reason for traveling, and it was a go.

Scene: A crime against humanity

Here's the first scene of that storyline:

NEIL and VERN ENTER RIGHT, carrying backpacks. VERN holds a chili dog wrapped in foil.

NEIL: I'm telling you, Vern. This trip to Italy is going to make us rich!

VERN: I sure hope so, Neil.

NEIL: Are you doubting me? Don't be doubting me, bro. You know I've always been the smart one.

VERN: I'm not doubting you. It's just that, well, I guess I'm a little confused about the plan.

NEIL: (Sighs.) All right. I'll go over it one more time, but only because you're my little brother and I know you tend to forget things.

VERN: Thanks, Neil.

NEIL and VERN sit.

NEIL: Now listen. It's really very simple. Step one: We buy an abandoned house in the village of Sambuca for one measly euro. Step two: We renovate the house. Step three: We sell the house for a whole lot more than one euro. Bing bang boom!

VERN: Sounds like a lot of work.

NEIL: Well, sure, it's a lot of work, but that's why we make such a good team, right? You do all the physical labor and I take care of the brainy stuff.

VERN: What brainy stuff?

NEIL: Well, you know. Drawing up plans. Getting permits. Those are just as hard as laying brick or putting up drywall. (Sees the foil.) Wait a minute. What's in that foil?

VERN: A chili dog. I haven't eaten since breakfast, you know.

NEIL: You're bringing a chili dog on the plane?

VERN: Yeah.

NEIL: A casing-wrapped tube of heavily processed meat and meat byproducts, smothered in some overly seasoned bean slop, and topped off with tear-inducing onions?

VERN: Oh, yeah!

NEIL: You can't eat that on the plane!

VERN: Why not?

NEIL: Because it's a crime against humanity, that's why! As soon as you open that foil, the vile stench will fill the cabin and the other passengers will be forced to inhale those toxic fumes for the rest of the flight!

VERN: I could eat it now.

NEIL: Do you really think I want to smell that foul concoction on your breath for the next eight hours? No! Throw it away or I'm going to be sick!

VERN: Yes, Neil.

VERN EXITS RIGHT with the chili dog.

NEIL: (To himself.) He's lucky he's got me to watch out for him.

 

What comes next 

I emailed the play to Belmont Day School today, which feels like starting the engines on a jetliner. The play is fully boarded, but it's not ready for takeoff just yet. 

That won't happen until October, when we finally nail down the script and the school starts rehearsing for their March performance.

But for now, we've got a story--oops! make that twelve stories--that are just begging to come to life.

I can't wait to dig in.

Belmont Diary: It's a mystery to me

I love writing on commission. It gives me a deadline. The collaborative atmosphere helps me focus my writing. The money's nice. And it guarantees that the play will meet an unfulfilled need in the market.

In fact, my first two commissions, It's a Madhouse! and Bringing Down the House, were snapped up for publication by Pioneer Drama Service and have turned out to be way more successful than even I had imagined (I'm still waiting on the results from newly-published commission #3).

So yeah, commissions are the bomb. But there's something even better than a commission. And that's two commissions.

Today, I was deep into the third pass of another commission for Belmont Day School (#4 for those keeping score at home) when the theater arts teacher there offered me a fifth commission. I immediately said yes.

I mean, it should be a quick write. Like The Worst Fairy Tale Ever, which they commissioned from me last summer, it'll be a one-act comedy with minimal set and costume requirements and a cast of eight. The difference? This time it'll be a mystery.

Mysteries are a blast to write. Three of my first four plays were mysteries (The _urloined Letter, The Butler Did It!, and Rumpelstiltskin, Private Eye). Then I stopped for several years while I played around with other genres. But I always missed the form and I finally came back to it four years ago for It's a Madhouse! Now I'm eager to jump back into those deep, murky waters.

I don't have any story ideas. I'm going to have to do some brainstorming for that. But the school made it very clear they don't want the play to have the same meta, bumbling-cast concept as The Worst Fairy Tale Ever (or The Play That Goes Wrong, which inspired it).

