The Short Play Project: Elven Council (2020, 2026)

2020

Starting in 2019, I began writing one short play, pretty much every day. I mean, I did wrote a short play every day, some of them weren't any good so I never typed them up. But I did create a tremendous number of three or four page plays in a very brief time.

The day the quarantine began, in March 2020, I put out a call for anyone who wanted to participate in a "social distance art experiment" to make a video from one of (at this point) hundred of my short plays, which I would then edit and post. This became The Short Play Project.

Two of my friends recorded their precocious four year old twins to perform the script Elven Council. I forget the prompt, it may have been "fantasy" or "power" or anything, really. I was inspired by some of the poorly thought out plot points of certain works of fiction -- take the Horcrux (please.) I will break up my soul and place it into other things. Nothing dumb about that.

2026

Douglas Adams mocked this in one of the Hitchhiker books; Why have a dozen or so different forms of identification (bank card, passport, work permit) when you can have all of them -- and your DNA and fingerprints -- all packaged in one handy card!

Then someone steals it. Anyway, that’s the joke.

So, back in 2020, the twins put on their Elsa and Anna costumes, created a masterpiece, and the rest is history.

This week, the girls (now ten) recalled that time they made a video about an elven council and were trying to remember the details. Their mom suggested they all watch it, and so they were inspired to try it again.

The coda is entirely their own.

You can watch the entire Short Play Project here.

The Short Play Project (revisited)

Shelter in place.

The Covid-19 pandemic was real. Many of us were fortunate not to contract this potentially fatal disease until after we had received the vaccine. My own bout of Covid was brief and uncomplicated, and for that I am grateful. People died, in their millions, across the globe.

What I am about the recount is something we did during the lockdown, and is no way meant to diminish the seriousness of that time, which psychological after-effects we will have to cope with the rest of our lives.

The day the shutdown was announced in the United States, three years ago this week, those of us who were not “essential workers” were left with a great deal of time on our hands. And creators of live performance were quick to devise all manner of “virtual” entertainments.

On March 14, 2020 I put out a call for people who would be interested to record themselves performing one of my short play scripts. I’d written over one hundred since the previous fall, I’d write another hundred before that summer.

The earliest submissions really bring back the shocking sensation of the start of quarantine. Outside of a circle of friends, we didn’t know what the insides of other people’s domiciles looked like. Soon we would know the interior of everyone’s home, even Stanley Tucci’s.

Ellen chose the two-person play Packing about preparing for a flight, written just days before all flights were grounded in the United States. They has all their stuff laid out on the floor to pack, and the other voice in the scene is provided by someone over their phone. It’s eerie, to me a chilling reminder of that specific time.

Other early entries were playful, as adults treated that first week like an old fashioned snow day. It reminded me of the Blizzard of 1978 – we didn’t have school, but we couldn’t go anywhere, either. Laura and her partner knocked up a fort out of sheets and blankets in their living room for Worlds. Carrie, Hannah and Sam put on their PJ’s to present a sleepover for Butthole.

Then there were those who, through necessity, playfully used what they had on hand to perform two-person scenes. Amiee created Verses with the assistance of their dog, Buckley. Luke partnered with a pretzel for Advertisement, a now sorely-dated piece inspired by the Peloton/Aviation Gin ads. Do we remember those?

As the weeks and months of 2020 went on, creators got more sophisticated with their short play submissions, including animation, original music, and some truly professional cinematography. But these swiftly created videos from the first few days really put me back in that time, for better or for worse.

You can watch all seventy-five plays in the Short Play Project here.

"Peace" performed by Richard Stimac

Notes on Camp: Day Eight

It is true, with the improv club on our penultimate day, we could spend the entire day rehearsing and preparing for our performance.

To think. We weren’t even sure if we could do this. Would anyone sign up? Would they agree to masks? And how would that go? I’ll tell you, it went fine. Only the photos will remind me that we were even wearing them. And no one got sick, not at this camp.

Family and friends of the campers arrived in time for a 2:30 PM performance. The Jesters & Fools (9-11 group) presented an original play about oracles before our teams presented their short plays and Shakespeare scenes, before the entire camp came together for our final song and dance number. It was a one-hour show! Created in eight days!

