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Synopses of Scripts

Full Lengths

Meet John Doe - A stage version of the 1941 movie directed by Frank Capra with a screenplay by Robert Riskin. A media-created celebrity faces a moment of truth when the sham political movement built around him falls to pieces.

In The Name Of - In a time when the USA-PATRIOT Act is standard practice, a young man hits upon the possibility of personal freedom -- and the government hits back, hard.

• a sample

A Question of Color - In 1907, a white man and a black woman defy North Carolina's ban on interracial marriages and get married. The play is based on the memoir of the same name by Sara Beattie.

• a sample • an essay on adapting the memoir • production pictures • two posters • an interview • several reviews • the screenplay version

Dancing at the Revolution - Emma Goldman, exiled in France, feels exiled from her own life as she struggles to write the autobiography of the "most dangerous woman in America."

• a sample • an interview • some reviews • a poster

Prisoner A-7 - The tale of Alexander Berkman, also known as Sasha and the life-long companion of Emma Goldman, and his fight for a better world through the principles of anarchism.

Ain't Ethiopia - After whites lynch his wife, an African-American man goes to Spain in 1937 to fight Franco -- only to find that he must face down the home-town fascists who murdered her if his life, and his wife's death, is to mean anything.

• a sample • the screenplay version; a version for a reading

Light. Fantastic. - After an attempt to take his own life, Prof. Cluny Martin, prompted by his wife Ana, convinces Dr. Hugh Solomon to bring him into his experiments on manipulating brain synapses with laser light, touching on the weighty matters of brain neurons and addiction, two forbidden kisses, single-malt scotch, and the green dance of blue and yellow lasers.

Seven Ladies Macbeth - What happened before and after Lady Macbeth became Lady Macbeth? (Inspired by Howard Barker's Seven Lears.)

• a sample

On The Nature Of The Dark Matter That Dominates The Present Mean Mass Density Of The Universe - Charges of "liberal bias" against a white law professor with black ancestors also becomes infected with slurs about racial identity.

• a sample

Pictures At An Exhibition - A photographer accused of abuse for taking nude photos of her son does jail-time rather than admit any wrong-doing. She meets a cell-mate serving time for abetting the death of her own daughter.

• a sample • some reviews • a poster • Sin Eater, a one-act version of Act II

When The Phones Came To Liberty Creek - In 1999, Liberty Creek, a rural "unincorporated territory," still does not have phone service. But when service finally arrives, traditions and fights start and end with a simple dial tone.

• a sample • a one-act version • an interview

Esquina - A police officer is charged with murdering 17-year old Jose Aral, and the Aral family is never the same.

• a sample

Hardball - In 1922, semi-pro Jewish pitching phenom Henry Kaner gets an offer from the St. Louis Browns -- if he'll play on Shabbos. What to do with this version of the American dream?

• a sample

Bright Gold Promise - A story of betrayal prompted by a thirst for real estate.

• a sample

NEA High - A high school senior, awarded an art grant by her city council, creates a painting that criticizes the policy on sex education. Art, politics, and freedom mix it up when her painting is pulled from an exhibition.

The Happy City - Based on The Plague by Albert Camus, a river-port city in the mid-West in depths-of-the-Depression 1932 is closed because of bubonic plague -- the first of many afflictions suffered by the people.

• a sample

The Measure of All Things - The French Revolution sent out two men to measure the world to establish the meter, and they ended up measuring more than their science would admit.

Shea Man - An anthropologist plants the bones of the "missing link" on his family's farm to generate hype and cash. But when the "evidence" falls into the hands of a P.T. Barnum-style promoter who sees gold in gullibility, all goes awry.

• a screenplay version

One-Acts

Stimulus (3 males or 3 females or some combination) -- Laurel and Jewel (war veterans), along with Deke (a survivalist) and Nub (Laurel's husband), decide to kidnap their political representative, Albumen, to buy him out so that he'll work for them directly.

When The Military Bares Its Breast, The Eagle Finds Its True Devotion (3 males or 3 females or some combination) -- Carver is back home in the land she defended after doing her tours. It is not a place that necessarily has a place for her.

Melts In Air (2 females, 2 males) -- A middle-aged man loses his job, and he and his wife decide it is time to fight back.