Which is fine with me. I'm excited to do something totally fresh.

Oh, one more thing. Like The Worst Fairy Tale Ever, this play is being commissioned for in-class use only. This means that Belmont Day School will not be producing the play. And this means that the world premiere is up for grabs. Whoever agrees to produce it first gets it.

Interested? Then email me at the address shown on my Contact Me page and you'll be among the first to receive the script when it's complete. The mystery play is due September 1. The airport play is due October 1.

Two plays in three months? I guess I know what I'll be doing this summer!

My 14th year sales

Another theater season has come and gone, and I'm happy to say that this one truly was a banner one. But--and it's a big but--it had to be. Since I'm now a full-time playwright, and my playwriting income is only about a third of my old engineering income, I need to keep growing my royalties by a healthy percentage each year if I want to make a go of this.

The best way to do that, of course, is to get more productions. And the best way to do that is to write more plays. Which is why I've been working like crazy, cranking out plays quickly while maintaining the quality people have come to expect.

But not just any plays. It's also important to keep the market in mind and write what schools and community theaters are looking for. And a couple of results from the past year have me rethinking this whole thing.

More on that later. In the meantime, let's take a quick look at...

The numbers

A year ago, I saw a massive bump from the previous year. My production count was up 16% and my royalties were up--get ready for it--44%. Maybe I was a little delusional, but I was hoping for something similar this year. Unfortunately, I fell short. I had a total of 451 productions, which is up 8% over the previous year while my royalties were up only 6%.

It's not that my new plays didn't do well. They did. It's just that some of my big hits from the previous year dropped off a little more than expected.

Still, I'm not worried. I've seen quite a few of my plays pop up again in a year or two so I'm hopeful that will happen again over the next twelve months.

And besides, that 451 is an all-time record for me so I really can't complain.

The top five

1) The Enchanted Bookshop--118 productions

My most-popular play for the eighth year in a row was this magical comedy. That 118 is actually an amazing number because it represents the second highest production count this play has ever had.

The Enchanted Bookshop is truly the Energizer Bunny of plays. It just keeps going and going and going.

It's the only one of my plays that theaters repeat, sometimes as often as once a year. It's also the only one of my plays (besides The Enchanted Bookshop Musical) that regularly appears in professional theater seasons alongside such big-name works as Clue, Matilda, and Into the Woods.

2) It Happened on Route 66--48 productions

For the second year in the row, my second-most-popular play was this 1950's romantic comedy. And I couldn't be happier.

I love this play. I love the characters. I love the humor. I love the cool diner setting. And I'm grateful that so many people around the country seem to love the play as well.

I can't wait to see how well the brand new musical adaptation Route 66 does this year.

3) Bringing Down the House--36 productions

My third-most-popular play was this backstage comedy. What's especially impressive is that this was only a partial year for the play. It wasn't even released until August.

I've got be honest. This one surprised me. I never dreamed it would be this popular. I wrote it simply because a school commissioned me to write it. They wanted a play about a musical rehearsal that keeps getting interrupted so none of the characters actually get to sing. As a result, the play calls for a lot of different musical tracks which are only played for a few bars.

The play is pretty quirky in other ways as well. There's a swordfight between a group of confused protesters using the handles of their protest signs against a band of sledgehammer-armed demolition workers, There's another swordfight involving actual swords. And then there's a dance involving aliens, pirates, and several crates of dynamite.  

The reason I think it's so popular is just the sheer size of the play. It calls for a cast of 40, similar to my play It's a Madhouse!, which has also been wildly popular. So it's clear that a lot of schools are interested in plays that give a large number of students an opportunity to perform.

And this one definitely does. Unlike some plays that achieve their large cast sizes by plugging in a nameless chorus, my plays always give each character a name, a unique personality, a specific goal, and at least a couple of lines guaranteed to get a laugh. 

So one of the changes I'm planning to make in my career is to focus a lot more on huge-cast plays like this--even if they're not commissioned.

