On leads, supporting characters, and robots

I got an interesting email today. A director in Illinois said their theater had produced The Enchanted Bookshop Musical and he wanted to submit a couple of the actors for their local theater awards. The problem is he didn't know which award to submit them for. Were Eddie and Fingers leads or supporting characters?

Now before we go any further, I want to clarify something. May people argue that the lead, or protagonist, is the character who demonstrates the greatest arc during the course of the story.

Social media, for example is rife with examples of people arguing that Cameron is the real hero in Ferris Bueller's Day Off because Ferris himself never changes. He's the exact same character at the end of the film that he was at the beginning.

Well, that's just silly. A well-designed play (or movie or novel) will feature several characters who demonstrate an arc. It makes the story more interesting. It makes the story more realistic. And it gives the actors something to sink their teeth into.

Does that make all of them the protagonist? Of course not.

The protagonist is simply the character who drives the plot. And a well-designed play (or movie or novel) will feature exactly one of them. It just makes for a more focused, more compelling story.

The Enchanted Bookshop is an interesting case, however, because it features not one, but two separate plots. There's the daytime plot, in which Margie struggles to keep her bookshop in business. And there's the nighttime plot, in which the book characters come to life to battle the smugglers.

Clearly, Margie is the protagonist of the daytime plot. But who's the protagonist of the nighttime plot? After all, the six main book characters who come to life all play a role in defeating the smugglers who threaten to destroy Margie's shop.

But if you read the script carefully, you'll see that it's Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz who acts as the conscience of the group. She's the one who continually urges the others to do the right thing.

So, no, Eddie and Fingers are not the leads of The Enchanted Bookshop. They're supporting characters. 

Sure, they have their own goals they're desperately trying to achieve. But those goals are not the main goals of the plot and are in direct opposition to our hero's goals, which makes them the antagonists. The bad guys, so to speak.

And that brings me to my final point. Just because a character isn't the lead, just because they have fewer lines than the main character, doesn't mean they're not important. 

As a matter of fact, every character in every one of my plays is important, even vital to the story. Seriously, I always plot my plays like a house of cards. Remove any one card--or character--and the whole thing comes crashing down. 

So rest assured, whether you have 331 lines like Jenkins in The Butler Did It! or 0 lines like the dancing robot who appears (and usually steals the show) at the end of  George Washington Ate My Homework, you have a very important role indeed.

Enjoy it. Savor it. And don't ever let yourself forget it.

A Fine-Feathered Murder gets a premiere

Only eight of my thirty-three plays have a world premiere credit in the back of script. I wish they all did.

Getting that production provides me feedback that can help make the script better. And the cast and crew get that world premiere credit in the script to immortalize all the hard work they put into the play.

But it's a luxury that I can't always afford. The only way to survive as a full-time playwright is to write--and publish--quickly. And hunting for a theater to premiere your play, then waiting for them to produce it, can delay the play's publication by a year or more.

So I'm thrilled that Caddo Parish Middle Magnet School in Shreveport, Louisiana, has agreed to give my newest, as-yet-unpublished play, A Fine-Feathered Murder, its world premiere in November.

How it happened is a story in itself.

Trey Jackson, the theater director at the school, was already involved in a production of The Butler Did It! at his church. He liked this mystery/comedy so much he wanted to do it with his middle school kids but was wondering if there was a shorter version. Apparently, he did an AI-based search online and it told him a middle school version existed.

It does not. Which just goes to show, AI is always more A than I.

When Trey emailed me about it, I gave him the bad news. But I offered to send him the script for A Fine-Feathered Murder, which has the same dry, British humor of The Butler Did It! but is a lot shorter and easier to produce.

He loved the script. The kids loved it too. And they really, really wanted to give the play its world premiere.

The only problem? They were planning to perform it as their spring play. I told Trey it was possible the play would already be published by then and, if so, they'd miss any chance to get a credit in the script.

So he pulled some strings and managed to get the play scheduled for November 6 and 7.

