Plays
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Plays
Playing Dumb
Cast: 2 Genre: Drama
This is a two character play about a Broadway and Hollywood star, a beautiful brunette named Holly Goday, who is brought before a Senate witch-hunting committee (1) to find out if she is or ever was a Communist; (2) to give the names of friends and associates who are or who were members of the Communist Party and (3) to get free publicity.
The time of the play is November of 1952. Eisenhower is in the White House. Joe McCarthy is in the Senate, accusing anyone and everyone of being a Russian spy … and the U.S.A is in a Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Holly wants to cooperate and tries to cooperate until her loyalties and her principles are challenged. But then the senator from Kansas, Jay Hawke, uncovers personal and private information from Holly’s past and present, thus forcing her to make the most difficult decision in her life; a decision that she will have to live with forever.
Giving up the Ghost
Cast: 5 Genre: Drama
Jesse Golden, an out of work film, video tape and digital editor, gets the shocking news that his best friend, Kenny, was just killed in a plane accident. Jesse is in total denial; refusing to accept the heartbreaking, shocking news. He drinks heavily and sleeps fitfully, not only dreaming of his late friend but insisting to his wife and son that Kenny is alive and well and making late night visits to the Golden home. At the same time, Jesse’s 13 years old son, Sammy, refuses to admit that his music teacher tried to molest him.
It is only when Jesse’s wife, Linda, the realist in the family, peels away the layers of mistaken adoration and denial of death, that Jesse has no choice but to come to terms with his misplaced hero worship just as Sammy, their 13 years old son, also faces up to the reality of the music he once idolized.
GIVING UP THE GHOST is not only about the denial of death; it is about the recognition and acceptance of the deep imperfections of life.
Cast: 6 Genre: Drama
The Art Lovers
This is a play about a conflict of ethics – about the role of the art museum in collecting and exhibiting works of historical and artistic import versus the necessity of keeping these discoveries in the country of origin. And the question becomes: does a work of art transcend national ownership, i.e., who owns a work of art?
In theatrical terms, i.e., personal or human terms, this is the story of a, highly-principled, romantic archaeologist named Ted Hausman who loves his work and who presumably loves the woman to whom he is engaged, Lucy Elbridge, a curator at the Elbridge Art Museum and daughter of the director.
Ted had been working in the rainforest of the Yucatan for several years. At the insistence of his mentor, who heads the Anthropological Museum in Mexico City, Ted returns to the rainforest and comes upon a “golden goddess”, hidden in a cave. Ted is smitten! This exotic statue represents the greatness of the Mayan civilization. He believes that historical artifacts, be it this statue or the Elgin marble or whatever, belong in and to the country of origin.
On a pre-marital “honeymoon, Ted shows his discovery, the golden statue, perhaps naively, to Lucy which of course means that his prospective father in law, Spencer Elbridge, will know of the discovery. Ted Hausman, a 38-year old bachelor, sees marriage into the Elbridge family as a move towards “respectability”. But when the golden statue is shipped to and exhibited in the art museum, Ted has second thoughts and is overwhelmed with guilt, seeing his goddess enclosed in glass and for the general public. Finally, he breaks the glass and absconds with the statue, bringing it back to its cave in the rain forest of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Spencer Elbridge is, first and foremost, a businessman. He enlists Pietro Fabrizi, a wealth Italian collector and Ken Green, an art dealer, to return the golden statue – a major investment - to his art museum.
Ted Hausman has turned his back on Lucy and on his prestigious museum job. The archaeologist is reunited with his Mayan goddess, supposedly insulated against the pressures and politics of contemporary life. However, it is clear that he will not be safe for long. At play’s end, Fabrizi and Green track him down inside the cave. One way or another, with or without Ted Hausman, they will bring the golden statue back to modern civilization … to the art museum.
Paradise Tomorrow
Cast: 6 Genre: Drama
The place is Key West, Florida during the Great Depression of the 1930s. This is a six-character play with two settings, Knocky’s Saloon in the red-light district of Key West and an island south of the Keys, Isla de Almas Perdidas, a former penal colony.
Esperanza is a youngish Creole prostitute (half-black, half-Sicilian) who finds herself pregnant. She and her criminal friends, Toby (Creole) and Paco (Hispanic) and Knocky (the gay Creole owner of the saloon) are being hounded by Captain Frank as well as by the Legion of Decency. The Captain is further driven to reform the neighborhood and the town because his beautiful, blonde-haired, teenage son, Dorian, is infatuated with the inhabitants of the saloon, especially with Esperanza and Toby.
Esperanza talks her friends into leaving Key West - before they’re all thrown in jail – and moving to a “new colony”, the now abandoned penal colony on Isla de Almas Perdidas (Island of Lost Souls). They do so, including Dorian.
Six months later, this new colony is beginning to thrive. Esperanza has given birth to a little girl, Lucia. Knocky, Dorian, Paco and Toby are all fishing, farming and taking care of the house. Paco and Toby present major problems since they’re rivals for Esperanza’s affection – and neither one knows for sure who the father is.
Before anything can be resolved, the Captain shows up in a motorboat, determined to save his son, Dorian, from the bad influences of the colony. At the same time, a serious storm of hurricane proportions is about to hit the island while the volcanic mountain is threatening to erupt. The Captain succeeds in talking Dorian and Knocky to abandon the island before it’s too late. And he arrests Paco for stealing the sailboat in the first place.
At play’s end with the storm gathering force and the volcano erupting, she begs Toby to stay with her and the baby. Toby is uncertain. But Esperanza is determined to stay on and fight to survive. Back on the mainland, she’s a woman of mixed blood with a criminal record. Here, she has a new freedom. She will fight for that new freedom!
Cast: 4 Genre: Drama, Dark Comedy
Sweet Lorraine
The story of SWEET LORRAINE is, briefly, as follows: Herman Goldberg, a 65 year-old man has recently lost his wife. While deeply mourning her passing and rejecting the invitations by his best and oldest friend, Gerry Muldoon, to get out into the world (the world of today), Herman has an encounter in the park with Blaise, a wizard masquerading
as a Good Humor vendor. This decidedly off-beat character entices and encourages Herman to go back in time to when he and his late wife, Lorraine, were teenagers in high school. Alas, Herman discovers more than he wants to know (the young Lorraine had an affair with the young Gerry Muldoon). Herman also discovers that “you can’t go home again.” He begs the wizard to be allowed to return to the present. The play, albeit a comedy, is about how one must learn to live in the here and now. Even though the play is about a man grieving for his beloved companion of many years, a subject that would have particular resonance with senior citizens –a younger audience would undoubtedly enjoy the teenage aspects of the play.
