Tulsa Purrfect Crime to bring love and laughter

None of the children's theaters that perform my plays get as much local TV coverage as Tulsa's Spotlight Children's Theatre, and they were back at it again today with an interview of three gifted actors from their production of my cat inheritance comedy The Purrfect Crime. You can watch the video here.

The play runs the next two weekends, and the young actors are very excited to be in it, as the interview makes clear.

My favorite part was when the host asked the kids what they hope the audience gets out of the play. Natalie Mayes, who plays Annie, answered simply, "a lot of laughter, hopefully," while Ray Sawyer-Karloski, who plays Little Bob, quickly added, "it also sends a message to appreciate your loved ones while they're still around."

Guess what. Both answers are correct!

Break legs, everybody! And a big thank you to this amazing theater company for their continued support. They've already scheduled a production of my western comedy The Stinky Feet Gang for August (my sixth production with them!) and I can't wait to see what the kids have to say about that one!

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.

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!

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!

Tulsa Bookshop Christmas gives a gift

Boy, those Sooners sure keep busy!

Just two months after performing my museum farce How I Met Your Mummy, Tulsa's Spotlight Children's Theatre is back at it with a performance of An Enchanted Bookshop Christmas. And this once again, they snagged an interview spot on the local news. You can watch it here.

I love the enthusiasm the kids show for their characters. But I especially love the fact that the theater company will be giving a special Christmas gift to every child who attends the show: a free book! There's no better way to encourage young readers than that!

Break a leg, all!

The purrfect fundraiser

Photo by Jordan Simal

Well, my heart is nice and toasty now.

That's because I just came across a write-up in the News Virginian on Crimora Players' production of The Purrfect Crime. Turns out they're doing the show as a fundraiser for Presley Kelso, a nine-year-old girls who's been battling leukemia since 2019.

"Sometimes the kids come, the ones that we're doing the program for," says Carla Coffey, one of the actors in the show. "When they come, you can see their faces laughing and shining. It just makes the whole show. It really does."

What other reason do you need to write than this?

The show runs November 19 to 21 at the Crimora Community Center. Visit the theater company's Facebook page for complete details.

A Purrfect case of gender bending

I'm always happy to have directors creatively cast my plays. After all, it comes with the territory.

Schools and community theaters don't always get the right mix of actors -- or even a sufficient number of actors -- at auditions, so they're often forced to combine roles or change the gender of the roles they're casting.

And sometimes they do it just for the fun of it.

That's the case with the Sheeptown Players Drama Society (love that name!) of Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. They're performing The Purrfect Crime May 10 and 11 and, as this article in the Fort Saskatchewan Record makes clear, they're having a ball.

"We have a gentleman playing a female cat. We have a guy who is playing a female lawyer. We have a woman playing a male butler," executive director Stuart McGowan says. "This isn't the first time our group has bent the gender bar, but we are getting into it as much as possibly can."

Make you wonder what they'd do with Five Women Wearing the Same Dress.

Break legs, everybody. I'm glad you're having fun.

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...?

The Purrfect Crime is now available

One thing about getting published. It never gets old.

My twelfth play, The Purrfect Crime, was released by Pioneer Drama Service today and I'm just excited about it as if it were my first play.

There's the first look at the artwork (love the cat, guys!). The updating of this website. The scripts. The T-shirt. And of course, the long, nerve-wracking wait to see how popular the play is.

But this one means even more to me than most because it was the last play I developed in Colorado Springs before moving to Phoenix last February.

I lived in Colorado Springs for 23 years. I started a children's theatre company there. Launched my writing career there. Wrote 3 novels, dozens of theater reviews and 22 plays, 7 of which received their first staged reading or world premiere there.

Most importantly, I made a lot of great friends there.

I love Phoenix. I love the palm trees. I love the hiking. I love the funky little restaurants that can be found in every strip mall (and there are a LOT of strip malls). And yes, I love the climate (even in summer!). This is where I plan to live the rest of my life.

But a little piece of my me will always remain in that lovely little city at the foot of Pikes Peak.

Since The Purrfect Crime was one of those plays that premiered in Colorado Springs, I've already written at length about its development. If you're interested in reading those posts, click here for the complete thread. If you're thinking about producing the play and would like to read an excerpt or review the ordering information, click here.