The short plays, by the way, were presented in a manner inspired by the Neo-Futurists. We called it “Ten Short Plays in Twenty Minutes” with the caveat that there were neither ten plays nor were we performing them in twenty minutes, though when all was done I believe we did execute all eleven plays in twenty minutes or less.

On the drive in this morning, I was already thinking about next year, when hopefully I will have a better opportunity to organize the improvisation workshops. The first week is for a close study of the mechanics or techniques, the second concentrating on a singular character for use in a (short) long form improv.

Now, if you will excuse me. I am going on vacation.

Notes on Camp: Day One

Dutiful interns Sylvia & Connor

Something old, something new. Mornings, Kelly and I work in tandem with students aged twelve to eighteen. It’s been three years since we held in-person camp, and I was curious as to how many of these kids would have attended our camp before. And it was around half. I was shocked. I was so pleased. 

How many had aged out? How many had folks were weren’t ready to send their kids to an experience like this? But so many were back, and it is so good to see them again.

We are wearing masks. Yes, it’s a drag. But I wouldn’t do it otherwise, and I am grateful for the accommodation. They want to be here and so do we.

We worked together to create a list of expectations for the week, to which we could all agree. Some expectations involve playing certain games. Others involve providing mutual respect and attention. We got onto the same page.

Campers got to know each other a little, introduce each other, learn names. And then we got to work! And this year, guess what? We’re working on (among other things) the Short Play Project. I have a tranche of two-person plays, many of which are perfect for middle and high school aged kids to work on.

Exactly how we do that, I will make note of as the week progresses. Today, we had cold reads, tearing through a number of them, but not enough apparently, as they were eager to keep reading them aloud for each other.

Prom 2021

Daughter (left) & Prom Date

Last year, as everything was shutting down, the first person to truly understand how long this all might take was our eldest. Class of 2021, they  saw all the events of their senior year vanish from their imagination, even last spring. No concerts, no plays, all celebrations, canceled. They saw all this first.

The other night an audience gathered on the lawn in front of Cleveland Heights High School to watch the first live, public performance of the school year. Middle school and high school orchestras, Including both of our children. It was a beautiful evening, for so many reasons.

Last year I wrote a short play for the class of 2020, the year of the Lost Prom. Maria Guardino Schreiner made this great recording from it. Last night, my child got their Prom, a scrap of senior year, saved.

The Short Play Project: Cleveland Sight Center Series

Bobbie Szabo, Recreation Specialist at the Cleveland Sight Center worked with my good friend Tim Keo to create videos from my short play scripts. 

They were designed specfically to be enjoyed by clients of the Sight Center who are low vision, visually impaired or blind. Credits are read aloud, and include a brief description of the visual setting.

My favorite take is Szabo's adaptation of my short play Cleveland, which includes no visual information at all. Rather, the scene is performed audibly, twice, two different ways. The audience is encouraged to participate, to imagine what actions are happening during each of the performances and to drop them in the comments.

Also featured in these videos is Ken Hoegler, who is a staff member at the Sight Center's summer camp, Highbrook Lodge. He translated his scripts into braille.

"Cleveland"
Performed by Tim Keo & Bobbie Szabo

"Jury Duty"
Performed by Ken Hoegler & Bobbie Szabo

"Work"
Performed by Tim Keo & Bobbie Szabo

Other short plays produced by the Cleveland Sight Center include Cats, Cooking and Dragons.

You can watch the entire Short Play Project here.

Ten Recommended Posts from 2020

Joshua McElroy, Khaki Hermann
"Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street"
(Great Lakes Theater, 2020)

Ten years on, what is this blog? It is a journal. It is a promotional tool. It is self-aggrandizing but also keeps me honest. It is a record of my progress as a playwright. And it is also an opportunity to research and record past events and tie them to the current moment.

These ten blog posts from 2020 may not have attracted as much attention, But hey, I took the time to research and write them and I recommend another look because they're pretty good.

On Procrastination

Accepting the opportunity to moderate a playwright’s panel at CPT while you are fresh in grief and trying to comprehend your mother’s eulogy is just another thing that has to get done.

The Bully of Baker Street: Week Three

Reflections on a tour in progress, and how gratifying it is to learn that adults find your educational play for elementary school children progressive and a challenge to their political beliefs.

The Short Play Project: Humiliation Series

There are about a dozen short play “collection” blog posts, but this one is my favorite. Three short play videos that beg the question: AITA?