Stealing Lincoln's Body
Cast: 6 Genre: Drama, Docudrama/Historic
STEALING LINCOLN’S BODY takes place in the Chicago of 1876 and is built around the love story of Benjamin and his young wife, Miranda. A counterfeiter herself, she adores her husband and is proud to be married to a master engraver, albeit an expert forger. Ben, in turn, loves his wife. He also loves Abraham Lincoln and fancies himself a Lincoln scholar. Mostly, he has great respect for the spirit of Abraham Lincoln and the late president’s dedication to the principles of equality and patriotism, which is an interesting contradiction for a man who makes a very good living counterfeiting U. S. dollars.
The story is in the title. Although the play is a work of fiction, it was inspired by an actual series of events in 1876 when a group of small time Chicago counterfeiters and grave robbers are elated to enlist the services of the master engraver, Benjamin Boyd. With Boyd on board, the leader of the gang, a flamboyant Irish-American named Big Jake, is ready to go big time; i.e., beyond Chicago to all of the Midwest. Alas, one of the grave robbers, Lewis Swegles, ts a snitch. He tells the Secret Service (Chicago Office) agent, Patrick Tyrell where Boyd lives and a surprise raid uncovers the engraving tools and the fake money. Boyd is sentenced to ten years at Joliet State Penitentiary. Miranda is devastated. Big Jake is crushed. But Miranda comes up with a daredevil plan which she considers appropriate for her incarcerated husband: Big Jake and his gang will go to the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield on Election Night (November 7th, 1876), break into Lincoln’s tomb and steal the body, coffin and all, taking it by wagon and a team of horses to the sand dunes outside Gary, Indiana. Then they will contact the governor and demand the payment of $200,000 but more importantly, secure the release of Benjamin Boyd.
Lewis Swegles, forever the snitch, informs Patrick Tyrell of the covert operation. And when Election Night rolls around and Big Jake and his boys manage to get into the tomb, all hell breaks loose. Shots are fired in the dark. No one is hurt and Big Jake escapes. Lewis Swegles disappears.
Act Two is ten years later with Miranda waiting at the front gates of Joliet Penitentiary. Ben is released. Their life will resume … but where? Will they return to their old ways or make a new life in far off San Francisco? And then along comes Lewis Swegles, now a bearded horse and carriage driver. He doesn’t recognize the also-bearded Ben or the veiled Miranda. The Boyds instruct him to drive to Chicago. Big Jake will have a pleasant surprise waiting for him in the person of Swegles, who will get his come-uppance. And as for Ben and Miranda … who knows?
Cast: 4 Genre: Drama
A Gay Bar in Brooklyn
A GAY BAR IN BROOKLYN begins and ends in 1978 in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn where a demolition crew is tearing down the once-popular and notorious Miami Bar. The razing of this gay bar is being observed by Christopher Tobin, a high school history teacher and Pauline Wallace, a Hollywood actress. They were married in the garden of the dance hall annex back in 1953. Chris was a college senior, a star of the tennis team and a virgin before he met Pauline, fell in love with her and lost his virginity. Most of A GAY BAR IN BROOKLYN takes place in 1953, an era before women’s lib, before the sexual revolution, before the Gay Rights movement and before the civil rights moments.
A GAY BAR IN BROOKLYN is both a memory play and a reunion play. The main part of the story takes places in 1953, well before Gay Lib, when the Miami Bar attracted “in the closet” gays and where the adjoining dance hall was a magnet for wannabe entertainers. For gays and for straight boys and girls, it was predominantly a “pick-up place.” Or so everybody hoped.
On this particular Friday night, Vito, the hunky Italian bartender was soon to be married to Marie, who was pregnant, giving impetus to the wedding. Vito declared that he would be a good husband and a good father while suppressing his homo-erotic feelings for the exuberant, romantic Christopher. Enter Pauline, a tough, beautiful, ambitious young actress. Chris fell impetuously in love with her and during that night had his first sexual experience. When Vito found out, he was devastated and forced to come to terms with his own sexuality.
The two young men, Vito and Chris, were both virgins. During their long night, they lost their virginity; each in his own way. But the story does not end in the 1950s. All three have a chance meeting 25 years later as they watch the wrecking crew tear down a place that symbolized their youth and innocence. There is a surprise ending. Vito had become – literally – a changed man, finally coming to terms with his sexuality and with his life.
Black & White All Over
Cast: 7 Genre: Drama, Political
On a houseboat on Lake Michigan, a black billionaire and recluse named Moses Hawkins decides that this is the time for him to run for president of the United States. He invites three major black power brokers on board to get their support. The three are Nanette Kane, Charles White and Farouk Sharpley. All have national reputations of the highest order and all have their own presidential ambitions. Each one assumes that the meeting will be one on one and that he (or she) will get Moses’ endorsement, both in words and money. They are all wrong.
Moses makes promises to each of them, assuring each of them that they will serve in his administration. When he encounters resistance, he makes it clear that he knows their potentially incriminating and embarrassing secrets.
At the same time, Moses’ white mistress is drinking heavily, just about fed up with being abused. She’s ready to explode. What fuels Jeri Jane Sampson is the appearance of two non-guests – Moses’ son, the black (and gay) Muslim, Abdul Machmoud Salah and the nationally syndicated reporter, I. J. Fox, who is young, acerbic … and white. Fox tells Abdul that they are biological brothers. In fact, they did have the same mother, a white woman who was buried in Chicago only yesterday, abandoned years ago by Moses Hawkins. The half-brothers are both furious that Moses dumped their mother.
With a terrible thunderstorm over Lake Michigan, forcing the guests to stay overnight, the stage is set for someone or some ones to get their host out of the way.
BLACK & WHITE ALL OVER is not, however, a murder mystery. It is about personal ambition, particularly when it comes into conflict with personal integrity, morality and conscience.