In the meantime, let me leave you with the play's blurb:

Here's a pun-filled tale of feline fortune that all ages will love! Poor "Big Bob" Little. When this cantankerous old rancher dies. nobody mourrns -- not his eldest child, Cecilia, a hard-driving, money-hungry businesswoman; not middle child, Annie, a holistic, dizzy lass hoping to turn the ranch into a bovine meditation retreat; and not even youngest child, Little Bob, a lovable loser obsessed with the percussive arts. That's why it's no surprise when Bob leaves his entire $36 million fortune to his cat, Wiggles. Just what is a kitty to do with that much money? Enter a pair of purr-suasive cons who claim to be the world's foremost pet psychics. Not to let the cat out of the bag, but it's really an elaborate ruse to steal the kitty's diamond-studded toys. But when the corrked cat burglars learn that Wiggles needs a will of her own, they hatch a plan of have it all -- The Purrfect Crime! Can the family work together to stop a cat-astrophe? Or will they just end up fighting like cats and dogs? The Purrfect Crime is a claw-some blend of hiss-terical humor and cat-scratching action. Let the fur fly!

The Purrfect Crime to be published

I just mailed back the contract for my twelfth play to be accepted by Pioneer Drama Service, The Purrfect Crime. And I couldn't be more thrilled. Loyal followers of this blog will remember this play as the one I developed with Palmer Ridge High School in Monument, CO. Which means that the talented cast and crew who gave the play its world premiere production will soon see their names in the published script.

The Purrfect Crime is about a cat that inherits 42 million dollars after the death of the cantankerous Texas rancher who owned her. The rancher's spoiled children are appalled, and the oldest--a hard-driving businesswoman named Cecilia--immediately plots ways to get the fortune for herself.

I think the play will do very well. Although it's not a farce in the strictest sense, there's a lot of physical humor and farcical elements in the plot. In fact, one showstopping scene features a pair of stupid criminals who pose as pet psychics, a case of mistaken identity that would feel at home in any classic farce.

It's also my most female-heavy play. Of the ten speaking parts, seven are female, including the two leads. 

And it should be fairly easy to produce. There are no special technical requirements and, except for a couple of scenes that are played in front of the curtain,  the entire play takes place in the living room of a Texas ranch house.

The play comes out in January. Until then, let me leave you with an excerpt from the fateful scene where the will is read:

JANICE: (Reads.) "The last will and testament of Robert 'Big Bob' Little."

ANNIE: Can you hurry up?

JANICE: I just started.

ANNIE: I know, but I was hoping you could skip to the part where I get everything.

JANICE: Please. Be. Quiet. (Clears her throat.) "As we grow older, we come to realize that money really doesn't matter—"

CECILIA: I'm not that old yet!

ANNIE: I hope I never get that old!

JANICE: "What matters is the love and devotion of those closest to us. Therefore, I leave everything I own to the one member of this family who has shown me nothing but unswerving devotion and love..."

CECILIA: Here it comes!

ANNIE: I can taste those millions now!

JANICE: Wiggles.

CECILIA: What did you say?

JANICE: I said Wiggles. Wiggles gets everything.

CECILIA: Who's Wiggles?

ANNIE: I think it's the cat.

DIGBY: Oh, it's most definitely the cat.

CECILIA: Uh huh. And when it says "everything," what exactly does that mean?

JANICE: It means everything.

CECILIA: You mean like the cat bed?

JANICE: No. Everything.

ANNIE: Oh, the cat food!

JANICE: No. It means everything!

LITTLE BOB: Wow! Even the cat toys?

JANICE: Let me see. How can I put this? Wiggles gets everything. The house. The land. The 36 million dollars in the bank. It all goes to Wiggles.

ANNIE: That's not fair! Wiggles is just a stupid animal!

JANICE: How can you call her stupid? I thought you loved animals.

ANNIE: I do. As a concept. It's real animals I can't stand.

On character arc and Listerine

On opening night for The Purrfect Crime, I ran into a couple old theatre friends. Let's call them Bette and Joan.

We had worked together on several of my plays and I was honored that they'd come out to see this one, my last one to premiere in Colorado Springs.