"Residency On Demand"
(Great Lakes Theater, 2020)

Documenting Cleveland, Tuesday, May 12, 2020

We all think of ourselves as Samuel Pepys, diarists of extraordinary times. But the records of the Pandemic of 2020-21(?) are so grossly extensive. What have you, on May 12, Literary Cleveland in conjunction with Scene Magazine produced an exhaustive document of the city from one end to the other, and I was glad to be a participant.

Our Midwest Journey (1995)

Our first road trip was a test of our relationship, and in a way defined our future together. A rumination on our mutual love of the highway, tourist traps, and funky theater. 

Savory Taṇhā in Performance (Thursday)

Thoughts on opening night of a live, Zoom theater event, as part of a nationwide discussion on not merely the value, but the very validity of virtual theater.

The Mirror and the Light (book)

The third part of Hilary Mantel’s “Thomas Cromwell” trilogy was surprisingly affecting, and so politically timely. Back then when you fell out of favor, the monarch had you literally killed.

Our Midwest Journey (1995)

My First Fringe Festival

I had always wanted to dive into my first fringe festival (as audience member) experience, as it so deeply informed my next decade. I was amazed to find as much source material online as I did.

Three Hundred Sixty-Five Days of Practice

Would you like to see exactly what it looks like to write three pages every morning for an entire see?

Dobama ‘96 Trading Cards

I have always loved and been fascinated by package design and marketing. But this is the story of a gig that almost destroyed me.

Ten Theater Projects in 2020

"High (short play)"
(Center for Arts Inspired Learning)

2020: The Big Cancel.

Last week WaPo theater critic Peter Marks made the argument for a cabinet level position for the arts, a Secretary of Arts and Culture, if you will. And were not living in a nation which has always been and remains a reactionary, Puritanical society I might hold out hope for such a move, a champion for the millions of arts workers and the hundreds billions of dollars a year that are tied up in the arts.

As things stand, the performing arts are either on hold or online. Even with a vaccine on the horizon, current estimates suggest it will be another year before we are safely congregating in large numbers.

Like so many writers, I had projects in development which were canceled, or postponed. But I was also one of the fortunate creators whose work either went online, turned into something else, or whole new works were developed as a result of the pandemic.

In chronological order:

"The Witches"
Jailyn Sherell Harris, Adrionna Powell Lawrence

Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street (Great Lakes Theater)

We began rehearsals for this year’s outreach touring play a few days after my mother died. Three weeks of rehearsal and fifty performances later, the show closed on March 8. At the end of that week, the office downtown was closed, and it remains so to this day. 

The Witches (Cleveland Public Theatre) 

We had our first read-through of this new play script in late February. It was to be workshopped at Cleveland Public Theatre over one weekend in April. We had to replace one of our actors, and had a single rehearsal with the new team on Tuesday, March 10. 

A couple months later I returned to that space, mask on, disinfectant at the ready, to use for an entirely different project, and the rehearsal table was still there, with additional copies of the rehearsal calendar lying around, one of the actors had left their script. It was all just waiting there for an acting company that never returned, a project abruptly abandoned.

"50 Hamlets"
Chennelle Bryant-Harris
(Great Lakes Theater)

The Short Play Project

What began as a feverish writing project took on a life of its own after the shutdown began, as I put out a call for folks to use my two-to-three page scripts and make short videos out of them, staying within CDC distance guidelines. And they did, over seventy individual, short films, created by artists from all over the county (and even overseas) with imagination and heart. Watch them all here.

50 Hamlets (Great Lakes Theater)

As we were striving to continue offering educational programming to the schools which have come to depend upon it, we were also learning ways we could take advantage of the opportunities presented through modern technology to bridge time and space. Arts educators who have proudly called themselves “actor-teachers” reaching back forty years collaborated to create this unique artifact from the beginning of the shutdown.

The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth (Brave Spirits Theatre)

As we were all learning how best to navigate Zoom recordings, I accepted a role in this live performance produced by Brave Spirits Theatre in Staunton, VA. They had plans to stage a slate of history plays, pre-Shakespearean works, many of which the Bard used as template for his own, more famous plays. They moved production online, and I learned an awful lot about the limitations of the medium, and also its tricks. Brave Spirits announced their dissolution on November 21, another financial casualty of the pandemic.