Samaritan (5 males, 1 female) -- Based on two biblical stories -- the parable of the Samaritan and the meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well -- the play examines answers to the main question of the parable: "And who is my neighbor?"

• a sample

Homeward Bound (3 males, 3 females) -- At the intersection of domestic violence and immigration, a young undocumented Mexican woman is caught in an abusive marriage with an American citizen and must find a way to either escape or die.

• a sample • an account of the production of the play

Mine Eyes - The narrator tells an interviewer about his PR work for the American militia. He now struggles to re-join a world he's done much to damage.

• an iinterview • two reviews • our Fringe 2003 website • a poster

Translation - An American appraiser of art photography must trust a linguist-for-hire to translate a journal which most certainly contains (un)wanted revelations from another woman she met on a business trip in Germany.

• a sample • a review

Sin Eater - This is a revision of the second act of Pictures at an Exhibition (see description above).

The Most Dangerous Woman in America - A one actor piece based on the life of the anarchist Emma Goldman.

The First Day of the Seventh Month - A perfectly healthy man, deciding that he has only six months to live, sets out to live as if that were true. Then the sun rises on the first day of the seventh month.

When The Phones Came To Liberty Creek - In 1999, Liberty Creek, a rural "unincorporated territory," still does not have phone service. But when service finally arrives, traditions and fights start and end with a simple dial tone.

• a sample • the full-length version

A Round of Slaughter - An exiled playwright comes home when the government turns outwardly democratic. She accepts a commission for a play to honor the changes, but a former slaughterhouse cannot stop being a slaughterhouse overnight.

• a sample

Poly X - Using the Greek story of Polyxena, the last sacrifice made in the Trojan War (unlike Iphegenia, the first sacrifice, Polyxena was not saved), Poly X is a play about the anger, mayhem, and sport of war.

• a sample • essays on theatre and war: Writing Plays In A Time Of War, What's A Writer To Do?, and What's A Writer To Do? Part 3

The Business - Christian business ethics are now the corporate rage in the Avantguard Investments mutual fund company -- until Peter Waldo begins to question whether Jesus would ever have been a CEO.

To...Or Not... -- On the annual January combat between pro-lifers and pro-choicers, seventy-year-old Alma Gordon and mother Melinda Marsh have a few things to say to each other as they cool their heels in a police van.

• the short version

Let Down The Rains ) -- A well-known radio therapist tells such a story to the cabbie taking her to catch a train to Vermont that the cabbie, after he drops her off, doesn't think New York-to-Vermont is that far out of his way to pick up his fare.

• a sample

Another Seascape - Using Edward Albee's Seascape as a starting point, two comfortable, but whiny, bourgeoisie are confronted by two existentialist lizards about why they think they have it so bad.

Still Small Voice (1 female, 4 males) -- A writer, Robert Walser, comes to the end of his latest literary production.

Click (long version) - Using the premise of my short play Click, this version explores the day after.

Shorter Pieces

Miscellaneous pieces running from 5 to 30 minutes.

The Adulterous Woman (1 male, 1 female) -- Staring out across the desert, in a country not her own, Janine finds a perfection that she had not anticipated and does not yet know if it will accept her. (Inspired by the story by Albert Camus.) -- 15 pages

An Affair of State (1 female) -- The Senator from the great state of [fill in the blank] has something to say to the Ethics Committee. -- 2 page

The Alamo (1 older female, 1 male) -- A mouthy panhandler and a sophomore at a prestigious university have very different philosophies about life. -- 12 pages

The Bête Goes Noire (1 female, 2 males) -- Charon the Boatman will show up in the strangest places these days. -- 10 pages

Bintl Briv (1 male, 1 female) -- Abraham Cahan, editor of the Jewish Forward, meets Lola Ridge in 1906 -- and their relationship is very much like the letters to the editor, the "bintl briv," of complaints, temptations, and possibilities. -- 24 pages

Biog (1 female, 1 male) -- Capella Secrest, famed author of biographies, meets her match in the secrets business in her assistant, Nigel Hamilton -- and she's not above using a little fire-power to help win the struggle. -- 8 pages

The Body Electric (2 males) -- During the Civil War, Walt Whitman volunteered his time as a nurse. Always close to those he helped, he finds his spirit drawn to Henry Smith, who refuses to let the doctors take his leg. -- 6 pages