Afterwards, we joined my wife for a couple beers at one of our favorite old haunts, Old Chicago. It was fun, but it was also bittersweet, because I was back in the Springs for just three days and I had no idea when, or even if, I'd ever see them again,.

But we didn't talk about that. We talked about the state of theatre in town. We talked about all the great old times we had had. We even swapped stories about the famous theatre types we'd met (the winner: Joan's story about being reduced to tears when introduced to the great Stephen Sondheim).

And then, under the tongue-loosening effects of the laughter (or maybe it was the beer), Joan looked me in the eye and told me I was a good playwright, but I wouldn't be really good until I gave my characters more depth.

She almost immediately apologized, saying she hoped she hadn't offended me. I assured her she hadn't. In fact, I thanked her. It's all too rare, I told her, to get such an honest opinion from people.

And I meant it. But it got me thinking. What she was talking about was character arc, the transformation that a character goes through as they react to the obstacles in their lives and strive to achieve their goals.

Both Bette and Joan come from acting backgrounds. And as actors, they want to feel that each of the characters they play has an arc. They feel that every character grows in some way, and it's the actor's job to make that growth visible, compelling and real.

Of course it's not true. As a playwright, I know that each story is the hero's story. Nearly all of my effort in crafting a story goes toward building the hero's arc.

Oh, sure. Some of the other characters--the antagonist certainly, maybe even a sidekick or two--may get an arc. And each of the characters is important. I don't out a character in a play unless that character serves the story in some vital way. But that doesn't mean the character has an arc.

But I get where Joan is coming from. We are each the hero of our own story, and when an actor is cast in a particular role, they want to feel as if their character has a life beyond the edges of the stage, a life that transforms in some meaningful way. It's that transformation that makes the character interesting to them.

And if an actor can find and portray an arc in a small role, I say more power to them.

Besides, this was kind of line with what my favorite readers Jeff and Debby told me. After watching The Purrfect Crime, they felt there was no one to root for.

It was a good point, and I tried to think of ways to make the entire bickering family more likable.

And then I had a revelation. No one wants to root for secondary characters. They're there to root for the main character, to hope that the hero achieves her deepest goals. And the hero in The Purrfect Crime was Cecilia, the eldest daughter and hard-driving businessman. She was the one I had to make more likable.

I looked over her entire arc in the story and I realized that, while she does transform, that transformation comes too late in the story. Only at the end does she warm to Wiggles, the cat who inherited the 36 million dollar fortune. I needed to find a place to have her show the first signs of softening.

I found the place. It came at the end of the first scene in the the second act. There was only one problem. I really liked the way the scene ended. It ended with a gag that I knew, from the three-day run of the show, always got a laugh.

But of course, it's not about the laughter. Even in a comedy, your most important goal as a playwright is to serve the story. To make the conflict compelling. To make the characters authentic.

To show the characters transform.

So I revised the ending of that scene. Here's the original version. It happens immediately after Cecilia kicks the fake pet psychics out of the house for attempting, she believes, to poison Wiggles.

(DIGBY grabs MADAME ZAMBONI and BUBBLES and starts to drag them off.)

BUBBLES: You'll be sorry!

MADAME ZAMBONI: Yes! Don't come running to us eef Weegles never speaks to you again!

(DIGBY EXITS RIGHT with MADAME ZAMBONI and BUBBLES.)

CECILIA: (To WIGGLES.) You owe me big time, Tuna Breath.

(CECILIA EXITS RIGHT with the bowl of cat food.)

WIGGLES: Is it that noticeable? (Breathes into her paw.) Oh, man! I've got to start using Listerine!

(LIGHTS OUT).

This is what I changed it to:

(DIGBY grabs MADAME ZAMBONI and BUBBLES and starts to drag them off.)

BUBBLES: You'll be sorry!

MADAME ZAMBONI: Yes! Don't be surprised eef Weegles never speaks to you again!

(DIGBY EXITS RIGHT with MADAME ZAMBONI and BUBBLES. As soon as they're out of sight, CECILIA throws her arms around WIGGLES.)

CECILIA: Oh, Wiggles! I can't believe we almost lost you! I don't think I could live with myself if I ever let that happen! (CECILIA and WIGGLES look at each other. Embarrassed, they quickly break apart.) Now go run and play. Or something.