Cast: 9 Genre: Science Fiction
The Real Miss Universe
This is a love story about a boy who never grew up. Fabius Moreland is a successful middle-aged man – with his own film studio in Northern California, a wife and two children – who is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Why? After a career doing special effects for science fiction films, Fabius is about to make his directorial debut with his own science fiction film. With his maddening 24/7 work schedule, he is nevertheless taken aback when his wife, Bella, announces that she is running off to Baja California, leaving him and taking the kids. Enough is enough! And so, on a Friday night, along on the sound stage of his studio, Fabius has a visitor from a far away universe and a far away past: Juanita Higgins. When they were both 13 years old, young Fabius was madly in love with Juanita – until she disappeared – allegedly abducted by aliens and carried away in a space ship. Juanita, still 13 years old, wants Fabius to come away to her universe. He is tempted and conflicted as he wrestles with feelings of guilt (abandoning his family; abandoning his co-workers and his project) while at the same time wondering if he is hallucinating and going off the deep end. And he is in fact on the verge of madness. As his conflict deepens, Juanita grows older, complaining that the earth’s atmosphere is aging her rapidly.
The play cuts back and forth in time between the young Fabius – with his pre-teen girlfriend, the young Juanita - and the middle-aged man who must face up to his delusions, his fears and his insecurities.
The dramatic event concerns a man who wants to but ultimately cannot run away to childhood fantasies. Fabius is on the verge of madness, with his time traveling and his declarations of love for the ethereal, unreal Juanita. In the end, he makes no grand decision. He knows only that he cannot and will not abandon his family. His children, whom he now realizes have been neglected too long, are too important to him. Likewise, he finds himself looking at his wife in a new light – an earthly light; not a beam of light from a far off planet in a far off universe.
The Blind Black Beggar
Cast: 5 Genre: Comedy, Dark Comedy
This play is a take-off on OEDIPUS except that the kid sleeps with his father and kills his mother. The action takes place in upstate New York, near Ithaca and the Cornell campus. A high school senior, Jude Frick, is eager to pursue a career in the military. Approaching his suburban home, he is stopped by a blind black beggar, a seer, actually, who warns him of dire consequences. Jude pays scant attention to the guy and goes home to prepare dinner for his divorced mother, a tyrant in her own right. The mother, Jane, has to go to Cleveland in the morning for a big business deal. She treats her son like a slave.
The next day, after Jane has flown to Cleveland, Jude says goodbye to his girlfriend and longtime lover, Priscilla Pageant. Then he goes downtown to the air force recruiting station where the recruiting officer, Sgt. Sam Salt, “inducts” the young man; an induction with sexual undertones and overtones. It eventually turns out that the sergeant’s real name is John Frick and he is Jude’s father. (Sam abandoned the family after Jude's birth.)
Ultimately, the seer's prediction comes true. Jude returns home late at night after having been “recruited” by Sgt. Salt ("be all you can be!") and thinks there is a prowler in the house, little knowing that his mom had returned earlier than expected. In the darkness, Jude, now armed with a gun, shoots his mom, killing her instantly. When he discovers his mistake, Jude is crestfallen. Priscilla tries to comfort him, revealing that she is carrying his child. In a major panic, Jude calls Sam Salt, seeking help. The blind black beggar suddenly appears on the scene at the same time that Salt appears. When Sam finds out that Jude killed his mother (Salt’s ex-wife), he too is crestfallen.
With all of the above, there is a happy ending. Sam Salt and the blind beggar are instantly attracted to one another and will set up housekeeping in the Frick home. Priscilla and Jude will get married and raise their family while at the same time attending Cornell University. The young lovers see a bright future for themselves as does “The Blind Black Beggar” and his Air Force sergeant.
Oh yes, it’s a family play
A Beautiful Death
Cast: 6 Genre: Drama
The time is March, 1865 – the waning days of the Civil War. The place is the Up Country of South Carolina – the plantation of Leon Alexander, a professor of classical history and, since the firing on Fort Sumter, a captain of his own militia in the Confederate Army. His militia is a special force, modeled after the Spartan warriors of ancient Greece – as he fancies himself a living example of the Spartan philosophy: an elite society – in fact, a slave society. As Leon, his wife (Cleo), his teenage son (Harry) and the “elite force” await the invasion of the Union battalions they are visited by a young black Union officer. His name is Xavier Ackerman. He grew up on an adjoining plantation as the son of slaves. Xavier escaped servitude as a boy, taking the Underground Railway to freedom. He knows the Alexanders because he read Leon’s history books and Cleo’s poetry because Harry taught him to read and write when they were boys. Xavier implores Leon to surrender or face possible death and the destruction of his vast cotton farm. The play centers on Xavier’s unsuccessful attempt to persuade Leon to give up the fight. Even after Harry is killed, Leon is convinced of his own moral and cultural superiority. During this time, Xavier has gotten to know Cleo’s seamstress, a beautiful young black woman named Sally. He is very much attracted to Sally and her presence on the plantation is enough reason for him to stay on. The second act takes place shortly after Appomattox and Lee’s surrender. Leon has vowed to join Jefferson Davis and fight a guerilla war against the North. He does recognize Xavier’s intelligence and capabilities so he offers him a job to manage the plantation while he is away. But Leon’s unwillingness to accept the reality of defeat and his overbearing attitude toward Xavier, arguing that his slaves love him and will continue to work for him, is a rationale to which Xavier cannot argue against. But Leon is his own worst enemy when, in the course of a drunken afternoon just prior to his leave taking, he flaunts his black mistress (Sally) which finally pushes Cleo to expose him in the most humiliating way.
At the very end, Leon accepts the reality of life even as he initiates the reality of his own death.
More than anything, he embraces the Spartan culture of his dreams, his way of life and his way of death.
Playing Dumb
Cast: 2 Genre: Drama
This is a two character play about a Broadway and Hollywood star, a beautiful brunette named Holly Goday, who is brought before a Senate witch-hunting committee (1) to find out if she is or ever was a Communist; (2) to give the names of friends and associates who are or who were members of the Communist Party and (3) to get free publicity.
The time of the play is November of 1952. Eisenhower is in the White House. Joe McCarthy is in the Senate, accusing anyone and everyone of being a Russian spy … and the U.S.A is in a Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Holly wants to cooperate and tries to cooperate until her loyalties and her principles are challenged. But then the senator from Kansas, Jay Hawke, uncovers personal and private information from Holly’s past and present, thus forcing her to make the most difficult decision in her life; a decision that she will have to live with forever.
The Baby Book
Cast: 4 Genre: Drama, Tragedy
THE BABY BOOK is about a domineering father (Ari Bernstein), his mistress (Josephine Lentini), his rebellious son (Jeff), his level-headed daughter (Susan) and a mysterious baby book/ that Susan discovers while Ari is terminally ill and living at home. In the baby book, there are hints and more than hints that Jeff may have had a different, as yet unidentified mother.