Booger (1 male) -- Paul, a former Catholic altar boy, recalls a moment when his true religious faith was revealed to him that was as plain as the nose on his face. -- 4 pages

Breast of Show (2 females) -- Felice Gallagher-Jimenez runs Breast of Show, which offers information and products for breastfeeding mothers, out of her street-level unit in a very exclusive residential building. The building association, in the person of Elizabeth Thornton, president, has decided to fine Ms. Gallagher Jimenez for keeping her street door open for her "moms," an action that Felice must challenge and not accept. -- 10 pages

Burning Issues (1 male, 1 female) -- Love is politics by another name when it comes to burning sacred books. -- 9 pages

But Her Heart Is Warm (1 male, 2 females) -- A police officer asks a homeowner to put some clothes on the nude snow sculpture she makes - and the sculpture has something to say about this. -- 10 pages

Catalog (2 males or 1 male/1 female) -- When everything can be bought from home or on-line, even death will have its own catalog. A story of how far capitalism will go to get market share. -- 4 pages

The City of Mosques (2 males, 1 female - all Nigerian) -- The knock upon the door, the knife-edged news given by an Armed Services officer -- and then the next day, and the day after that. The death of a young man in Fallujah, Iraq, the "city of mosques." -- 13 pages

Click (2 males) -- When Marlin reveals to Pinto what he did in the park that night, it changes the whole nature of the moral universe they inhabit. -- 10 pages

Combover (2 males) -- Dual McKenzie confesses to his barber, Clay Harrison, that he is a little worried about what his wife will think about the "thinning thatch" on his head, especially since she seems to be pursuing life with a gusto that unnerves him. -- 10 pages

Courier Mercury (1 male or 1 female) -- Jukie di Gamba is a bicycle courier extraordinaire, who sees his journey through the city streets as the modern-day version of Mercury delivering messages for the gods. -- 3 pages

DOT ORG (2 males or 2 females) -- A hapless computer user envisions God as a sophisticated (though not error-free) software and the rest of us as hapless lines of code in various stages of debugging. -- 3 pages

Downsize (2 males, 2 females) -- When Hannah inadvertently pours water on the boss and melts him away, she and her three co-workers are momentarily released into their own freedom, which terrifies and excites them: what to do when you don't have a boss? -- 13 pages

Ear Buds (any combination) -- When we love our devices, and they love us back. -- 10 pages

Electricity (2 males) -- An America newcomer to the town of El Bolsón expects certain amenties to be available. They are, but in ways that The Engineer has to demonstrate. -- 8 pages

Equal. Separate. (1 white female, 1 black female) -- Pat, white, and Chris, black, long-time friends and survivors of being "women in the building trades," lose their friendship when, over a shot and a beer, Chris finds out that Pat wouldn't let her daughter date Chris' son. -- 13 pages

• watch a Flash presentation

Everything's Jake (2 females) -- When Jane reveals to Jacqui her strong love for Jacqui, she finds that Jacqui is willing to accept it -- but there is the small matter of someone named Jack that Jacqui needs to talk about. -- 10 pages

The Famine Church (2 males, 1 female) -- God and Mammon clash in this tale of gentrification on the Lower East Side of New York City. -- 17 pages

Fare Thee Well (6 females) -- Six women gather for a very special farewell party to one of their own in this celebration about facing and surviving breast cancer. -- 12 pages

Frankie Is Dead (1 female, 1 male, 1 male or female) -- Gina has to suffer the bullying of Frankie because the adult world will not protect her. She has only has one weapon left: to wish for his unequivocal death. -- 8 pages

The Games of Time (1 female, 1 male) -- Asaf and Jorgelina literally fall into a painting, and then into love. -- 7 pages

George Bailey Redivivus (2 males) -- Life goes on for George Bailey after the last reel of It's A Wonderful Life - but not much happens. So Clarence once again has to give him a hand, though with a very different offer this time around. -- 3 pages

Glory Train (2 males, 2 females) -- The nature and purpose of life can become very immediate as four travelers find out when a disturbed young woman threatens them all with a vial of what she says is anthrax. -- 8 pages

Good Tidings (1 male, 1 female) -- When Roger refuses to give the servants a gratuity at Christmastime, they show him that the servants oftentimes know more about the masters than the masters know about the servants. -- 4 pages