4) The Enchanted Bookshop Musical--27 productions

My fourth-most-popular play was this musical adaptation of The Enchanted Bookshop. This was another surprise because those 27 productions are the most it's received since its inaugural (and COVID-shortened) season of 2019-2020 and a big boost from last year's 15 productions. I don't know what happened to bring it back to life, but I like it.

5) You're Driving Me Crazy!--25 productions

My fifth-most-popular play was this collection of four driver's ed-related shorts. Ten years in, it's still getting a healthy number of productions.

Earlier this month, Pioneer released The Worst Fairy Tale Ever, my first one-act play since You're Driving Me Crazy! and I'm already hearing from teachers who tell me how excited their students are to perform it. So I think that's going to be a big play this year. And I'm going to watch it closely because I may start writing a lot more short plays.

Honorable mentions

I do want to give a shout-out to three plays that just missed being in the top five: Million Dollar Meatballs (also in its tenth year) and It's a Madhouse!, both of which snagged 24 productions, and How to Enchant a Bookshop, which was right behind them with 23 productions.

It's a Madhouse!, of course, has a one-act version titled simply Madhouse!, and if you combined the two of them, they would account for an impressive 47 productions. So even though the first of those two plays dropped off my top five this year, the pair remains a production powerhouse.

Finally, this was the first full year for How to Enchant a Bookshop and I find that particularly interesting because when I first submitted the play, there was some concern that it might cannibalize sales from the other Enchanted Bookshop plays. Seeing that two of them are still in my top five, it's heartening to know this didn't happen.

Final thoughts

So yeah, it was a good year. Sure, I wish some of my plays had done a little better and that my royalties had grown a little more. But still, it was a record-breaking year in many ways and I couldn't have done it without you, the drama teachers and theater directors who've chosen my plays over the years.

So let me just leave you with a large and very heartfelt...

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 offer five (or more) 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.

Bringing Down the House is now available!

When Belmont Day School first approached me about writing a large-cast play--no, make that a 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 it has an only slightly smaller 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 stage 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 are 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.

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. 

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 going 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!

Trimming the Madhouse

Speaking of slimming things down, my friend Gemma from New Zealand emailed me a couple weeks ago. She'd seen the announcement of my newest play It's a Madhouse! and wanted to read it but the script but wasn't yet available from Pioneer. Could I email her an electronic copy of my script?

Silly question. Of course I could!

Gemma ended up loving it, but she was concerned about the length. Standouts, her Wellington-based theater school, has very short rehearsal periods (often as short as a week!) and while that's worked for previous plays of mine that she's done, she felt that a 90-minute play would be a stretch. 

No problem, I told her. I structured the play in a very modular way, stringing together an array of independent, small-cast vignettes. I did this to make rehearsals easier, but it also makes it easy to remove one or more vignettes. She thought she'd cut out the vignetter involving some desperate-thespians and a hokey family searching for their lost pet.

Ironically, eight days later, my editor at Pioneer, Brian, had an interesting offer. As it turns out, It's a Madhouse! has been getting a ton of interest from their customers and he was wondering whether I'd be willing to adapt it for a smaller cast. He felt a lot of schools would love the physical action and humor but be unable to field so many actors (the play calls for 40--count 'em, 40!) or stage so long a show.

Silly question. Of course I would!

So I dove in. And that's when I realized that cutting the thespians wouldn't work because one of them, a verbose, self-absorbed actor playing Romeo, played a vital role in the climax. But there was another vignette I could cut without any loss of flow: one involving a demanding tour group and some hyperactive cheerleaders. 

And then I found two more characters that could be cut, and a major scene, and lots and lots of lines from, well, pretty much everyone.

By the time I was done, I'd gotten the play down to 28 actors (25 with doubling) and 60 minutes. And that's the version I just emailed to Brian for publication.

I don't know when it'll be released, but it shouldn't take long. After all, the play has already gone through editing once. But you can bet you'll hear about it here first.

Stay tuned...

It's a Madhouse! is now available!