The play opens just after Susan (a single mother of two) returns to the Tenafly, New Jersey family house after her aging father had been released from the hospital to return home. Jeff, a successful film and TV actor, shows up in an unannounced visit and is presented with the baby book that lists his christening –a highly disturbing discovery since the Bernsteins are Jewish.
Jeff’s reaction to the book is one of fear and confusion. There is a strong implication that Jeff slept with Josephine in a brief encounter twenty years ago. But even as Josephine protests that Jeff is not her son. Susan retreats into a house still dominated by her domineering father and the mystery of “the baby book.” She seems to know the answers to the difficult questions but, like the others, skirts the edges of this provocative, provoking mystery.
This is a story about four people inexorably tied to the lies, deception and guilt of a relationship they cannot sever nor acknowledge.
Dan Sickles
Cast: 85-90 Genre: Drama, DocuDrama, History, Historic
DAN SICKLES is an historical story, a true story about a New York City Tammany Hall Congressman during the lead up to the Civil War. The time period is 1857 to 1859. The place is Washington, D.C. In Congress, there have been constant fights, both verbally and physically, on the issues of slavery and secession. In the exclusive, private Clubhouse and in the parlor of Dan Sickles’ townhouse, there were less obvious but equally disturbing struggles emerging. Dan Sickles himself was a wealthy, powerful, middle-aged lawyer. His wife, Teresa, was almost half his age, the product of a “Bohemian” Italian-American family. Her grandfather Lorenzo was Mozart’s librettist. She was Lolita before there was a Lolita: equal parts sexy and child-like.
Barton Key, son of Francis Scott Key, was a widower, an attorney in the District Attorney’s office and a friend of the Sickles. Essentially he was a horseman and a playboy. While he drank with Dan Sickles at their private Clubhouse, he also dined with the Sickles at their home. Barton was also having an affair with Teresa. When Dan found out, he didn’t bother with duels or divorces. He simply confronted Barton on the street and shot him in cold blood. He then returned home and confronted Teresa, who offered no defense. She was submissive and guilt-ridden. But this was no simple relationship. Dan had his own lady friends, discreetly removed from Washington, generally in Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York.
Dan was acquitted, not on the grounds of murder, but because he did what any mid-19th century husband would do, i.e., protect and defend the honor of his name and of his family. His lawyers, all eight of them, offered the novel (never before used) defense of “temporary insanity.” But the dramatic twist in this story is that Dan Sickles forgave Teresa for her longtime relationship with Barton Key. He did so because he remained deeply in love with her. Perhaps that was his “insanity.”
The ambiguities of Dan Sickles’ relationship with both Teresa and Barton Key are set against the issues of slavery and secession. At that time (1857 – 1859), most married women (as well as single women) were considered no more than slaves. They were expected to be faithful, obedient wives and good mothers. Their job was to take care of the home and the family, both of which were sacrosanct. Any deviation from that norm was a threat to the prevailing tradition and was a form of secession, i.e., seceding from the family union.
DAN SICKLES is by turns an off-beat love story and a reflection of America’s society at an historical moment in our history. It is also a continuing tale of “the arrogance of power”
Cast: 77-80 Genre: Drama
Crossing Against the Light
This is a play about a complex 36-year old charmer named Jesse Herman, telling his life story to an unseen audience in an effort to justify his criminal bent and criminal activities. Jesse portrays himself as a lifelong victim, forever set upon by bullies, yearning for the father he never knew, professing to want family and friends and a career where the principal objective was helping others. Jesse almost wins our sympathy. Everyone who crosses his path – from the single mother who reared him (and then gave up on him) to the bright, beautiful woman (the love of Jesse’s life) who got sucked into his professed sincerity, all living proof that Jesse was a fraud - delusional; totally out of touch with himself. Jesse was indeed a salesman, selling his Ponzi scam, seducing his audiences, seducing his victims. He was successful because he truly believed that he was helping others. Jesse was the ultimate psychopath. CROSSING AGAINST THE LIGHT traces his life – as the single son of a single mother (who tries to set him straight) to his one and only love affair: a married woman with marital problems. He cannot tell the truth to anyone – not to his mother, not to the woman he loves – because he cannot tell the truth to himself. When Jesse is finally accepted into a crime family, he believes that he has realized his childhood dream … but he is his own worst enemy.
This could be the story of any politician in public office whose seductive powers carry him to success. It could be any personal story where the so-called friend, partner or companion does not reveal his true colors until it is too late, until after the fact. In CROSSING AGAINST THE LIGHT, Jesse Herman may see the traffic signals … but he does not obey them. He truly believes he is above the law and that his code of justice preempts that of society.
I Married a Vampire
Cast: 86-90 Genre: Comedy
I MARRIED A VAMPIRE is about a romantic vampire yearning for mortality and the love of a woman. The style of the play verges on screwball comedy but the underlying theme is, "Love conquers all ... even vampires."
Count Ilie Pedarescu, handsome and sophisticated is very unhappy because, for the past 300 plus years, he has been living in Immortality Hell, browbeaten by his shrewish vampire mother. He is revolted by the vampire life style and is yearning, yearning, yearning for the love of a woman that he can only achieve through ... mortality.
Salvation - and love - appears in the person of the fearless American anthropologist, Leona Tedesco, celebrated for her best selling books on vampires. The year is 1938; the eve of World War Two. The place is the dungeon of the Pedarescu Castle in Transylvania. Leona confronts Prince Ilie with crucifix and stake but at the last moment (before sunrise) takes pity on him. In return, the grateful Prince Ilie vows that some day he will rise from his casket and marry Leona's granddaughter. Leona is skeptical since she has no desire to ever marry, let alone raise a family. However, by play's end and two generations later, the castle has been transported to Vulcan, West Virginia and the Prince will marry Leona's granddaughter.
It's a screwball comedy with a heart!
Cast: 82-85 Genre: Drama
Porn
This is a play about the post-porn lives of former porn stars and how their respective pasts interact with each other. Violetta, an aging porn star, is now “copying” paintings and drawings by famous artists. She is proud of her forgeries and proud of her past, as she struggles against the “dying of the light.”.
Her daughter, Rosetta, also a former porn star, is living with her wife, making “educational” or “instructional” films (actually, soft core porn) and struggling to keep her production company afloat.
Rupert, another former porn star, now middle-aged, is a self-proclaimed “pastor” and self-proclaimed “investment” banker,” trying to con a wealthy friend into parting with his money.
All the grand schemes unravel as each one’s covert past converge and collide with the realities of the present.