"Savory Taṇhā"
Hillary Wheelock, Zyrece Montgomery
(Cleveland Public Theatre)

The Way I Danced With You (Culver City Public Theatre)

As we were all learning how best to navigate Zoom recordings, my friends at Culver City Public Theatre were presenting bi-weekly new play readings through the summer, and this romantic two-hander was part of that line-up. 

Savory Taṇhā (Cleveland Public Theatre)

What began as a feverish writing project took on a life of its own when I was asked to curate a selection of short plays to be produced live via Zoom. We were all trying to figure out how best to share the experience of live theater utilizing available technology

Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street (Culver City Public Theatre)

Plans were made for the folks in Culver City to present another one of my works as their annual, free summer offering for families. Instead, they created a lovely, recorded adaptation of the play which started my year.

"Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street"
Richard R. Rosales
(Culver City Public Theatre)

Residency On Demand (Great Lakes Theater)

Like many arts organizations we have been trying to figure out how to reach our students. They are either still working from home, or those schools that are open are not permitting visitors. We rethought our lesson plans and created a makeshift TV studio in our rehearsal space, and have started piloting live classes. I can’t tell you how good it feels to get back into schools, even at a distance.

Untitled Pandemic Play Script (NEOMFA)

All of my doubts and anxieties have been distilled into a play script for two women actors and one set. The comment I am perhaps most grateful for from the workshop reading was, “I am surprised I get into this play so much.” Now it just needs a proper title. I mean, it has one. But I think I have to change it.

Thinking about calling it “Goatfucker.” What do you think?

Source: The culture is ailing. It’s time for a Dr. Fauci for the arts by Peter Marks, Washington Post (12/2/2020)

Process X

In the room.

This week I ran out of writing prompts.

On a whim last fall I looked up “writing prompts” and found 365 Creative Writing Prompts at ThinkWritten.com. They weren’t super involved, many of them focusing on one or two words. “Dancing” or “First Kiss”.

I found these to be much more liberating and inspiring. Many prompt books or online lists are too detailed. “Write about a time you disappointed someone.” Well, that makes it specifically about me, doesn’t it? I mean, it doesn’t have to be, but that’s where the mind first goes.

“Write about your virtual plans for the Thanksgiving holiday.” I mean, that’s a journal entry. I guess it’s aspirational, but not really.

Maybe I should start again from the beginning though I would like to try something new. So many of these prompts resulted in short plays, and many of those were turned into videos last Spring, at the beginning of the pandemic. Looking them over, I think of those. Gotta try something new.

This past week, James and I visited labor and delivery at University Hospitals. Next year is the twentieth anniversary of the events which inspired I Hate This (a play without the baby) and plans are afoot to bring that show to a wider audience.

James has never experienced childbirth, not from the outside, anyway, so this was a wonderful opportunity to know the space and to work with the text.

Okay, this is a big weekend. I have two weeks to finish two big assignments, fortunately there are no assignments for either of those specific classes this holiday week. And my full-length (which is not, I feel, full-length, but) is in good shape to be read the following week.

In fact, there were a few notes my advisor gave me that I was able to incorporate. "Breadcrumbs." Moments to keep the audience on their toes, even as the protagonists go on about 1980s teen movies, life ... everything, really.

The Short Play Project: ArtWorks Theatre Co-Op Series

Last month I was contacted by Giorgiana Lascu at the Center for Arts-Inspired Learning. She was seeking short plays for her high school aged interns to perform, record and edit as part of the ArtWorks program.

She had six young women and one young man engaged in performance and video production, and asked if I had any plays that weren't bound by race, gender or age. In fact, the vast majority of my short plays are written for anyone to perform! We spent an exciting afternoon as I pitched scripts and her protégés had a great time reading and choosing from them.

ArtWorks is a job training and arts education program, a paid internship, and these high school aged kids were to direct, shoot and edit these scripts, as well as perform for each other.

Thrilling for me is how teenagers interpreted the relationships in each of these pieces. "Driver's Seat" was written with a parent and child in mind. Here they are siblings or friends, possibly people in a relationship. "Confidence" was included in Savory Taṇhā, and it is fascinating to me how social cues change between age and experience. The text lays it all out for you, the question is how do you communicate?