Trey's excited. The kids are excited. And I'm excited, in no small part because I'll be offering my input on the audition tapes the kids submit--a new experience for me.

Oh, and they'll also be performing it in the spring. Six times. With three more casts.

I guess they really do love the play.

Belmont Diary: A comedy for the birds

Most of my plays are a grind to write. Some go a little easier. And then there are those rare birds that just flow out of me from day one.

My newest play, A Fine-Feathered Murder, falls firmly in that last camp.

When Belmont Day School commissioned me to write it, they wanted a play with eight characters that were over the top but had interesting arcs. Not exactly the easiest of requirements. But a challenge I eagerly accepted.

It was a different challenge that worried me. The tone.

Mystery-comedies are mysteries first, comedies second, and before you write one word of dialogue or invent a single character, you've got to answer one very important question: what's the crime at the heart of the story?

Of course, murder is the go-to for the vast majority of mysteries, whether on page, stage, or screen, and that's because it carries the stakes that a good story needs.

But you've got to be careful. Make it too silly, and the story will lack tension. Make it too serious, and the comedy will suffer.

With The Butler Did It!, I managed to balance the crime and the comedy pretty well. The play has received rave reviews around the country and continues to get a healthy number of productions today, twelve years after it was first published.

But I think I veered too grim with Lights! Camera! Murder!, which would explain why Pioneer chose not to publish it and why it has struggled to find productions with Brooklyn Publishers.

So with this new play, I decided to err on the light side. I asked myself: What if it didn't involve the murder of a person but a parrot? And what if it wasn't just any parrot but one that could sing the entire score of Verdi's opera Rigoletto from start to finish?

Boom. The tap opened wide, and the eight very British characters who would people the play almost immediately popped into my head:

Lilith, the snobby owner of the parrot, who can't understand why only two invitees have come to the music recital she's organized.

Reginald, her long-suffering husband who thinks the whole idea of a recital for a parrot is silly.

Daphne, their Elvis-loving, opera-hating teenage daughter.

Fiona, the cheeky maid who's quick with a riposte while feeding the parrot plain old crackers on the sly.

Ashton, the pompous opera impresario who's convinced she'll become rich if only she can persuade Lilith to take the parrot on tour.

Dr. Snively, a creepy ornithologist who longs to get his hands on the bird for more "scientific" purposes.

Mrs. Willoughby, the elderly neighbor who never quite knows where she is.

Teddy, the bumbling village constable who's thrilled to finally have a murder case to investigate.

As I said, the writing went really well--it was almost fun!--and I finished it in about four weeks.

The school will only be using the script for in-class instruction, so once they provide their feedback on the script, I'll give it one more pass, then submit it for publication,

In the meantime, the world premiere is up for grabs. If you think you'd like to produce the play, email me at todd.wallinger@gmail.com and I'll send you a free perusal copy of the script. As with my other one-act commission, The Worst Fairy Tale Ever, I believe this play is perfect for competition, a student-directed production, and an evening of one-acts. 

And no, I did not recycle any of these brilliantly funny gags from that dead parrot sketch.

But I was tempted to.

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!

Sunshine State Butler earns a rave

 When you write for amateur theater--that is, schools and community groups--actual published reviews are few and far between. So one comes along, it's a real treat. Especially if it's a rave.

That was the case today as online magazine Florida Theater On Stage published a review of Curtain Call Playhouse's production of my very British mystery/comedy, The Butler Did It! This ambitious theater company has making the rounds of South Florida with the production. They opened November 16-17 in Pompano Beach, moved on to Sunrise for a single performance on November 24, and are now settled in at Boca Raton for two weekends of shows.

Reviewer Britin Hailer had lots of good things to say about the play, but I especially like how she wrapped up:

"The Butler Did It! is a roller coaster of reveals to keep you guessing up until you realize the little clues planted along the way were leading to a perfect finish. If you love murder mysteries, and even if you don't, we heartily and rousingly suggest you attend Curtain Call Playhouse's current production for a rollicking good time."