(CECILIA EXITS RIGHT with the bowl of cat food. WIGGLES does a celebratory dance.)

WIGGLES. She likes me! She likes me! She really, really-- (Stops dancing.) Wait. Of course she likes me. I'm a cat. What's not to like?

(LIGHTS OUT.)

Is the second version as funny? Probably not. Does it make Cecilia more likable? I hope so. Does it serve the story better? Definitely.

William Faulkner told us that, as writers, we need to kill our darlings. He never mentioned it would feel so good when you do it.

Making it purrfect

When developing a play, it's important to get feedback from many sources. Your readers. Your director. The cast and crew. And of course the audience.

Well, last week, I had the luxury of getting feedback from all four as my play The Purrfect Crime received its world premiere at Palmer Ridge High School.

On opening night, director Josh Belk confided to me that he had heard the jokes so many times in rehearsal, he didn't know if the jokes were funny anymore. Well, I'm the author and I'd reached that point four months before, after tweaking the script for what must have been the five hundredth time.

That's why the audience is so important. To them, the play is fresh every night. If they laugh, you know a joke is funny. If they don't--well, maybe it needs some work.

There was plenty of both during the three-night run of the show. I was pleased that the audience seemed to like the physical humor. The play is about a couple of criminals who pose as pet psychics to swindle the world's richest cat out of her fortune. The biggest laughs of the night came when the sassy butler, upon learning of the scheme, uses his gloves to slap the criminals--not once, not twice, but three times.

There were several jokes that didn't land, which is normal, so I'll be reworking those before I send the script to my publisher. But on opening night, my biggest concern was that the key scene, in which the criminals hold a fake reading, fell flat. Madame Zamboni, the main psychic, performed the reading as a cover so that her assistant, the slow-on-the-uptake Bubbles, could stuff the cat's priceless toys into a large sack.

With its farcical elements, this scene should have been one of the highlights of the show. But watching it on opening night, I was confused by what was going on. And I wrote the thing.

The main problem was that I didn't provide enough dialogue to make it clear to the audience what Bubbles was doing behind the rest of the cast.

Josh rode to the rescue by telling the actors playing the criminals to as lib some explanatory dialogue the next two nights. He also had the lighting crew bring up the upstage lights a little bit so that the audience could more easily see what Bubbles was doing.

It worked. On the next two nights, the scene went over much better, and I'll be revising the script to include the additional dialogue.

After the last show, I got a chance to field questions from the entire cast and crew. Meeting the talented students performing my plays is always the most rewarding part of my job, and these students asked some really great questions. It also brought home to me a great truth I've discovered about writing. If you want to find the plot holes in your script, let high schoolers read it. They'll zero in on those holes like Luke Skywalker firing at that vent on the Death Star.

The Purrfect Crime, as it turned out, has a plot hole the size of that Death Star, which I discovered when one of the crew members asked why--well, I don't want to give away the big reveal in the play, so let me just say that the motivation of the villain was lacking. I told the young man, half-jokingly, that I'd get back to him on that.  Only later did I realize that the fix was an easy one, and I'll be plugging that into the final script.

As director, Josh was more concerned about ease of production, and after the run ended he came up with a great idea, suggesting that some of the scenes be moved to the same day so that there wouldn't need to be so many costume changes. I have to admit, that's not something I usually think about when I'm writing a play, but I may have to start.

Last but far from least was the feedback I got from my readers Jeff Schmoyer and Debby Brewer. They're longtime members of the playwriting group I started, but they've also been members of a novel writing group for many years, so they live and breathe plot, character and all those other writerly concerns. (They even run their own nano-publishing company, Jmars Ink.)

In this play, their main complaint was that there was no one to root for. It's a good point. The members of the Texas oil family who own the cat are pretty self-absorbed, which was necessary for the setup of the story.

But Jeff and Debby's advice reminded me that the characters, and especially the main character, needs to become likable at some point or the audience won't care what happens to them. Fortunately, I thought of a great way to soften Cecilia, the hard-driving businesswoman who wants the cat's fortune for herself but ends up driving the chain of actions that saves the cat from a kidnapper.

I always learn a ton when I work with students on developing my plays, and I couldn't have asked for a better cast and crew than the ones I was blessed with here.