My favorite reaction to "High" is what my mother-in-law texted me after watching it:

"sorry" 🙄

(lol)

"Driver's Seat"
Performed by Ta'niyah Richardson & Natozjah Johnson


"Confidence"
Performed by Yai Johnson & Miasia Wells


"High"
Performed by Al Gorman & Freddie French

Videos recorded and edited collaboratively by ArtWorks Theatre Co-Op 2020: Frederick French, Al Gorman, Yai Johnson, Natozjah Johnson, Ta'niyah Richardson, Dalaija Walker & Miasia Wells.

You can watch the entire Short Play Project here.

The Short Play Project: Acting With Myself Series

The world has moved on. I have not received a short play project video submission for some time. People have focused on other porjects, and so have I.

The novelty of creating drama at a distance has cooled somewhat. We're still doing it, of course. But now it is summer, and we have expanded our ideas of what that means. Perhaps as cool weather sets in this will change. But don't talk to me about the future.

When I first put out a call for artists to create short videos from my play scripts, the monologues went pretty fast. Not everyone was shelrting in place with another actor, or with anyone at all.

Several entries created a some kind of work around, and here are three examples of those. Lynna Metrisin chose the high school Thespian "Forensics" route, performing both roles on her own at the same time. Patrick Gladish used editing to play twin disaffected hipsters.

Eric Fancher employed a very subtle split screen and headsets to play against himself in what appears to be a single take. Check them out.

"Playwright"
Performed by Lynna Metrisin
Videography by Jim Metrisin


"Gentrification"
Performed by Patrick Gladish


"Running"
Performed by Eric Fancher

You can watch the entire Short Play Project here.

Assessment

Anne & Zyrece

Today was my 300th consecutive morning of writing. When I noted that this morning, that number, at first I was proud of my achievement. Then I realized, that is nearly ten months. I started last September.

This year. This fucking year.

Whatever your plans, they were shelved in March. This year is now half over, and everything remains on hold. 2020 is canceled, and the only good thing we got out of any of this is Hamilton. Had we been asked, I am sure we all could have waited to see it at the movies.

We are, all of us, holding out for a miracle. That a vaccine is arrived at, faster than has ever been arrived at before, to eradicate the virus and return our lives to something like normal.

The artistic community, to take only one example, is in a desperate state. Our livelihood depends on live performance, audiences, sweat and spit and contact and everything that might possibly kill you.

This is what I wrote on “Day One,” before I had even started writing short plays each day. I was mentally preparing myself for the Chicago Marathon.

This day is cool and most perfect. I project my mind into the afternoon to come and wonder, can I accomplish this? The race is a little over a month, but today, today I will run, my feet -- not just my feet, my hips, and all the rest,carrying me across the city. I can do that, can’t I?

I am imagining the Cleveland that currently is, with runners through the Cultural Garden, and packing Edgewater Park. There will be water fountains and public restrooms, amenities which make the travel easier. Will it be a joy? Or arduous? Will I notice the good things? I cannot know.

Just revisiting this, knowing how much we have lost, how much I have personally lost since then, Sunday, September 8, 2019. I was running the twenty miles from our house to my mother’s house that day. She was waiting for me on the porch when I arrived. Sitting out with her boyfriend on a beautiful late summer’s day.

My mother was alive. The park was swollen with people. And I was unafraid.

Zach & Brian

So. Savory Taṇhā. We had a lovely rehearsal last night, this time with the "Friday" version, the one that will be performed a week from tonight. The script doesn’t change, but the performers will read different roles each evening; Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

I am directing, which is most practical but not what I prefer. Directing my own writing, I spend too much time on the wrong things. I prefer all my concentration be on the words themselves, paying greater attention to what is said rather than how it is being said. So that I might change them.

Then there is the frustration of working within the constraints of this medium. Light, space, reception, delay. My attention isn’t even on what’s being said, nor how, but how it all comes together, as a whole.

And yet, having said all that. I am loving this. This is where I am grateful to be working with such talented performers. This material, these scenes. Relationships played out in intimate fashion. This is an experience you cannot have on stage, this intimacy. The closeness, the vulnerability.

We had made plans. Other projects, different journeys. They did not include this show, though. There is a saying, "serenity can be achieved by trading expectation for acceptance." Or as I'd put it, by trading one expectation for another.

