Trees in the Woods
In this loose adaptation of a few passages from Homer's Odyssey, Ethan talks to his late wife, Vera, trying to determine whether or not she really loved him. To escape his grief, he enters a nightclub, meets and dances with Stacey. To confront his suspicions, he questions Don, who had an affair with Vera, only to be left, despite Ron assuring him that Vera loved him, as uncertain as before. Ethan takes Vera’s clothes to a campground, hangs some of them on trees, bundles up others as bedding and falls asleep. He relives when he first found Vera sick and bleeding, which further unhinges him. An elderly woman sees Joe, takes pity on him and feeds him. Ethan impulsively gives her Vera’s clothes, drives her home and meets her husband, who is dying of lung cancer. This couple’s grace and kindness to Ethan provide hope that he may survive his odyssey. But he doesn't escape his labyrinth by play's end, and we understand that if he does survive, it will come about, as with Odysseus, only after much suffering.
Development History:
Finalist, 2016 Warner International Playwrights Festival.
Stage reading directed by Zachary Doss April 2, 2012 at Main Street Theater - Chelsey Market, Houston, presented by Wordsmyth Theater Company.
Trees in the Woods is the full-length version of my one-act drama, The Journey, which was was produced in March 2009 at American Theatre of Actors in NYC by James Jennings, President and Artistic Director of ATA. The Journey was named a finalist for the Arts and Letters Prize in Drama.
INTENSE, MOVING ENSEMBLE DRAMA
With doubling 3 F, 3 M (a total of 9 roles)
*****
Shadow Play
Daisy, a reporter for her Southern Baptist megachurch's magazine, learns that a local woman, Lucinda Spring, has become the oldest living American. She interviews Lucinda, an atheist who insults Daisy, her religion and her assumptions about life. Daisy tries to determine if Lucinda has exaggerated her age in order to collect early Social Security benefits, but soon finds herself entangled in a more complex inquiry: to find the existential comfort that would allow a free-thinking atheist to embrace her own mortality.
Development History:
October 29, 2018, stage reading by The Bechdel Group at The Tank in NYC. June 17, 2017, stage reading directed by Denise O’Neal at Queensbury Theatre, Houston. (Shadow Play has been a finalist or semi-finalist in six U.S. play competitions.)
INTENSE, POIGNANT PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA
2 F, 2 M
*****
Planet First (U.S. premiere to be directed by Jennifer Decker, Spring 2026 at Mildred's Umbrella Theater Company in Houston)
A Gen Z environmental activist from Mexico, who has organized a protest at a paper mill in a small New York town, meets a local young man during a tree planting event. She is taken with his spiritual mindset and invites him to be interviewed with her for a podcast on global warming. They have dinner and grow more attracted to one another. The next morning during the podcast, she discovers he believes that extreme weather is really God's plan, and proof that Armageddon has started. She lets him know what she thinks of him, but he still shows up at the protest to help, and their attraction deepens. That evening, after sex, she makes it clear that this is just a one-time thing and that they'll never see one another again. The next morning, he surprises her by greeting her at the train station. Will she agree to see him again?
Development History:
April 1, 2024, stage reading directed by Karen Schlag at Main Street Theater in Houston. Planet First was commissioned by Susan Ossman and the Anthropocene Research Kitchen at New York University Abu Dhabi, and the reading was presented by Wordsmyth Theater Company in collaboration with Ossman.
FUNNY, POIGNANT, THOUGHT-PROVOKING COMEDY-DRAMA
1 F, 1 M, 1 T/F/M
*****
Monsieur Foucault's Holiday (loosely based on a true story)
Jane, an architecture student interning in Rome, and her best friend, Aubrey, a gay anthropology student doing his fieldwork in Athens, travel to Rhodes to relax and catch up. Their island getaway turns out to be an erotically charged circus of rutting tourists, and local Greeks thinly veiling their xenophobia while cynically catering to the sleaziest elements of the tourist population. They befriend Neil, a sexually ambiguous Scot, whose interest, parceled equally between them, frustrates them both. They also encounter the ghost of Michel Foucault, the French philosopher-historian who argued that sexual labeling is often politically dangerous and that friendship, not Eros, constitutes the most difficult ethical challenge in life. Neil so skillfully cultivates his ambiguity that Aubrey and Jane never discover his true sexuality. What they do discover, however, is the magic of friendship.
Development History:
None, lol, because, after I wrote it based on what “Jane” told me about their trip, I remained for quite a while childishly peeved at my partner at the time, the gay anthropology student, and put it in a drawer.
EROTIC, THOUGHT-PROVOKING COMEDY-DRAMA
3 F, 5 M, 8 T/F/M
*****
honor (opens micro-site)
A gay man who saved children during a mass shooting, suffers from survivor's guilt and cannot control his temper. A behavioral therapist persuades her husband, a Marine sergeant who lost men in Afghanistan, someone also damaged from being treated as a hero, to talk to him. Instead of helping one another, each man tries to goad the other to commit suicide. The people who love these men — one's husband and mother, the other's wife — do what they can to save them both.
Development History:
honor premiered October 1-29, 2023 at ART/NY's black-box Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre in NYC, directed by Gerald vanHeerden and produced by vMHF Theatricals and A.R.T./NY.
Workshop directed by Ted Swindley October 25-26, 2022 at MATCH in Houston as part of the Ted Swindley Workshop Series.
honor had its first developmental readings December 16 and 18, 2019, directed by Gerald vanHeerden and presented by vMHF Theatricals and ArtNY at the Bruce Mitchell Room in NYC.
MOVING, VISCERAL DRAMA
With doubling 2 F, 3 M (a total of 6 roles)
*****
Bondage
Trent tries to have rough sex with his somewhat reluctant boyfriend, Lute, when they're interrupted by Taylor, a thief who, while robbing them, accidentally steps on their arthritic cat in the living room. When Lute returns from the vet, he finds Trent and Taylor having rough sex, then discovers they’re distantly related, and tells Trent his thrill in dominating Taylor is the thrill Trent’s ancestors got dominating Taylor’s ancestors. Lute and Taylor tie up Trent, Lute goes to hire guys to rough up Trent, but Taylor agrees to free Trent if he takes him as his lover. Trent agrees and kicks Lute out of their apartment.
Development History:
Workshop presentation directed by Stages Theatre founder Ted Swindley, June 30 and July 1, 2019 at Stages Theatre, Houston.
EROTIC, HILARIOUS, VIOLENT COMEDY-DRAMA
3 M