A big thank you to everyone involved. I hope you'll see your names in the published version of the script soon!

By the time I get to Phoenix

So I had a crazy busy day today. A crazy busy theatre day. And those are always the best.

This afternoon, I sat in on a blocking rehearsal for The Purrfect Crime at Palmer Ridge High School. Before I headed home, I messaged back and forth with a community theatre director in Kansas to make sure she could open the script for The Last Radio Show I sent her. And then, in the evening, I brought the first scene of my newest play to my playwriting group, The Drama Lab.

Did I mention it would be my last day in Colorado?

Yes, as I've been hinting in some of my posts lately, I'll be moving tomorrow to start a new job. I've been laid off from my day job for ten months (I'm an electrical engineer) and the writing isn't enough to cover my living expenses, so I'm excited to start this new chapter of my life with a great job and a great company.

Better yet, the job is in Phoenix, a city I've always loved. My wife and I lived there previously--from 1991 to 1993--and while we've also loved 23 years we've spent in Colorado Springs (especially the vibrant, supportive theatre community!), a part of me always missed the desert climate and palm trees in the Valley of the Sun.

Plus, my older daughter loves in Tucson now, so it'll be nice to see her more often, though it also means seeing my younger daughter, who's a college student in Denver, less.

Eventually, I plan to get involved with the theatre community in Phoenix, and more specifically Chandler, the suburb where we'll be living. But not yet. I've got four plays in various stages of development, and I need to clear those off my plate before I take on any new projects.

Yes, the job means I'll spend less time writing. There's no way I can maintain the 4 1/2 hours a day I was putting in when I had nothing else on my agenda but watch Kathie Lee and Hoda. But I hope to get in at least 2 hours a day, which should enable to complete about four plays a year.

I'm going to miss sitting in on rehearsals for The Purrfect Crime as the students have really started to make it their own (they're toying with the idea of replacing the cantankerous matriarch's walker with an electric wheelchair, which would provide tons of comic potential). But I got most of what I needed for tweaking the script from the table read last week. And besides, if anything comes up or any questions arise, director Josh Belk and I will be just an email link away.

It's the Drama Lab writing group that I'm going to miss the most. I started the group five years ago and I've made a lot of fantastic friends through it. But I left it in good--no, better--hands and I have every confidence in the world it will continue to thrive and grow in the future.

My baby is all grown up. And yes, my eyes are always shiny like that.

A purrfect reading

A table read is one of the most exciting, nerve-wracking, agonizing times in a playwright's life, second only (and a very close second at that) to the world premiere. The table read is usually the first time the author hears the play spoken out loud. Even scarier, it's often the first time they get a live reaction from an audience.

So it was with a little trepidation that I approached today's table read of my new comedy, The Purrfect Crime.

I knew the students would do a great job. I sat in on a rehearsal for their fall show and they proved themselves to be not only talented but hard-working and dedicated.

No, it was my jokes I was worried about. I have a tendency to fall back on wisecracks and snappy
comebacks. I mean, I was brought up on old Marx Brothers movies and Bugs Bunny cartoons, so that kind of thing is in my DNA.

But people (and especially young people) find these increasingly unfunny.

What do they find funny? Three things.

1) Physical humor

I always like to add farce-like scenes to a play, even if the play itself isn't a farce. I've got a couple of these in The Purrfect Crime. One happens during a psychic reading and the other during a ransom drop.

But director Josh Belk thought of a new piece of business that's funnier than anything I came up with. The script says that the cantankerous Mama hobbles around with a walker, but Josh is going to try to find an electric wheelchair that she can cruise around in and bang into things.

Another reminder that playwriting is less about mapping out every detail of the story and more about giving your cast and crew something to play with.

2) Cheesy Accents

These always seem like a cheap way to get laughs. But you know what? They always work.

And this play has a lot of them. The Little family at the center of the story lives in West Texas--oil country--so they have a broad, easy drawl.

The butler Digby isn't necessarily British (at least he's not described that way in the script), but the young man playing him fell into a very posh English accent during the reading. He's not sure he's going to keep it, but it did add a lot of humor to his dialogue, especially when he fired off lines in a contemporary American patois like: "Oh, yes. You are totally rocking that, girlfriend."