UPDATE: Cleveland Public Theatre presents the Zoom Premiere of "Savory Taṇhā (sixteen short plays performed by a rotating ensemble)" featuring Anne McEvoy Zyrece Montgomery,  Zach Palumbo, Brian Pedaci & Hillary Wheelock, February 17 - March 6, 2021.

Savory Taṇhā (sixteen short plays performed by a rotating ensemble)

Three hundred days. I have written for a half-hour every morning, without missing a day, for nearly three hundred days. That is some kind of record for me. And for the majority of those days I have written a short, one-page play.

They’re not all good, to be sure. But most of them are, I think. There is some repetition, repetition of theme, or style. Sense of humor. It’s all me. These are the scripts I have been offering to anyone who would like to create a video for the Short Play Project.

More recently I received an offer from Cleveland Public Theatre to curate an evening of short plays for their current Encounters (Here and Now) Series.

To create a sense of community and immediacy, CPT has eschewed the current trend to post performances online for enjoyment at any time, choosing instead to produce live performances through which an audience has the opportunity to interact before and after a show (like you do) and that the shows themselves are like an actual theater experience in that, if you miss it, you missed it.

Choosing the right combination of plays for this forty-minute production has been a curious challenge. I had asked CPT Artistic Director Raymond Bobgan for some feedback, a reflection of what he or others may see in my work which folks respond to. He said it was my themes of longing, passion, melancholy, desire, nostalgia … these are not wistful emotions I have come to in my middle years. I was nostalgic for the 1970s before they were even over, and that was when I was ten.

Regret, mourning, coping with my mother’s death, reevaluating my choices as a younger man … I will be honest. This is not necessarily the first thing I would choose to present right now, during the pandemic, during the uprising. But in the midst of chaos we are still engaged in life, and I am content to offer these sixteen short plays as a reflection of all of our relationships, our fears and hopes and doubts and dreams.

And of course, I need to be clever. To protest my own ability to write works for people from all walks of life, we cast five actors who will read different roles each of the three evenings it will be performed. The text remains the same, the interpersonal reactions are different.

For the title, I wanted something which captured this sense of longing, without sounding overwrought. Or pretentious. That was meant to be a joke.

Constant Craving, the title of that k.d. lang song came to mind. And Savory Taṇhā is a variation of that. Savory is one of my love's favorite words. Taṇhā is the desire to return, to repeat, to stay in one place. Not to move on. The living bardo. It is a cause of human suffering, the inability to accept change.

But it tastes so good.

UPDATE: Cleveland Public Theatre presents the Zoom Premiere of "Savory Taṇhā (sixteen short plays performed by a rotating ensemble)" featuring Anne McEvoy Zyrece Montgomery,  Zach Palumbo, Brian Pedaci & Hillary Wheelock, February 17 - March 6, 2021.

The Short Play Project: Short Film Series

No one wants to announce favorites among their children. Everyone who has taken one of my play scripts and recorded it for video has brought joy to me, and hopefully provided them artistic satisfaction during this time of social isolation.

However, there are a few who spent a great deal of time and talent, creating fantastic costumes, providing soundscapes and music, and engaging their cinematographer colleagues to create the kind of short film that is worthy of submission to a festival (and don't think we aren't talking about it.)

Three I would like to highlight here, and they are not the only three, feature interpretations of the text I have written that take them into an entirely other directions, featuring animation, sound design, and real live cats.


"Restaurant"
Performed by Melissa Crum and Patrick Stoops
Directed by Melissa Crum
Animation by Patrick Stoops


"Signs"
Performed by Paul Manganello & Timothy Michael Blewitt
Camera by Erin Dawson


"Trivia"
Produced & directed by Davis Aguila & Michael Prosen
Performed by Michael Prosen, Davis Aguila and introducing Donna Bae

Other amazing short films include Creation, Consent, and many more you can find on the complete Short Play Project Playlist.

The Short Play Project: Kitchen Series

The kitchen in our house is really important. It's also the most unfinished room in the house. Whenever we entertain, there's always a moment when I realize everyone has gathered in the kitchen and I have to say, why are we in the kitchen? Let's relocate.

Some people have kitchens that are made for social time, with space and islands and stools but not at my house. It's intimate, there's nowhere to sit, nowhere to rest your drink, really. At least we added a pass-through ten years ago so you can talk to people in the dining room.