A big thanks to director Gary Solomons and the rest of the cast and crew for putting your heart and soul into the production. Sounds like it paid off nicely.

Instant Five-Timer

I've spoken before about my Five-Timers club, that elite group of schools and community theaters that have performed five or more of my plays. It usually takes a few years to achieve that lofty status. After all, producing groups generally like to mix things up by performing plays from a variety of playwrights.

So I have to give a big shoutout to Plain Dealing High School (Go Lions!) of Plain Dealing, LA, which became the fifth member of my Five-Timers Club--literally overnight--by booking five different plays of mine yesterday. 

The five plays are:

It Happened on Route 66 (my newest blockbuster)

Million Dollar Meatballs (a perennial favorite)

The Butler Did It! (an old classic)

You're Driving Me Crazy! (short and oh so sweet)

The Purrfect Crime (an overlooked charmer)

All five plays are scheduled for this school year, so I'm guessing they may be in-class readings rather than full productions. But they're all officially licensed and paid through Pioneer Drama Service so what the heck. I'll count them.

And no, my Five-Timers Club may not come with a jacket, like Saturday Night Live's version. But it does get you my everlasting gratitude and appreciation.

Thanks, PDHS! And break lots and lots of legs!

Wolverine State Butler finds the Python

I was a comedy nerd before the phrase "comedy nerd" was even a thing. I was a fan of all the old comedy teams: Laurel and Hardy. Abbott and Costello. The Marx Brothers. But nobody made me laugh as hard as Monty Python's Flying Circus.

I was eleven years old when reruns of this groundbreaking show were first shown on American TV. And I adored them. I didn't always get the humor. Some of the jokes were too British. Other jokes were over my head maturity-wise. But I knew they were funny and I watched them over and over again until I could quote them from memory (the exploding penguin sketch was my favorite).

So it thrilled me to learn that a director in Michigan compared the humor in my play The Butler Did It! to those bad boys. The director is Brad Kenyon and he's directing the show next month for the Athens Community Theatre. The Daily Reporter has the story.

"It's not Bob Hope snappy punchline-pacing, but a delightful blend of physical and verbal comedy that makes it hilarious," Kenyon said. "There's influence from classic Hollywood productions, old-time vaudeville and Monty Python."

The article also notes that the actors contributed plenty of their own comedy nuggets, which always makes me happy.

Check it out if you're in the area. The show may not contain the funniest joke in the world, but I guarantee it'll make you laugh.

Ten years and counting...

Well, it almost slipped by me without a peep, but I just realized that today is the tenth anniversary of this blog.

When I started it, I'd just received my first offer from publication. It came from Pioneer Drama Service and was for my one-act comedy The _urloined Letter, which had received its first production just eight months earlier.

I wanted to start the blog because I was excited to share this news (I'd been trying to get published for fourteen years). But I also figured now that I was a big-time published author (cough!), people would be clamoring for my insight, much as I'd clamored for insight from those writers who had come before me. 

Ah yes, The naivete was thick.

Of course, I quickly ran into Hurdle #1 for the new blogger. What to write about.

So many baby bloggers rush into their first few posts, flush with enthusiasm and buzzing with ideas. And then they discover that they really didn't have as many ideas as they thought. And they didn't get as many hits as they expected. And that writing is hard work.

I've never had a problem coming up with ideas. I just write about my career as it develops: new plays coming out, new countries where those plays are being performed, mentions in the media. And yes, the occasional piece of writing advice.

I also don't worry about hits. I get ten to thirty a day. Not as many as I'd like, of course. But I get enough emails from followers that I know the blog is proving useful to teachers and directors looking for additional information on my plays and seeking advice on their productions.

Of course, I also ran into Hurdle #2. Finding the time to write.

This has been more of a struggle. With a full-time engineering job and an hour and a half of writing every day--not to the mention the normal daily and household management stuff--my brain is often too mooshy at the end of the day to put together two more words. 

But early on, I made a promise to myself that I would write at least one post a month. And I'm happy to say I've kept that promise.

