Play a Day: Peter Cratchit, Esq.

Kerr Lockhart

For Tuesday, I read Peter Cratchit, Esq. by Kerr Lockhart and available at New Play Exchange.

A sequel to Dickens's classic, the son of Bob and Emily Cratchit is the director of the charitable organization left behind by Ebenezer Scrooge. Lockhart creates snappy, witty conversation, and peoples the story with characters original and familiar, a celebration of the world of non-profit and the pople in it.

This Christmas fable takes place in the middle of August, something I can entirely sympathize with as I, too, have to begin celebrating the holidays in my own way at that time of year, sending the guidelines to our holiday writing contest to Cleveland public schools in the middle of summer.

Who should I read tomorrow?

J. Todd Adams as Bob Cratchit
(Great Lakes Theater, 2014)

Pandemonium 19

Bryce Evan Lewis & Adrionna Powell Lawrence
in rehearsal for a scene from "The Witches"

Some years I have offered ten-minute plays to the folks at Cleveland Public Theatre for their annual Pandemonium gala, others scenes from full-length plays in progress. Eight years ago it was a scene from These Are The Times, in 2012 a brief sketch of a scene which would eventually become Adventures In Slumberland.

Currently I am working on a full-length play titled The Witches, a comedy which ties together my love of roadside attractions, American history and the world of non-profit education.

In the back of my mind I have wanted to write a play about the Colonial Witch Panic of 1692, but it’s one thing to want to have written something and another to know what it is that you want to say. Recent events have inspired me, and characters have been populating my mind. The plot has been slowly unfolding and I look forward to where it will all end.

A few weeks ago a colleague messaged me in the middle of the day asking, “We are in Salem. Any tips?” It’s always flattering when someone looks to you for advice as where to go in a certain location, you feel like a world-renown traveler. I quickly rattled off a short list of places appropriate for a family with teenagers and young adult children, places cheesy, stately, and of course a place to eat that would make everyone happy.

For this new script, however, I wanted to create a fictional city. Citizens in villages surrounding Salem, like in Andover, Beverly and Topsfield were also charged. What if we created a small city whose claim to fame was only one accused of witchcraft? And what if a popular YouTuber was on a cross-country road trip and stopped in to fictional Bradbury, Massachusetts to check out the state’s 27th most-popular witch-themed attraction?

The scene we are presenting Saturday evening is a midnight visit to the Bradbury Memorial Cemetery on the first day of spring, directed by Kim Seabright Martin and featuring Bryce Evan Lewis, Adrionna Powell Lawrence, Maggie Stahl and Lisa L. Wiley.

Cleveland Public Theatre presents "Pandemonium 2019: Alchemy" this Saturday, September 7, 2019.