The Greed Gene (2 males, 1 female - though the doctor can be played by a female) -- Genetic counseling may not be a blessing, as Norman and Lauren Drago learn from Dr. Targus, their "Genie of Genes," that their new child will possess the "greed gene." -- 10 pages

Hammer (2 females) -- Delia, a construction worker, smacked the eleven-year old son of her boyfriend when he told her that he didn't want to learn anything about carpentry from a "girl." Does such violence nip violence in the bud? -- 10 pages

Hannah And The Maccabees (2 females) -- A stroke-crippled Hannah has four words she can use -- "yes," "no," "ohjesus," and "whoa" -- to explain to Carol, her social worker, why she tried to slash her wrist on a broken piece of glass. -- 10 pages. [NOTE: This play has also been done with a male as the social worker and appropriate changes made in the script.]

Hold On (1 male, 1 female) -- Cappy and Ronnie, at the end of their seven-year relationship, suddenly have to keep a car teetering on the edge of the bridge from plunging in. Can they hold on long enough?-- 10 pages

Hole In The Pocket (1 male, 1 female) -- A well-meaning Christian woman, trying to help a man keep money from falling out of a hole in his pocket, faces the devil for good intentions. -- 7 pages

How Do You Like Your Blueeyed Boy... (1 male, 1 female) -- Lilah Lawton hunts down Dr. Jeremiah Kissov, an active proponent of "dignicides," when she learns he has helped her mother end her life. She is determined to get solace, no matter what it takes. -- 12 pages

I Know What I Did Not Know (1 male, 2 females) -- A worker asks a playwright to write a love letter for her. In writing the letter, he discovers what he should have been writing all along. -- 9 pages

If Cleanliness (1 male, 3 females) -- It is 1894, and young Brigid Yeats, working as a stitcher in a workshop and a maid in the rectory, has a revelation about water, Emma Goldman, and our blessed St. Brigid. -- 18 pages

In The Fort (1 male child, 1 female) -- At school someone calls Pablo's father a "wetback," but Pablo mis-hears it as "wetvac," which confuses him: his father a vacuum cleaner? Luz, his mom, soothes him but knows differently. -- 8 pages

Ishmael and Ahab Mon Amour (3 males) -- Based on the last chapter and epilogue of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, the Whale sets the most dangerous challenge for Ahab: to seek out the forgiveness of Ishmael, the only survivor of the drowned Pequod -- 12 pages

Isn't A Date in Eight A Great Idea, Or What? (1 male, 1 female) -- In eight minutes of "speed dating," expectations can be confounded in many interesting ways. -- 11 pages (Watch a performance done by Flush Ink Productions.)

J. De La Vega (1 male or 1 female) -- Violence in the barrios of New York is not uncommon, and with great sadness but pain-filled love, street artist J. De La Vega does not let these deaths disappear as street-level memorials to the fallen victims of poverty, racism, and simple bad luck bloom on walls, sidewalks, and buildings. -- 5 pages

Las Cartas (3 males) -- Friends of the Peruvian poet Juan Ramón Jimínez, in order to speed his recovery in a sanatorium on the outskirts of Spain, compose "fan" letters from one Georgina Hübner, which have the desired remedial effect. But when Juan decides to travel back to Lima to meet Georgina, the friends decide to let Georgina "pass away" instead of revealing their well-intentioned hoax to their friend. -- 12 pages

Leaf Meal (1 male, 1 female) -- An experiment to modify humans to make them able to photosynthesize sunlight makes for a very interesting love story. -- 9 pages

Llorona (1 male, 1 female) -- A young woman, abandoned by the father of their child when he marries someone else, exacts her revenge for his betrayal. -- 6 pages

Location: Highway. Time: Near Dusk (1 female, 2 males or 2 females or 1 female and one male) -- Adam is picked up for causing a disturbance on the highway when she sees the seventh deer hit and left to die. -- 13 pages

Love Letters (1 male, 1 female) -- When Dale finds a bundle of love letters addressed to her but unsent by her husband Roger, her feelings for him are revived. Roger, however, knows that "Dale" is not necessarily the same gender as his wife. -- 3 pages

Making Light: The Found Letters of Hester Prynne (5 women) -- A spoken word/recitation piece based on my short story Hester. -- 15 pages

The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (2 females, 4 males, but some roles interchangable) -- An adaptation of the short story by Mark Twain. -- 25 pages