Ready for some stats? Sure, you are!

Over the last ten years, I've received a total of 86K page views. And sure, a lot of those were bots . I know this because, for a while there, they were spiking like clockwork every two weeks. But those have largely subsided now. Why, I don't know. Maybe Google has cleaned up their Blogger counter algorithm.

My most popular post of all time is The Enchanted Bookshop is Now Available with around 2300 views. It's the post that announced the release of my bestselling play and describes my process for selecting the six famous literary characters around which the play is centered.

I have no idea how people are finding this post because it doesn't show up very high in search engines. Maybe they're finding the blog first and then searching for "enchanted bookshop" within the blog. A good reason for those of you with your own blogs to add a search field, if you don't already have one.

After that, the number of views drops off dramatically. My second most popular post is The Hero's Journey in Star Wars with 563 hits. It's based on a popular talk I gave at the Colorado Thespian Conference and is one of my free really hard-core writing advice posts. If you need a quick intro to the three-act stroy structure, I highly recommend it (it even includes a downloadable 

My follow-up post, The Hero's Journey on Legally Blonde, has been more popular lately. I don't know. Maybe I should write a series of those. 

My third most popular post is Trouble in Paradise Junction to be published with 472 hits, no surprise there because that's another one of my bestselling plays. The post describes my three-year struggle to finish the play and ends with Ted Lasso-like hero Joe Goode's monologue.

Another post that isn't quite as popular as these but that I'm still proud of is So You Want to Do a Staged Reading with 301 hits. In it, I offer some advice from having produced the first staged reading of my play The Butler Did It! If you're in a similar position with your own play, I recommend you check it out.

So, will this blog last another ten years? Who knows? I don't even know if I'll last another ten years. And with the onslaught of Facebook, Instagram and other social media time sinks, blogs seem to have gone the way of the dinosaur.

But I can guarantee you one thing. I'll still be writing something.

Oh, and if you're interested, here's that first post.

Naivete indeed.

Five-Star Butler

Well, that Missouri director who based his production of The Butler Did It! on Carol Burnett's old show must be doing something right because it just got a five-star review in KC Applauds.

Critic Bob Evans had some nice things to say about the script, but what makes me even happier is hearing how the cast really threw themselves into their roles.

"But all of the cast were strong in their performances. They knew their characters and delivered the punch lines were flair," Evans writes. "The play does not demand a lot of physical comedy so the line delivery, facial expressions, and tonal inflections are paramount to the comedy's effectiveness."

If you live near Kansas City, you have three more chances to see the show this weekend. If you don't, check out my Productions page to see what other shows may be playing in your area.

Show me the funny

Summit Theatre Group of Lee's Summit in the Show Me State of Missouri is closing out their 2018-2019 season with The Butler Did It!, and that got them this nice writeup on their local news site.

Director Mark Hamilton first read the script five years ago and was drawn to the fast-paced humor and the oh-so-proper English setting.

"Think Downton Abbey, if Downton Abbey was a comedy," he says. "1930's English manor house, quirky characters, a dark and stormy night, murder in the kitchen with a paring knife, what's not to like?"

I can tell Mark and I have similar tastes in humor because he based his direction on the wacky parodies from the old Carol Burnett show--one of my great comedy influences growing up (you had to love that mid-1970's Saturday Night lineup on CBS).

If you're in the area, I strongly encourage to check it out. Performances are June 14-15 and 21-23 at the MCC Longview Cultural Arts Center in Lee's Summit.

Tickets? A mere $15 ($12 for students and seniors).

Rave review for Bay State Butler

Gateway Players of Southbridge, MA opened their 44th season this weekend with The Butler Did It! and I understand the cast did a fantastic job. At least that's the word from The Citizen Chronicle's theater critic Katie Alicea-Tilton in her enthusiastic review of the show.

The Butler Did It! was my first full-length play and my second mystery, so when I wrote it I was still feeling my way around this challenging genre. For inspiration, I turned to Agatha Christie, not just for the classic misdirection techniques she used in her novels but for the character of Edwina Corry, a world-famous mystery author who serves as the amateur detective in the story.