Through the unmasking and the unraveling, PORN is ultimately about tenuous relationships and “covert” activities but through all the machinations, simulated sex – which is at the core of pornography – this is a play about honesty and doing the honorable thing.
Original Story
Cast: 79-85 Genre: Comedy
ORIGINAL STORY is about the search for family by three extremely different people: an elderly, suicidal Jewish playwright, an Hispanic/ African-American teenager and a middle-aged Hispanic lesbian.
Saul Sunshine, whose wife has just walked out on him, is a failed playwright. He is on the roof of his apartment building, seriously contemplating suicide and talking aloud about his travails; not knowing that Orlando Deacon, a 15-year-old foster child, is smoking pot and listening to his every word. Since Orlando figures that Saul will self-destruct within minutes – and because he is stoned – he tells the playwright the story of his young life: shunted from one foster family to another, aware of his homosexuality but not yet acting on it, wanting to go to fashion school and design dresses and – hopefully – more than anything - to be adopted by a beautiful Hispanic lesbian psychologist, Aida Banderas.
Saul steps back from the roof, ecstatic, because he finally has an idea for a new play. It will be the boy’s story. But since Saul Sunshine has been rejected countless times and is labeled “old fashioned,” he will allow Orlando to be his front. The gay artistic director, Fidel Julia, who runs the successful, politically correct Manana Theatre Company, may have rejected Saul for the last ten years but he will never reject either the boy or the play. Orlando promises to run the idea by Aida Banderas because he likes this “crazy old guy” and views him as a father figure.
Aida hates the idea. She is adamant about the intrusion to her new family’s privacy. If the play were to be a success, Orlando would be an instant celebrity and his “thinly disguised” play would have reporters sniffing around. She is firm in her rejection of Saul’s project. Fidel Julia, the artistic director, is suspicious of this well-crafted play but loves everything about it and about the author. The first act ends with Fidel excited about the play and Orlando - but leery about the kid’s credentials and authorship.
In Act Two, Saul is less than happy because he is not getting the recognition he deserves but knows he cannot have. Orlando is distressed by Saul’s unhappiness and, because he couldn’t care less about fame and recognition, he takes Saul to Fidel and confesses everything. Saul is thrilled. Fidel is furious … but ultimately (because the show is opening in a few days) he relents. The playbills have been printed but future playbills will give due recognition to Saul Sunshine. And a new Saul is emerging. He is proud to be the boy’s “father figure”. And because he and Orlando and Aida, each in his and her own way, are desperate for a family, this unlikely trio becomes “La Familia”: a family!
Cast: 95-100 Genre: Drama
Bless This House
This is a four-character play set in the Red Hook/waterfront section of Brooklyn in 1932. It is the story of a dysfunctional Jewish family and the search by the son, 16 year-old Harry, to come to terms with his parents – and with himself. The father, Benjamin, is a wife beater whose craft as a glazier (creating stained glass windows for churches) belies his abusive nature. His wife, Bessie, is a seemingly willing victim, a peasant woman who escaped from Russia and was eventually “found” by Benjamin on a “shopping tour” of London. One night, Harry comes upon Benjamin about to whip the passive Bessie. The boy grabs a carving knife and threatens to cut his father, whereupon he is ordered out of the house forever.
Earlier, Harry had met and fallen in love with a girl named Lucy, a Jew in name only, an acknowledged atheist, whose parents were left wing, union organizers. Harry, now banished from his house, is going to live with an uncle, a rabbi, living in far off Iowa. The leave-taking, the separation of the teenagers, is painful for both of them.
Act Two is three years later. Harry and Lucy are married and have a year old baby boy. Bessie begs her son to visit his father, if only to see the grandson. And Harry does comply, returning to the house of his birth, albeit with deep anger and resentment. Benjamin is thrilled to be a grandfather and gushes over the baby boy. But Harry continues his quest to learn everything he can about his parents, where they came from, how they met, etc. The “dirty little secret” about his mother is a shocker. He is furious when he finds out that his mother was a prostitute. In his fury, he lashes out at his mother. The good son has become, in an instant, the bad father. Hopefully, in time, the young man will be a better father and a better husband.
The Widow's Lover
Cast: 4 Genre: Drama
One man, whether he be great lover or great manipulator, will never replace a late husband, a “Master of the Universe”; a father figure to wife, daughter and son.
This is a four-character play about a wealthy Park Avenue widow, Ginny Livingston, who continues to mourn the passing of her late husband, Duke Livingston, who was indeed a “Master of the Universe,” a handsome, athletic, hugely successful financier. Duke is also mourned by their son, Mark, who is 21 and exhibits homicidal tendencies, like the killing of the family cat. And there is the daughter, Jan, age 23, who is a no-nonsense lesbian. Into this family comes Ginny’s lover, a middle aged man named Bret Byers, a tie salesman at Bloomingdale’s department store. In his first visit to the Park Avenue apartment (their liaisons had been confined to his Hell’s Kitchen home), he claims to have been Duke Livingston’s cousin, childhood friend and lover. Ginny finds this revelation unsettling, to say the least. Nevertheless, she would like to believe that Bret is in love with her. Most importantly, this odd couple shares an ongoing devotion to the late Duke. The children are less than taken with this intruder.
Act Two takes place two years later on the Greek island of Hydra where Duke lost his life, allegedly the result of a heart attack while swimming – or so Ginny insists; which Bret always refutes. He believes that Ginny murdered her husband. But his power play cannot overcome the nuclear family that is mother, daughter and son. Bret may be the widow’s lover but he will never be the widow’s husband – and as Ginny, Mark and Jan encircle him on a deserted beach, it is apparent that he is destined to be an ex-lover … a late lover.
Note: the ending is deliberately ambiguous. Ginny wins out in the end and Bret will never make it back to Bloomingdale's. Lovers may fraternize with Park Avenue widows. They may even sleep with them. But with the rarest of exceptions, they have to “know their place.” The Widow's Lover went too far ... all the way to the Aegean. But that's as far as he is destined to go. Alas, he didn't know his place.