 

Just in time for the new school year, my twentieth play has now been released by Pioneer Drama Service. And according to my editor JJ, they wanted to rush it out because it's been getting requests ever since they posted it on their website a couple weeks ago.

The reason? It's hard to say for sure, but he thinks it's because the play was specially designed to be episodic, with lots of roles that are small but high-energy crazy. In fact, the entire middle section of the play is almost like a collection of five-minute skits. Not only does this give each actor an opportunity to take the spotlight, but it makes the play a breeze to rehearse.

In fact--and I probably shouldn't be telling you this--the play is so episodic that you can remove entire scenes of the play without missing a beat. This came up last week because was one of the first potential customers to show an interest in the play was my friend Gemma from Wellington, New Zealand.

She wanted to do the play with her younger kids but was concerned that it was too long for the one week of rehearsal that she usually gets (I don't know how she does it either). I told her that was easily fixed. Just cut one of the scenes.

Sure, it means some of the roles are gone. But the play starts with 40 of them so you can easily lose a few and still have lots of parts to fill.

Here's the blurb:

Best-selling mystery author Byron Pembroke is dead. Soon after, his highly dysfunctional family gathers on a dark and stormy evening for the reading of the will. Each family member has their own reason to believe they'll receive the bulk of Byron's estate, but the family soon funds out that the deceased didn't think much of them. Instead of naming an heir, Byron instead condensed his fortune into one mysterious object and left it to... whoever finds it first!

Before greedy family members are able to put together individual plans of their own, the mansion is overrun by a horde of strangers seeking shelter from the storm. And once the strangers find out about the hidden treasure, they soon join in the hunt.

Who will find the treasure first? Byron's spoiled, self-serving family members? The bickering trio of ghost hunters? The nosy news team? Or the busload of obnoxious tourists? Loaded with small parts and several small-cast comical vignetters, this madcap mystery gives every actor a chance to be part of the madness!

For ordering info or to read a free sample, please visit the play's web page.

Belmont diary: It's a Madhouse! to be published

I thought the three weeks it took An Enchanted Bookshop Christmas to get accepted for publication fast, but It's a Madhouse! blew that away. It took just seven days from when I submitted the play To pioneer Drama Service to them accepting it.

And I couldn't be happier. Not just for me, but for the kids and faculty at Belmont Day School who worked so hard to bring the play to life. I know it'll mean a lot to them to see their names as part of the world premiere credit in the script.

It'll be interesting to see how this play does. As I've said in my previous posts chronicling its development, the play was specifically written to meet school Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion requirements. It also has a massive cast--40 actors in total. It's one of the biggest full-length plays Pioneer has ever published. I know it's the biggest one I've published.

The script should be released in time for school this fall. In the meantime, let me tease you with this scene introducing the first of literally dozens of intruders who threaten the Pembroke family's search for the treasure:

HOBSON (Opens UPSTAGE DOOR. GEORGE and HARRIET ENTER, holding novels.): May I help you?

HARRIET: Look at this place, George. Isn't it just a dream?

GEORGE: Oh, it's more than a dream, Harriet. It's an absolute vision!  

HARRIET: This is exactly how I pictured his house, you know. All ominous and spooky.

GEORGE: Spooky indeed. In fact, I might almost call it "sinister."

HOBSON: Excuse me. Is there someone you'd like to see?

HARRIET: Oh, yes. Byron Pembroke, please. We're his biggest fans.

HARRIET and GEORGE hold up their novels.

HOBSON: I'm sorry, but Mr. Pembroke is... indisposed.

HARRIET: That's all right. We'll wait right here until he's disposed again.

HARRIET and GEORGE start toward the sofa.

HOBSON: No, no, no! Don't sit down!

HARRIET (Sits.): Oh, but we must. Our feet are simply pounding.

GEORGE (Sits next to HARRIET.): They're a virtual symphony of pain.

HOBSON: All right, fine. He's dead.

HARRIET: Who's dead?

HOBSON: Mr. Pembroke. The man you're waiting for.

HARRIET: Well, that was rather sudden.

HOBSON: Actually, it happened several days ago. 