I soon realized there are two mistakes you can make in writing a mystery. One, you make it so easy that everybody figures it out. Two, you make it so hard that nobody figures it out.

Admittedly, the clues I planted were pretty hard--so hard that I worried I was veering too close to the second of those two mistakes. To make up for it, I added one line of dialogue that completely gives away who the culprit by showing that they know more than they're supposed to.

I know that some hardcore mystery fans have picked up on it right away. But apparently, the play still manages to fool most of the people who see it.

And yeah, I'm really glad that the critic and her mom were fooled.

Fifth Time's the Charm

If Saturday Night Live can have a five-timers club, then maybe I should too.

I'm kidding, of course, but the thought recently crossed my mind because I got word that Johnston Heights Church in the Vancouver, BC suburb of Surrey has booked a fifth play of mine.

We've had a long, fruitful relationship going all the way back to 2014, when the church's drama group produced The Butler Did It! They found it the old-fashioned way, by searching the Pioneer Drama Service website. Their production was such a hit that after it was over, Carol A., who oversees the play selection there, asked me to recommend another play.

At the time, I was trying to get a second production of Kill the Critic! so I sent her that, not really believing that a church would be interested in my naughty farce. They weren't, but Carol did think it was hilarious.

So I sent her a play that Pioneer had just published, Million Dollar Meatballs. That one was perfect for them and became play number 2.

In 2017, Carol emailed me again, asking what else I could send her. I'd directed a wildly successful world premiere of The Last Radio Show the year before but was unable to get any publishers interested in it. Carol decided to take it on, and they gave it an equally successful second production. So successful, in fact, that she said the church was shaking from all of the laughter.

Last year, they went one step further. They presented the world premiere of Lights! Camera! Murder! (changing the name to Lights! Camera! Action! so it wouldn't raise eyebrows when seen on the church's marquee).

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it out there for the show, but they sent me a video of it so I could gauge the response and use that to punch up the script.

Which brings us to this year. On my suggestion, they decided to go back to my published plays and selected The Purrfect Crime.

More important than the plays, however, is the money that this vibrant, missions-oriented church has been able to raise through these productions. Every year, they choose one local charity to donate a large chunk of their proceeds to. One year it was a homeless shelter. Another year, it was a group supporting Syrian refugees.

So yeah, I'm thrilled that they like my plays. But I'm even more thrilled to know that they're using my plays to make life a little easier for people in need.

Keep up the great work, guys! Would you have any interest in a pirate play...?

Mannequin butler

The mannequin challenge has been making the rounds of the Interwebs lately, and a lot of theatre companies are using them to promote their shows. Last month, Azusa High School in California took the challenge for their production of Long Tall Lester. And now the Kansas School for the Deaf is doing it for their production of The Butler Did It!

This one is especially tricky because it recreates several scenes from the play, with the camera panning away every few seconds to let the actors move into the next pose.

Oh, and the students will be performing the play in American Sign Language. Now that's awesome!

Break legs, everybody!

Catnip comedy

It's always nice to get reviewed, whether the review is good or bad. Of course, good is a whole lot better than bad.

Fortunately, Attic Productions' production of my mystery/comedy The Butler Did It! just got a rave review in The Roanoke Times. Critic Mike Allen praised Anthony Neal's droll delivery as the butler (seen above) and described the play as "amusing, engagingly plotted catnip to amateur sleuths."

To read the whole review, click here.

Butler in Oman

I was excited to see photos from last week's production of The Butler Did It! by the Aspirations Players in Muscat, Oman--the 9th country my plays have appeared in. It was, in fact, the first production this group has ever done, and I feel honored that they decided to perform one of my shows.

Great job, all! I hope you have a long, successful future!

Butler in South Korea

It's always fun to see photos from my plays, especially when the production represents a new country for me. Here's a photo from a production of The Butler Did It! at the International Christian School in Pyeongtaek, South Korea. The production was done very simply, proving once again that you don't need an elaborate set for this fast-paced mystery/comedy. Just a few pieces of furniture and some passionate, fun-loving actors.