But it's where the food happens. And it's just the right size for me and my wife to talk when it's just us, away from the kids. We have had some of the most loving conversations and worst fights in the kitchen, dating back twenty-five years this spring.

With one exception (see "Cooking," below) I haven't written one short play script that was meant to take place specifically in a kitchen. But it doesn't surprise me that several chose the kitchen as the location for certain kinds of personal interactions. The play "Teamwork" was, in my mind, an office place conversation, but changing it to a tense discussion between partners also makes perfect sense.


"Feelings"
Performed by Roxana Bell & Beau Reinker

"Cooking"
Performed by Henrik & Brenda Hansen


"Teamwork"
Performed by Lauren Bruniges & Caleb Knueven

You can watch the entire Short Play Project here.

The Short Play Project: Parenthood Series

Since we started having living children time has collapsed. Just last night (it was a very hot night, I could not sleep) I was thinking of the rooms in our house, and the different uses they have had.

My wife and I each had our own office, which were sacrificed; one room for the children, one for a playroom. Then two rooms for the children. Layers of paint, the acquisition and letting go of various furnitures. The music, the craft, the arguments, the injuries. And finally, coming to terms with the reality of their one day moving on.

Several writing prompts inspired reflection upon the condition of parenthood, lovingly interpreted by these performers.


"Mail"
Performed by Emmy Cohen & Moira Cohen


"Hero"
Performed by Tim Collingwood


"Deck"
Performed by Derek Koger & Evelyn Koger

You can watch the entire Short Play Project here.

The Short Play Project: Quarantine Series

Yes, I have written a few short plays about sheltering-in-place. I mean, I'd rather not. I posted a tweet from theater artist John J. Caswell, Jr. that read, "No offense but I'm not going to go see a play reliving any of this."

He posted that two months ago.

But sometimes inspiration strikes and sometimes the results are enjoyable. Almost a month into quarantine I wrote Quarantine, which has been delightfully rendered by my long-time friends Ben and Pam, detailing the busy life of stay-at-home Gen Xers.

I've been catching up a lot with old high school friends on Zoom recently, and was made terribly aware of how the lion's share of my good high school memories are from the last several months of senior year. Having teenagers at home myself, I much more aware of what they are missing than what I currently am, in the form of cancelled concerts, parties, and ceremonies. A month ago I wrote Prom, to lend some perspective, perhaps, to the turns that life can take.

Finally, I have included here Giovanni, which started as a in-joke at work, but actually provides some sympathy to the much-maligned character of Friar John from Romeo and Juliet.


"Quarantine"
Performed by Ben Dooley & Pam Turlow

"Prom"
Performed by Maria Guardino Schreiner


"Giovanni"
Performed by Tim Keo

You can watch the entire Short Play Project here.

The Short Play Project: Philosophical Series

The short plays are always written in the morning, before I have had too much time to think, or censor myself. Sometimes the writing is merely a conversation I have with myself, debating an issue, or a thought.

I am not religious. I have considered Buddhism, though I would hardly call myself a practitioner. Even if I were, I am not prepared to consider that a belief, but a philosophy. These works reflect my recent feelings about finding peace, and making sense of a complicated planet.


"Smiling"
Performed by James Alexander Rankin


"Bodhisattva"
Graphic blandishments by Nancy Shimonek Brooks


"Karma"
Performed by JR Simons

You can watch the entire Short Play Project here.

The Short Play Project: Action Figure Series

Many among us are sheltering-at-home alone ... or with people who do not make willing acting partners. Several actors have requested monologues, but I haven't written many monologues so those went fast. Most of my short plays require two characters. A small number, even three.

These short plays have been executed with the use of action figures, Funko dolls and pretty ponies, and they have been particularly popular.


"Welcome"
Performed by Assad Khaishgi


"Troll"
Performed by Michele Kosboth


"War"
Performed by Carrie Williams

You can watch the entire Short Play Project here.

The Short Play Project: Humiliation Series

Writing these short works has provided me the opportunity to work out some of the more embarrassing moments in my life. I have been every one of these characters.


"Alone"
Performed by Tracey Gilbert & Robert Buckwalter


"T-shirt"
Performed by Michelle Ho & Kylie Nolan


"Butthole"
Performed by Samantha Cocco, Hannah Storch & Carrie Williams
 
You can watch the entire Short Play Project here.