The thieves who plot to steal the cat's fortune have a New York City accent, which is completely cliched--and completely funny.  But when they pose as pet psychics, the script describes their accents as "exotic". The young women playing them did a French accent that was hilarious. In fact, it was so hilarious that they may have a hard time keeping a straight face.

3) Weird, oddly specific lines of dialogue

I've written about this before, but one type of gag that always gets a laugh isn't a gag at all. It's just an oddly specific way to say something. Monty Python is the inspiration for me here, as their old skits were full of these.

One example? It comes from the first scene, right after the family learns that the fortune was left to the cat, and the cantankerous mother leaves in a huff:

MAMA: Oh, well. I guess I'll go back to watching my soaps.

CECILIA: You really should find a new interest, Mama. Those soap operas will rot your brain.

MAMA: What soap operas? I'm talking about my collection of rare and exotic cleansing bars!

When I originally wrote that, I thought the last line was a bit forced. But at the reading it got a big laugh. Not because of the pun, I think, but because it's just such a weird thing to say

I came away from the reading feeling much better than I did going in. Sure, there are a lot of gags that didn't get any laughs, and other lines that are just plain awkward, but those can be fixed pretty easily.

And after all, that's what a reading is for.

Three little words

Well, the new play I'm developing with Palmer Ridge High School has reached a major milestone. I've finished the first draft. And let me tell you, typing those three little words--END OF PLAY--never gets old.

The story ended up quite a bit different from my original synopsis, but that's pretty standard. As characters interact and scenes play out, you start to see what works and what doesn't and things often need to go in a different direction to make things work.

It has ten speaking parts, including 7 females and 3 males, making it the most female-heavy play I've ever written. Director Josh Belk was hoping for a little larger cast than that so I added up to four walk-in parts that I'll let him decide how to use.

As for the set requirements, I was hoping to keep it to a single set which would represent the main room of the Texas ranch house where's it set, but the needs of the story dictated that I include a couple additional sets to represent a kitchen and bus station. I purposely kept these sets simple so that they can be done on small side stages or in front of the curtain.

The script ended up around 80 pages, which means the play should be 80 minutes long, with an intermission at the 40-minute mark. This is just about perfect.

The play doesn't quite feel real yet. It won't until I hear the actors say the lines. But at least the hard part is done. The rest of the development process is pure joy.

I sent the script to Josh today. In my email, I included some guidelines to help him understand what I'm looking to get out of the development process. I consider the cast and crew to be equal partners with me, and I hope that shows here:

1) Wording

I always read my script out loud a couple of times before sending it out, but hearing ti spoken by the actors will uncover any awkward lines I missed. If the actors forget the exact words that I write and keep wanting to say a line differently, I'll probably go with what they say as it's usually simpler and/or stronger.

2) Gags

I never know what will get laughs until the first couple rehearsals. I'll play around with most of the gags that fall flat. I'm fine with ad libs from the actors, especially if they're funnier than what I came up with. Some of them may even end up in the published script.

3) Story inconsistencies

Actors are always great at catching inconsistencies in their characters or continuity errors in the plot. I plan to fix all of these.

4) Production Challenges

I want to make this play fairly easy to produce so it'll get done by a lot of schools and community theatres. I'm depending on you to tell me which stage directions are more trouble than they're worth.

5) Slow Spots

I can't tell where the slow spots are until blocking starts. I'm always happy to cut out or add stuff to fix these.

On naming plays

Writing plays is hard. Writing the outline is hard. Writing the first draft is hard. Writing the final draft and every draft between those two drafts is hard.

But the hardest words any writer has to write are the two (or three or four or five) words at the top of the script, i.e. the title.

After all, the title has a big job to do. It should be memorable. It should tell you what the play is about. And it should suggest what genre the play belongs to. (For comedies, I also like my titles to pass the smile test. If the title is funny enough to make you smile, it's a keeper.)

If the title does all that, and you find that it's never been used before, then you've hit the play-naming quadfecta.

I was thinking about this today because I've been wracking my brain for a title for the cat heiress comedy I'll be developing at Palmer Ridge High School. But then I usually torture myself over my titles.

Million Dollar Meatballs is one of my favorite titles. But I didn't come up with it until I was halfway through the first draft. Before that, I had gone through half a dozen titles, each one more forgettable than the last.