The Molloys
Cast: 5 Genre: Drama
“Those who have no interest in communication do not become artists; they become mystics or mad men.” – John Dexter
THE MOLLOYS is a family play, although not your typical family. The father, Mick Molloy, is a celebrated, middle-aged film director with a townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and a beach house in East Hampton. The mother is Bettina Molloy, a no-nonsense lady who is the foundation of the family, always trying to prevent her husband from getting too carried away with his “brilliant career” and reminding him of their blue collar roots in Brooklyn. They have a 22-year old son, a good looking boy named Pancho who has pretensions of being a film writer/director. He had been something of a womanizer but now he’s fallen in love with a wealthy, beautiful woman of 32 named Wendy Weltz. The enigma in the Molloy family is Gloria, 19 years old, a stunning beauty who may or may not be schizophrenic. Certainly she has deep mental problems. And, certainly, her mother believes she should be committed. Molloy believes that all she needs is a strong acting career to solve her problems and incidentally give new life to his flagging film career.
This is the core of the family problem and the core of the play: does Molloy perceive Gloria as an artist or does he seek to exploit her? His failure to see who she is ultimately becomes the tragedy of his life.
Molloy may control his movie projects. He may have greater success and greater recognition. But his family will forever remain the real tragedy … with no happy ending … certainly no Hollywood ending.
The Flim Flam Rag
Cast: 6 Genre: Drama
(inspired by Henry Adams’ 19th century novel, DEMOCRACY)
July 3rd, 1881 and President James Garfield had just been assassinated. At the same time, there is a new arrival in the nation’s capital, a wealthy widow named Lucy Mayo Lee, whose late husband was a famous abolitionist preacher. The nation’s capital would be a challenge. She is eager to know everything about the workings of the government and about democracy. To that end, she befriends a sleazy, powerful U. S senator, Silas Radcliffe, a former governor of South Carolina with presidential ambitions. By play’s end, Lucy is disillusioned with the political structure but she is not a quitter. Just the opposite. Lucy believes fervently in the workings of democracy. She intends to make a difference in whatever way she can.
Cast: 5 Genre: Comedy
Dinner with my Ex
This is a comedy about a professional chef named Michel (Mi shell) Schwarz. Michel, age 38, never got over his marriage to or his divorce from the tempestuous, vivacious Karisma Costello – and when he accidentally runs into a sobbing baby girl at a health club and looks for the errant mommy, out comes Karisma.
The above story is told by Michel to his best friend, a taxi driver named Andre after asking why a baby girl is crying in the bedroom and what happened to the mother. Michel explains that the child’s mother, Karisma, is in the hospital visiting the father – a drug dealer cum manager of opera singers, who was shot, presumably by a disgruntled client. (It was not made clear whether the client was an opera singer or a druggie.) Karisma has promised to pick up the girl later that night. Michel is openly thrilled.
Ultimately, Karisma makes a grand entrance – and Michel discovers that her marriage is on the rocks. Before Act One is over and before Andre’s new girlfriend, a Navy sailor, shows up for a date, Michel has invited his ex for dinner.
Act Two is the dinner itself, an almost disastrous affair in which a mounted policewoman dismounts, leaves her horse downstairs and comes upstairs and on to Michel. Unfortunately for the uniformed officer, she does not make the collar. By play’s end, the baby is sound asleep in the bedroom, Andre and his sailor lady have shipped out and Michel and Karisma are together again. Like I said, it’s a comedy.
The Widow's Lover
Cast: 4 Genre: Drama
One man, whether he be great lover or great manipulator, will never replace a late husband, a “Master of the Universe” ; a father figure to wife, daughter and son. This is a four character play about a wealthy Park Avenue widow, Ginny Livingston, who continues to mourn the passing of her late husband, Duke. Into this family comes Ginny’s lover,
Duke is also mourned by their son, Mark, who is 21 and exhibits homicidal tendencies, like the killing of the family cat. And there is the daughter, Jan, age 23, who is a no-nonsense lesbian.
Livingston, who was indeed a “Master of the Universe,” a handsome, athletic, hugely successful financier. amiddle aged man named Bret Byers, a tie salesman at Bloomingdale’s department store. In his first visit to the Park Avenue apartment (their liaisons had been confined to his Hell’s Kitchen home), he claims to have been Duke Livingston’s cousin, childhoodAct Two takes place two years later on the Greek island of Hydra where Duke lost his life, allegedly the result of a heart attack while swimming – or so Ginny insists; which Bret always refutes. He believes that Ginny murdered her husband. But his power play cannot overcome the nuclear family that is
friend and ….lover. Ginny finds this revelation unsettling, to say the least. Nevertheless, she would like to believe that Bret is in love with her. Most importantly, this odd couple shares an ongoing devotion to the late Duke. The children are less than taken with this intruder. mother, daughterand son. Bret may be the widow’s lover but he will never be the widow’s husband – and as Ginny, Mark and Jan encircle him on a deserted beach, it is apparent that he is destined to be an ex-lover … a late lover.
Cast: 6 Genre: Drama
An Unlikely Hero
AN UNLIKELY HERO is about Ulysses Grant, the farm boy and the lover of horses juxtaposed with the flawed man, the heavy drinker, the guilt-ridden, poverty-stricken family man and Civil War general..
In the opening, Grant is at the end of his life, dying of cancer and trying to find a way out of his near-poverty, in order to leave money to his beloved wife and family.
The first of many flashbacks (the play cuts back and forth from the “present” to his earlier life) is during the Mexican War. Grant, the professional soldier, does his duty and admires his commander but, philosophically, opposes the war and the subjugation of the Mexicans.
He has a lifelong love affair with his wife – and their many separations is a source of constant anguish – which leads him to drinking. Regardless of what Grant says, drinking was always a problem.
His rise to fame as general of all the Union troops began in a serendipitous fashion. Before the outbreak of war, i.e., the South’s rebellion, Grant was peddling wood on the streets of St. Louis in order to provide for his family. The man was humiliated and angry.
During the War Against the States - an act of rebellion by the South against the Federal government - Grant fought and drank and grieved over the loss of his men – but there was no other choice. Many of his generals were inept and Grant had to do the grunt work, sending them off to battle – and to die. And, contrary to conventional historical thinking, Grant was a superb military strategist.
During his presidency, he fought for the blacks and fought especially hard for the Indians. He also fought corruption in government. Sadly, Grant was naïve in many respects and that didn’t help either his presidency or his life afterwards.
The overall picture of AN UNLIKELY HERO is that of U. S. Grant as indeed a truly heroic figure … as a president and as a man … and as a boy.
Cast: 5 Genre: Drama
The Shooze
This is a play about old age; not geriatric old age but about four guys whose lives are in a place where each is in a varying state of change. They are all in their sixties. They all live in Sarasota, Florida. They are all avid tennis players and tennis buddies. They love to hang out in an Irish saloon called Druthers where they sing and play guitar … and talk tennis.