HARRIET: Oh, dear! And to think we never got to tell him how much his books have meant to us! Isn't that tragic, George?

GEORGE: More than that. It's a genuine cataclysm of sorrow.

HOBSON: And now that you've made that point abundantly clear, I really must insist that you leave—

HARRIET: Oh, we can't leave.

HOBSON: What do you mean you can't leave?

HARRIET: Didn't you hear? The bridge is out.

HOBSON: Surely you're joking.

HARRIET: He doesn't believe me. George, dear, would you tell this nice manservant about the bridge?

GEORGE: Oh, you should have seen it. It was a disaster of the highest magnitude!

HOBSON (Calls OFF LEFT.): Mr. Pembroke!

HARRIET: I thought he was dead.

HOBSON: What? Oh, uh, Mr. Pembroke is dead. I mean that Mr. Pembroke is dead. I'm calling the other Mr. Pembroke. The one that isn't dead.

If you want to know when the play is released, keep checking back here. You'll be the first to know.

Belmont diary: Curtain up!

It's real now. The play that Belmont Day School commissioned me to write back in June, It's a Madhouse!, received its world premiere last night. 

And I didn't get to see it.

I never planned to visit the school for the world premiere. That was neither in my or the school's budget. But they had planned to stream the performance for me and the many friends and family members of the cast who were unable to attend on person.

They even asked me to record a video of myself introducing the play. That part I saw (as painful as it was).

But when the time came for the play to start, the stream went dark and silent. And try as I might, I couldn't get it to work.

Oh, well. It's not the first time I've missed the premiere of one of my plays (to be honest, I've only seen the premiere of of seven of my 21 plays). And I've already received all the feedback I need to know what worked and what didn't so that I can give the script a final polish. Still, it's a little disappointing.

But that's not important. No, what's important is that the play get published, so that all of you can have the opportunity to see it--or better yet, produce it!

Stay tuned. I'll be submitting to my publisher soon.

Belmont diary: Final draft done!

It's October 1--the day my contract with Belmont Day School said the final draft was due--and I'm glad to say I just got it in under the wire.

I turned in the first draft back on August 23, but with the multiple challenges of starting up school under new COVID guidelines, my contacts at the school weren't able to provide their inputs on it until this Monday. Fortunately, the inputs were few.

One of the reasons the school wanted to commission a play was because they'd struggled to find a play with plenty of strong female roles and no cultural insensitivities. I've always striven for both in my plays, but I was surprised and a little dismayed to find that even with my best efforts, I managed to include a couple of things that weren't completely sensitive. What's more, they distracted from what I was trying to achieve with those characters. So I'm really glad I was able to get feedback on the play.

I guess it just goes to show. A lot of the biases we deal with are so ingrained in our culture we don't see them even when we're looking for them.

On that note, I also changed the gender of one of the roles--a touchy-feely guru type who turns out to be something else--to a woman because I needed another female role and I wanted to break this particular stereotype.

Other than that, co-director Chris Parsons and Susan Dempsey think the play is terrific and can't wait to start rehearsals next week.

Oh, we have a title now! I'd originally proposed It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Mystery. I thought it captured both the genre of the play and the crazy energy of the plot. And, as a callback to a certain 1960's caper film, it passed my smile test. Chris and Susan, however, wanted a shorter title and felt that kids wouldn't get the reference. Which I'm sure is true, but I was hoping at least some in the audience would get it (I figure that few of my cultural reference jokes are understood by everyone).

I may end up reverting to that title when I submit the play to my publisher. But for Belmont's production the title will be a much more svelte It's a Madhouse! I was a little worried that this too might be considered a little insensitive. I mean they're not called madhouses anymore. But the saying is so commonly used that I think the word has lost its original meaning and now only ever means a place where confusion and chaos reign.

And to make the title more meaningful, I changed some of the dialogue to give "madhouse" an entirely new, third meaning (a kind of pun, really).

Chris and Susan still need to read and approve this final version but we're almost there. Now's the fun part: putting the play on its feet.

I can't wait.