The problem was that the original version had the diamonds being hidden in a bottle of ketchup. And I didn't like any of the ketchup titles I came up with. So I put the script away for a year--yes, an entire year--until I could figure out how to get the diamonds from the ketchup bottle to a plate of meatballs just so I could call it Million Dollar Meatballs.

I'm glad I did. That play is now one of my most successful, and I think the title helps.

How I Met Your Mummy was originally titled Now Museum, Now You Don't. I liked the pun there (surprisingly, it had never been used as the title of a play), but it doesn't really tell you what the play's about. The museum isn't the important part of the story. The mummy is.

So I played around with "mummy" titles. Unfortunately, all the good ones were already taken: I Want My Mummy, Mummy Dearest. Then my friend Jeff Schmoyer suggested a pun on the title of the sitcom, How I Met Your Mother.

I loved it, but I had to check whether it had ever been used before. Luckily, it hadn't, although it had been used for an episode of an obscure animated series. I didn't think that would lead to much confusion, so I went with it. And it's worked out great ever since.

Could I come up with an equally good title for my cat heiress comedy? Well, not the way things have been going for me lately. I hate the title Where There's a Will, There's a Way. Again, it doesn't really tell you what the play is about and it definitely doesn't pass the smile test. And all the other titles I came up with were extremely lame.

Then today I stopped by Palmer Ridge. I wanted to see the stage where the play will be performed and to meet some of the students in the school's theatre program. It's always better to write a character with a specific actor in mind, even if the actor doesn't end up playing that part.

I took away a lot of ideas for characters. But the biggest takeaway came from an offhand comment by director Josh Belk. He said he'd been wracking his brain for titles and the only thing he could come up with was The Purrfect Murder. Then he immediately dismissed it, saying it was too cliched.

Wait a minute, I said. That's actually a great title. But there's no murder in the play, just a kidnapping. Why not change it to The Purrfect Crime?

I immediately Googled it. Sure, it popped up as an episode of an old detective show, but I couldn't find a single play with that title.

So it's official. The title of my next play will be The Purrfect Crime.

The lesson here? If you're ever stuck on the title for a play or novel or whatever, check the episode list of old TV shows.

Picking a winner

So I finally got around to writing the outlines for the three plays that Josh Belk and the students at Palmer Ridge High School liked, and there was a clear winner: the cat heiress comedy Where There's a Will, There's a Way.

Pirates of the Caribbean Grill had a couple of challenges. First, it's really hard to make a pirate story heavily female, and I couldn't figure out a way to do it with this one. Plus, the premise requires that the play be episodic, with scenes taking place at a restaurant, a boat shop, a toy shop and so on, as the wannabe pirates follow a "treasure map" they found scribbled on a napkin. And this, I realized, would make it hard to produce.

Zombie High had its own set of problems. To make it work, it has to be more than just a story about an entire student body turning into zombies. It has to show how this messes with an important ritual at the school. And, as everyone knows, the two most important high school rituals are: 1) football, and 2) the spring musical.

Football is, again, too male. And the musical would require that the play be, well, a musical. Unfortunately, I just don't have the resources (i.e. a composer) to take that on right now. But I still love the idea and hope to come back to it some day.

Where There's a Will, There's a Way, on the other hand, just fell into place. I knew it would center around a dysfunctional Texas ranch family. I knew that the first act break would come when a pair of pet psychics arrive to communicate the cat's wishes. I knew that the turning point would come when the family discovers that the psychics are thieves intent on stealing the cat's new-found fortune. And I knew that the dark moment would come when the cat was kidnapped. Throw in a couple reversals and the plot almost writes itself.

There's just one problem. I hate the title.

I know, I know. It sounds like one of those cliched titles that have been used a dozen times before. But actually, that's not the problem.

The problem is that the title doesn't capture what's unique about the play. After all, there are a lot of plays that are set into motion by the reading of a will. What makes this play unique is that the will gives everything to a cat.

So it's back to the old drawing board. Let's see. Fat Cat, Million Dollar Cat, What the Cat Dragged In...

I think this is going to take a while.