Jocko Fitzpatrick is gay, recently married and the owner of Druthers -- whose lease just went up astronomically and therefore is forcing him to close the workplace he has loved all his adult life.
Pancho Bergman is a professional (i.e., working) musician. He’s been married three times and is now living with a young woman; a much younger woman than himself.
Sidney Albright is a retired professor emeritus of history. He and his wife are childless and she has been nudging him over the years to move to Israel. So far he has been resistant.
Bernard Geliebter is a psychologist and a widower whose daughters live in faraway couontries (Brazil and New Zealand). He is currently on trial for trying to molest a young girl who was one of his patients.
Sally Barnacle is a pretty, bright, vivacious young waitress at Druthers. She is also a student at a local community college.
The turning point of the play comes when Pancho, returning from a gig in Las Vegas, comes up with an idea in response to The Beatles 50th anniversary of their debut in America. He and his buddies will form a rock and roll band and call themselves The Shooze, a name inspired by John Lennon’s offhand remark about the band’s beginnings and what they were going to call themselves. And so, after debating and resisting the idea, Pancho’s buddies decided to give it a try. In Act Two, to everyone’s surprise, The Shooze have become a big success. But then, after three years of touring and recording, their old lives intrude. THE SHOOZE is about old age and dreams … and never giving up.
Cast: 7 Genre: Musical
Virgin Territory
The musical is about the radically changed and charged American culture from 1956 to 1978, from the perspective of a father and son story of discovery and self-discovery. initially set in 1978, after Stonewall, after the advent of Gay Lib, the owner of a Brooklyn piano bar, Vito Modugno, is closing the garden and happens upon his 22 year old son, Nicolai, proposing to his boyfriend, Sammy. The two young men sing STONEWALL, after which the father feels compelled to tell Nicolai his own sexual narrative. The bulk of the story is set in the long ago and far away1950s when Elvis burst on the scene and destroyed romanticism forever. It was a time before women’s lib, before the sexual revolution, before the civil rights movement and before the Gay Rights movement. The setting is late on a Friday night in the lounge (a/k/a “piano bar”) of the Miami Ballroom in Flatbush, a white, middle class section of Brooklyn. CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT is sung by Vito, his fiancee, Marie, Chris, (to whom Vito is secretly attracted) and a beautiful young actress named Pauline who is alone and coming to the bar for the first time.
Marie is pregnant, which gives impetus to the forthcoming wedding. Her father (Uncle Sal) sings YOU’D BETTER BE THERE, which is less a wedding invitation than a command. Vito declares that he will be a good husband and a good father but is suppressing his homo-erotic feelings for Chris,. Uncle Sal, in a joyous mood, sings DANCING. But Vito is not in a joyous mood. Feeling pressured, he confides in Chris, singing IT’S ALL OVER. But Chris, a self-confessed virgin, is in a joyous mood, having fallen impetuously in love with Pauline. He serenades her with THE WIZ and Pauline, who is not a virgin, is charmed by this exuberant songwriter.
Marie, as undecided and insecure as Vito, finds a soulmate in Pauline. The two young women sing SO YOUNG. Later, as Pauline surveys this strange landscape, aware of what is going on, sings ALONE AMONG FRIENDS.
Later, in the garden of the Miami Bar, Vito tries to express his love for Chris, singing OUR ROOM. The song is coded. Vito is afraid to “come out” of the closet that society has put him in. End Act One.
In Act Two, Chris and Pauline are in the garden. Ever the song writer (and a virgin), he tries to serenade her again, this time singing THIS IS WHAT A LOVE SONG IS REALLY ABOUT.
In the early morning hours, Chris has his first sexual experience. When Vito finds out about Chris and Pauline, his first reaction is that of anger and jealousy. He sings HOT STUFF, trying to demean Chris. And then Uncle Sal shows up. He doesn’t understand what is going on. Sal, a widower, can only retreat into his past, singing THE WAY IT USED TO BE. Marie confronts Vito, singing WHAT ABOUT MARIE. These confrontations and the underlying tensions are too much for Pauline. She sings I’M MOVING ON – and she means it but not before Vito reveals his love for Chris, reprising OUR ROOM.
The 1950s journey ends with everyone singing CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT.
Back in the present, Vito’s “coming out” is the link between past and present and more: it is the bond between father and son.
Hamlet's Ghost
Cast: 3 Genre: Drama
The ghost of Edwin Forrest, the great 19th century actor, returns to the stage of the Walnut Street where he encounters a young black performer making his debut in HAMLET and a pretty, proper ingénue from the suburbs. The results are profound: a learning experience for the incredulous young actors and a final farewell for Edwin Forrest .
Cast: 6 Genre: Drama
Burn This House
The time is 1957. The place is Huntsville, Alabama – home of the Marshall Space Flight Center where scientists have been working on the Redstone rocket program, to be used for the first nuclear ballistic missile test. The male characters are research scientists but the science is not pure.
Dramatically, this is the story of revenge without remorse, without guilt or rationalization, all of which has a Cold War setting and the Space Race.
Back story: 1938, (“Kristalnacht”) - Berlin, a 12 year old Jewish boy named David Marguilies sees his home go up in flames, his family destroyed by the fire and he himself outside the house, prevented from going back in. He believes he knows the perpetrator, a Jew-baiting Nazi brown shirt and a next-door neighbor. David is whisked off to America but not before setting fire to the neighbor’s house.
The six character play is set in 1957 during America’s cold war with the Soviet Union. David, now married, is working as a rocket scientist for the U. S. government. When he meets his new boss, Josef Schell, he feels strongly that Schell was the one who set fire to his family home in Berlin. David has a problem: can he continue with a job that means so much to him, which includes working on putting a man into space and eventually a rocket to the moon – or is his hate so unrelenting that he must leave?
The set is basically divided into three living rooms (partial sets): one is the home of David and his wife, Patty. Another is the home of David’s co-worker, Robby Fulton, a Quaker and his Jewish wife, Fredi. The third is the home of a German couple: Josef Schell and his pregnant wife, Kirsten. Schell is an important rocket scientist, a former Nazi, celebrated as the inventor of the V-2 rocket (which wrecked havoc in London during the Battle of Britain) and the man who ran the rocket program for Hitler. After Germany lost the war, the United States government had no trouble convincing Schell to come to America where he became a naturalized citizen.
When the play begins, Schell is already running America’s rocket program; developing the ICBM; the intercontinental ballistic missile program. David and Robby Fulton are the assistants to Schell. In the first act, the seeds of suspicion are planted not only in David’s mind but also in the mind of Josef Schell.
