Fiction                                          April, 2009

Branch to Branch                     August, 2008

Anchorhold                               August, 2007

The Vacation                               April, 2005

Mugg’s Dilemma                           May, 2003

                   

Plays that have been produced or received readings

Mugg’s Dilemma

Mugg’s Dilemma is an absurd, dark comedy about two very different men who happen to meet through truly remarkable circumstances.  Mugg is about to commit suicide when Hayward comes along and talks him out of it.  After learning that Mugg is obsessive compulsive and wishes to kill himself because he can’t deal with a messy, imperfect world (not to mention a very disgusting roommate) Hayward takes pity.  He offers Mugg a new place to live with free rent if he promises to keep the place clean and to not kill himself.  Mugg graciously accepts and sets to work vacuuming his new home.

The Vacation

The Vacation is a short play about a day in the lives of two brothers.  Dan, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, watches over his brother Ray, who is developmentally disabled.  They spend the day in the park, monitored by nurses from their mental health facility.  Dan is in love with one of the nurses and believes there is no way she will ever love him back unless he gets rid of his brother, who gets most of the attention.  Dan must decide if the love for his brother outweighs his desire to break away and ultimately become his own man.  This play is about the bonds of family, and when it is the right time to either grow old with someone or grow apart.

Anchorhold

Anchorhold is a full-length play that explores survival, and what the individual considers it to be.  Renee lives in a society where non-governmental art is banned.  As an artist, she must choose what is more important to her: risking everything to continue her art in secret, or depriving herself of what makes her feel alive.  Ryan, her model, finances for the economically crippled government while keeping devastating secrets from his wife, Nora.  Together they struggle to keep their relationship alive as she shuts herself away from a world of rising violence. 

    When one of Renee’s closest friends asks for something she cannot give, he reveals her illegal drawings to the outside world.  As her identity is exposed, Renee finds herself seeking asylum in the most unlikely of places. 

    In a society where isolation can mean both salvation and damnation, life’s simple choices lead to much greater consequences in the end.

Branch to Branch

    Branch to Branch is a one-act play that explores the many similarities of our caged ancestors, the primates. 

   

    This dark comedy revolves around the daily lives of five monkeys at the Philadelphia Zoo: what they think, do, how they love and hate.  The story lines between human and monkey weave together as the roles begin to switch.  It is told through the eyes of a silverback with an identity crises, a hardened loan shark, a gambling father of an ailing son, and a lonesome female baboon, just to name a few.  This play focuses on getting what you want, but at a price.  It is about the boundaries we create in our minds and how they affect our needs and desires in our every day lives. 

Fiction

Fiction is a full-length play about all of the difficult truths that are faced toward the end of a relationship, and the difficulties in dealing with them.

Kennedy, a successful author, is writing a new book about sex workers, much to the vexation of his long time girlfriend, Ella.  Kennedy’s muse is Gretchen, a mysteriously beautiful phone sex operator, whose attraction for him runs deeper than he realizes.  As she reveals the cracks in his relationship with Ella, Kennedy finds himself questioning his own methods in writing and in life.  Sometimes lies are the only thing keeping a relationship together and when you remove those lies, the relationship can come to an end.