Memorial Day (2 males) -- A soldier seeks absolution for killing a child while on tour in one of America's wars. -- 6 pages

Mission Creep (2 males, 1 female) -- Military technology finds a place in the home. -- 6 pages

Mochila Bears the Chrysalis of the World (2 actors, genders interchangable) -- Derek and Luz, living "pre-apoc" under the highway, have a chance to recreate the universe, enclosed as it is in a backpack full of dark matter. -- 11 pages

Moment (2 males, 1 female, 5 males or females) -- When a bank robber fires his gun at Robert, multiple life-times play out in the time and distance between muzzle-flash and the bullet's destination. -- 3 pages

Mucho Macho (2 males) -- On a simple day on a simple subway ride, two men cannot resist the testosterone urge to do ritual combat. -- 6 pages

Newyorkistan (3 males) -- A chance encounter with a street performer gives two New York City subway riders two very different experiences of what life is about. -- 2 pages

No Great Loss (2 females, one of which is Ethiopian) -- Emma Newmark's hair is thinning, as is her patience with Awagu Kidane, her hair-dresser, whose comments about how trim Emma's husband Spurgeon is looking makes Emma wonder what her hair-dresser knows for sure. -- 11 pages

Not Here (1 males, 4 others) -- Jeff Boss sends the President of the United States a podcast. -- 8 pages

Only The Dead Know Brooklyn (4 males) -- An adaptation of the 1936 short story of the same name by Thomas Wolfe. The script contains both Wolfe's phonetic idioms of a Brooklyn accent and a "regularized" version. -- 17 pages

On Your Mark (2 males) -- Louis and Lewis, two brothers, contemplate good reasons not to complete a choreographed suicide. It's a very short, and not altogether convincing, list. -- 13 pages

Our Throats Are Hoarse With Wild Laughter (1 male, 1 female) -- Nathan wrestles with his conscience about whether he should act as a suicide bomber -- and the conscience is not faring well. -- 12 pages

Pamplona (8 actors, any mix) -- The running of the bulls in Pamplona -- and several of the bulls have some existential questions. -- 13 pages

Patricia No Longer Works Here (1 male, 1 female) -- When Patricia is fired unexpectedly from her job, she finds liberation. -- 12 pages

Phlegraean Fields of the Sea of Sicily, or Ferdinandea (1 male, 1 male or female) -- Giuseppe Trentino waits for a volcano to erupt off the coast of Sicily while talking to an albatross. -- 10 pages

Ripped From The Headlines (5 males, 3 females) -- A meditation on the murder of Matthew Shepard. -- 10 pages

Road Rage (1 male, 1 female) -- Winston D'Cline, a driving instructor, is normally pretty cool at the wheel. Until one day he isn't. -- 6 pages

Rooted (1 male with light Irish accent, 1 female African-American) -- When Irishman Addison O'Riley buys a cemetery plot for himself, he does not know that it sits next to Minerva O'Riley's, the black groundskeeper for the cemetery. -- 15 pages

Seconds (2 females) -- Sue, a fire fighter and EMT, tries to save the young woman trapped in a wrecked car she drove herself off the road to end her own misery. Sue cannot let the woman die - but the decision is not all in her hands. -- 9 pages

A Senior Moment (5 females) -- Jewel, Darcy, Salvia, and Seeromanie, all in their sixties, wonder why Chantelle, also in her sixties, is looking good these days -- too good. -- 15 pages

Slam Quartet (2 males, 2 females) -- Slam poetry is all the sonic rage, and the final quartet of Jugger, Jukie, Pagan, and Mikey aim to bring the decibel level up a notch or two as they go for the championship of the "Doo-Dah, Doo-Dah Slam Poetry Contest." -- 11 pages

The Socialist Book of Love(1 male, 1 female) -- Yury has refused to surrender to the capitalist onslaught of his small socialist country. But his building is now going condo and the owner, Yalena, wants him out. -- 17 pages

Sporting Goods (2 males) -- What can touching "sports-approved flesh" lead to? -- 4 pages

T62 Afghanistan 1988 (4 males) -- A Soviet tank crew at the ass-end of the Afghan war is trying to make it home in one piece. -- 10 pages.

Tangled Web (9 actors, mixed genders) -- An act of protest against the corporate take-over of a high school endangers soft drinks in the vending machines. -- 13 pages.