Five synopses

As mentioned earlier, I'll be collaborating with the hard-working director and students at Palmer Ridge High School on a new play this year. We still haven't settled on which play we're going to do, so a couple of weeks ago, I sent the director Josh Belk five ideas and asked him which ones he liked.

And here they are. Which play would you most like to see?


Lights... Camera... Murder!
Mystery comedy
Unit set: Hollywood sound stage

In the 1940's, a struggling studio pins its hopes on a swashbuckling movie starring their washed-up, womanizing star Allan Drummond. But when he remains sprawled on the floor after filming the climactic swordfight, a horrible realization sets in: Drummond has been murdered. Now it's up to Sherlock Holmes (or at least an actor from the next sound stage playing him) to figure out who put the fatal poison on the sword.

Zombie High
Comedy
Multiple sets: Various high school locations.

When a batch of cafeteria food is zapped by a defective microwave, the "cool girls" at George Romero High start to turn into zombies--only nobody can tell the difference. Nobody but brainy science nerd Maggie, that is. Can Maggie convince the administration to take action before the entire student body is turned into shuffling, brain-craving monsters?

Pirates of the Caribbean Grill
Comedy
Multiple sets: Various city locations.

A band of actors at a Pirate-themed restaurant get fired after taking their jobs a little too seriously (they think they're really pirates). Now they're on a quest to follow a "treasure map" they found scribbled on one of the restaurant's napkins.

Where There's a Will, There's a Way
Dark Comedy
Unit set: Drawing room

After a rich old lady leaves her entire fortune to her cat, her disappointed relatives have their own ideas how to wrest the wealth from the pampered feline. Meanwhile, the cat knows exactly what's going on and desperately tries to get help from the clueless butler assigned to care for her.

Don't Say Macbeth!
Mystery comedy
Unit set: Theatre stage

An inexperienced theatre director sets off a string of disastrous mishaps at a rehearsal for Macbeth after saying the play's title. But it soon becomes apparent that the trouble isn't all due to bad luck. Who could possibly want the production stopped--and why?


Josh ran these ideas past his theatre students and the ones they like the most are Zombie High, Pirates of the Caribbean Grill and Where There's a Will, There's a Way. He personally was leaning toward the last one, but his kids were hoping for the zombie one.

Next step? I'll develop a one-page outline for each of these three plays to see which one clicks. I've often fallen in love with a premise, only to have the whole thing fall apart when I try to work out the details. (Believe me, I have files upon files of plots that will never be written.)

Meanwhile, I'm trying finish the bookstore comedy I'm working on and pursuing a second collaboration with a local church.

It's crazy, but I'm loving it.

Collaboration

They say theatre is the most collaborative of art forms, and from my own experience, I can tell that it's a wonderful way to work. Every play of mine that I've collaborated on was made better by the process.

But it's also a luxury, especially when you're writing for youth. Many schools can't take a chance on an unknown play. Or if they can, they don't have the time and resources to develop it.

Which is why I was really happy to hear from Josh Belk recently. Josh is the theatre director at Palmer Ridge High School in Monument, Colorado--10 miles north of my home in Colorado Springs--and he emailed me to let me know that was was ready to work with me on a new play.

We originally got in touch last October. I saw that the school had won honors in Stage Directions magazine, and I emailed Josh congratulating him. I also mentioned that I was a published playwright and that if he ever wanted to develop a new play, I would love to work with him. He was intrigued by the idea, and although he didn't have space in that year's schedule, when the new school year rolled around, he decided to take a leap of faith and carved out a spot in March for me.

I have collaborated once before. In 2014, Million Dollar Meatballs was premiered at Discovery Canyon Campus High School in Colorado Springs. But that collaboration worked a little differently. I had already finished the play by the time theatre director Amy Keating agreed to do the play. Yes, the school contributed hugely to the final version of the play, beefing up jokes, coming up with many good lines on their own and, most importantly, helping me fix a dead spot in the show by moving one scene earlier. But the script was pretty much done before they ever laid eyes on it.

This time, I don't even have a synopsis. So we met today to bat some ideas around. His one requirement was that the play not be a farce, since the school performed one last year. But everything else was fair game. He especially liked my suggestion of doing a murder mystery set at a 1940's movie studio.

Next step? I'm going to put together five titles and synopses and let him and his students decide which play they'd like to do.

I guess I'd better get writing.