When I wrote the scene where the butler gets tied up, I was worried that it might be too difficult, that the cast wouldn't have enough time to do a convincing job with the rope.

You know what? It doesn't matter. Every picture I've seen shows just a few loops of rope around the actor's chest and arms.

Could he get out of the rope if he tried? Sure. But this is theatre, and you can always count on the audience to willingly suspend their disbelief.

Now to finish that scene with a police helicopter...

The butler forms a family

Just came across this article on the recent production of The Butler Did It! at Selah High School in Selah, WA. It's one of the best I've read, with vivid details and lots of interesting quotes. What's more, it was written for the Yakima Herald-Republic by a sophomore at the school.

Well done, Colton. You've got a bright future ahead of you as a journalist, if you choose to go that route.

The best part of the story? Learning how the cast became a close-knit family through the three-month (!) rehearsal process. As Aleksandra Pawlak, a foreign exchange student Poland who played Edwina Corry, said: “Being with all these people shows that I have a place here.”

That's theatre in a nutshell: providing a place--a family, a home--for those who may not fit in anywhere else.

Warning: The article does includes a spoiler, revealing the name of the murderer. If you don't want to know, you may not want to read the article.

Butler Abbey

I love seeing the posters that community theaters use to promote their productions. Most of these theaters operate on a shoestring, but what they lack in cash they often make up for in creativity.

Here's a perfect example from the upcoming production of The Butler Did It! by Indianapolis's Center Stage Productions. Capitalizing on the feverish popularity of Downton Abbey, they Photoshopped the cast in front of a shot of the TV show's stately estate.

Blimey, that's a top-hole bit of work!

Make 'em laugh

 

I caught the local production of The Butler Did It! twice last weekend, and I look forward to going one more time before it closes this Saturday I could write a 500-word blog on why I keep returning to my own play, but as is usually the case, Wall Street Journal theatre critic Terry Teachout has already  covered this issue.

As Teachout suggested, it's a treat. To hear an audience respond to your work is one of the great joys in life. And rarer than you might think.

Of the 100+ productions of my work since 2010, I've gotten to see exactly 7--and all but one were in Colorado. Theatres just don't have it in their budgets to fly playwrights in, and I don't have it in my budget to fly myself. So I enjoy most of my productions vicariously, either through production photos (always a blast!) or through emails from the director or cast members.

But Teachout left out one other important reason: to learn where the laughs fall. I've written comedies for 9 years now, and coming up with a good gag is as much a mystery to me now as it was when I started. Nothing can replace the immediate feedback of a live audience to tell you what works--and what doesn't.

And although actors like to say that every audience is different, I've found that the response remains remarkably consistent from production to production and performance to performance.

If you have fewer than 20 people in the theater (as we did Saturday afternoon), you won't get laughs no matter how funny your script is. Get more than 20 people in the room, and the same lines will get the same laughs time after time after time.

The Butler Did It! is already published, so it's too late to tweak the dialogue now. But studying where the laughs fall is sure to help me in future plays, even if writing a good gag remains more art than science.

Butler in Broadway World

And another review is in, this one from Christi Esterle by way of Broadway World. She writes:

Local playwright Wallinger has written a gently affectionate spoof of a drawing-room mystery, complete with a thinly veiled Agatha Christie clone and threaded with a black humor reminiscent of Arsenic and Old Lace. (One of the household members, a rifle-wielding granny convinced she's fighting the Boer War, is essentially a female variation on Arsenic's Uncle Teddy.) With shaky British accents and uneven comedic timing, the production at the Black Box is carried off with more enthusiasm than skill, but both the audience and myself found the show entertaining and humorous, and some performances do stand out...

While not perfect, The Butler Did It! has a lot of heart and humor behind it and is a fine offering from a Colorado author, and that is enough to recommend it.

To read the whole thing, click here.