In the second act, which encompasses the entire living room of Josef and Kirsten Schell, there is a dinner party in which the truth unexpectedly - and shockingly - is revealed. Of course, the truth is not only that Schell torched the Marguilise home but also that the 12 year old David turned around and set fire to the Schell home, which resulted in the death of Josef’s first wife.
David, who had lived a life consumed by revenge, discovers that revenge is not sweet -- and he must now move on … and try to put the past behind him. But the past will always be with him.
Cast: 5 Genre: Drama
Up From Stardom
This is an interracial love story about a middle-aged white reporter and a young black actress, set against the background of a segregated America. The time is 1944. The place is Hollywood. The actress is Lulabelle Washington, who has been making a good, steady living playing domestics in movies at Worldwide Studios. She also has a considerable reputation as a singer, working the jazz clubs around town.
Riley Leonard is a frustrated foreign correspondent, anxious to cover the war in Europe before it’s too late (just before D-Day) and not resigned to reporting on the entertainment industry for a Los Angeles newspaper. He is enormously attracted to Lulabelle and uses the excuse of an in-depth interview to begin their covert relationship. They are both aware that an interracial relationship is taboo… plus the fact that he is twenty years older than the young singer/actress.
Lionel Ginsberg, the head of Worldwide Film Studios, warns the gifted young actress/singer that a relationship with this white reporter will not be tolerated. But it is Lulabelle’s mother, Jenny, who is totally against this relationship. She and Riley had a serious affair when they were both living in New York a dozen years ago while Lulabelle was being raised in L.A. by her grandmother. The Riley/Jenny affair had ended badly and only now does Riley discover that Lulabelle is Jenny’s daughter. It is a shock to his system and to Jenny.
Act One ends when Riley, now seeing Lulabelle on a steady, if covert, basis confesses that he has turned down the assignment to go to London to cover the war (this, just before the Normandy invasion) because he doesn’t want to lose her and wants to marry her right away.
Act Two. Because of her marriage to Riley, Lulabelle is blacklisted not only at Worldwide Studios but throughout the film industry. However, Lionel Ginsberg, whose interest in Lulabelle has always been more than paternal, offers her the lead in a radio series tailor made for the actress on the condition that she ends her marriage to Riley. The final nail in Riley’s coffin is hammered in when he meets with Jenny. This is the pivotal scene in the play. Jenny will not tolerate his standing in the way of her daughter’s success. Riley has no choice but to make the final sacrifice and leave – allowing the woman he loves to finally achieve stardom.
Cast: 4 Genre: Comedy
My Lesbian
MY LESBIAN is the story of a search for family by three extremely different people: an elderly, suicidal Jewish playwright, an Hispanic/ African-American teenager and a middle-aged Hispanic lesbian.
Saul Sunshine, whose wife has just walked out on him, is a failed playwright. He is on the roof of his apartment building, seriously contemplating suicide and talking aloud about his travails; not knowing that Orlando Deacon, a 15-year-old foster child, is smoking pot and listening to his every word. Since Orlando figures that Saul will self-destruct within minutes – and because he is stoned – he tells the playwright the story of his young life: shunted from one foster family to another, aware of his homosexuality but not yet acting on it, wanting to go to fashion school and design dresses and – hopefully – more than anything - to be adopted by a beautiful Hispanic lesbian psychologist, Aida Banderas.
Saul steps back from the roof, ecstatic, because he finally has an idea for a new play. It will be the boy’s story. But since Saul Sunshine has been rejected countless times and is labeled “old fashioned,” he will allow Orlando to be his front. The gay artistic director, Fidel Julia, who runs the successful, politically correct Manana Theatre Company, may have rejected Saul for the last ten years but he will never reject either the boy or the play. Orlando promises to run the idea by Aida Banderas because he likes this “crazy old guy” and views him as a father figure.
Aida hates the idea. She is adamant about the intrusion to her new family’s privacy. If the play were to be a success, Orlando would be an instant celebrity and his “thinly disguised” play would have reporters sniffing around. She is firm in her rejection of Saul’s project. Fidel Julia, the artistic director, is suspicious of this well-crafted play but loves everything about it and about the author. The first act ends with Fidel excited about the play and Orlando - but leery about the kid’s credentials and authorship.
In Act Two, Saul is less than happy because he is not getting the recognition he deserves but knows he cannot have. Orlando is distressed by Saul’s unhappiness and, because he couldn’t care less about fame and recognition, he takes Saul to Fidel and confesses everything. Saul is thrilled. Fidel is furious … but ultimately (because the show is opening in a few days) he relents. The playbills have been printed but future playbills will give due recognition to Saul Sunshine. And a new Saul is emerging. He is proud to be the boy’s “father figure”. And because he and Orlando and Aida, each in his and her own way, are desperate for a family, this unlikely trio becomes “La Familia”: a family!
Cast: 6 Genre: Drama
Carry Me Back To West Virginia
The time of the play is 1975. The setting is a bar in the coal mining community of Indian River, Mingo County, in the southwestern part of West Virginia, near the Kentucky border. Joe Birdwell, pushing 40, returns to his hometown of Indian River. No sooner does Joe arrive in Indian River than the bridge collapses. This bridge was the link between the town and McCoy Mines. Now the miners have to go many, many miles out of their way to go to work. After Joe tries to get the local, state and federal governments to give money to build a new bridge and after he is rejected by everyone, he comes up with a desperate idea: he will apply to the Soviet Union for foreign aid! Although his wire is never acknowledged by Moscow, the story is picked up by the wire services and the first act ends with the appearance of a Russian journalist, Dmitri Pudovkin, who had read the story in the NY Times. Dmitri bids to have his government give financial support for the bridge.Joe is thrilled. For the first time in his humdrum life, he is making things happen. Or so he thinks.
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Characters
Joe Birdwell 40 years old, a drifter and a dreamer; genial and uncomplicated on the surface but desperately anxious to prove himself.
Patsy Kaufman 40 years old; tough exterior to hide her yearnings and frustrations; never quite at home in her home town.
Big Ed Jankowski fifty-four; tough exterior and tough interior, although carrying a well-hidden torch for Patsy; robust and cheerful ... until pushed too far.
Dmitri Pudovkin charming and sophisticated ... to cover both his cynicism and his romanticism.
Hoops Plummer twenty-five; a good guy - with scars from Vietnam as well as scars from his home town.
SheriAnne Plummer Hoops’ sister; nineteen; full of life