Text Vexed (2 males) -- Ephraim crashes his car while texting, which Reese witnesses. While waiting for the police to show up, Ephraim tries to convince Reese not to divulge what he saw, or else Ephraim will have to suffer for what he did and did not do. -- 5 pages.

There Is No Greater Grief Than For A Loss That Is Yet To Come (2 males) -- One man drinks two glasses of wine for him and his far-away friend. Then, one night, there is only one glass on the table. -- 3 pages.

To...Or Not... (2 females) -- Seventy-year old Alma Gordon is not going to let the pro-life barbarians win -- not ever. -- 14 pages. (There is also one-act version of this piece.)

Touching Down (2 males, one Native American: Seneca Nation) -- Thomas Touch-Fire, old, crippled, exhausted, wants a permanent exit. But son-in-law Lindbergh, remembering the Seneca legends his father-in-law has taught him, offers Thomas another road. -- 14 pages

Treetop (1 male, 1 female) -- Julia Jackson Sequoia Sempervirens, a redwood tree-sitter for two years, is coming close to a resolution with the company that will result in the redwood being saved from logging. -- 18 pages

Undress Me (1 male/ 1 female) -- Stefan and Laura explore the diphthongs of desires as Laura asks Stefan, in the middle of a crowded bar, to undress her with words in his best mother tongue. -- 12 pages (There is also a female same-sex version of the play.)

Veterans Day Parade (5 males) -- Four veterans, on the advice of their barkeep, choose to defy the town's cancellation of the Veterans Day parade because of budget cuts caused by the globalization of capital. -- 9 pages

When Ayn Rand Walked In L.A. (2 females, 2 males) -- A trio of LA economic desperates holds Alan Greenspan captive in hopes the capitalist system will reconfigure. -- 11 pages

Whispers (2 females) -- The fight over a family inheritance washes past the great-grandmother and her great-grandaughter. -- 12 pages

The Window (3 males or 3 females or some combination) -- One patient in the room had the window; the other didn't but wanted it fiercely. Finally, the first patient has the wish granted. -- 3 pages

Childrens Plays

Young Audiences

Brain Drain -- In this tale of gentle trickery, Crocodile is ready to eat El Mono (The Monkey) when El Mono fools him with a diversion. Though Crocodile is faster and stronger than El Mono, El Mono uses his brains to outwit brawn, showing (at least sometimes) that the mind is faster than muscle.

The Tale of Blanca Flor -- Juan is a good dancer but a lousy gambler. One day, tired of losing his shirt, he says to himself, "I would give anything to be able to win when I gamble." Just then, El Diablo shows up riding a black horse and says, "Tell me what you want."

• a sample

Beware Of What You Ask For -- A story about the unintended consequences of desire, based on the South American tale The Rooster's Claw.

Middle Schoolers

Macbeth's Children: A Confrontation with William Shakespeare's Macbeth -- Macbeth's Children focuses on Fleance, the escaped son of the murdered Banquo. The play draws on the effect of violence (especially military violence) on children, what "masculinizing" does to men and women, and the cost for children in living in a world brutally directed by adults.

• version for older student actors • a sample • Cambridge (MA) performance pictures • NH Theatre Project performance pictures • a Flash presentation about the play

The Patron Saint of Geeks -- Bobby and Chad are close friends in the fifth grade. Classified as "geeks," they are pushed to the edge and contemplate ways to equalize the situation.

• a sample

The Real Temple -- All of life is a journey, and Lorenzio finds this out literally when, in a waking dream, he falls through his mirror into a slightly wacky King Arthur-world that takes him on a search for beauty, strength, and wisdom. (This could also be done by high school students.)

• a sample

The Way -- Aviva Matthews is a very popular and successful girl in school. But one day she tries to break up a fight at school between a girl and her friend Ruby, and the incident affects her deeply. Studying Lao-Tzu's "The Way" in her World Religions class, she decides to use the power of meditation to end the violence.

Teenagers

No More Prisons -- Clique, a young woman, has been tagging every available surface with the phrase "No More Prisons" to tell the story of her sister, Johanna, imprisoned for a murder Johanna committed at the age of seventeen.

• a sample

The Most Dangerous Woman in America -- Using the format of a lecture, this play presents a one-woman rendition of Emma Goldman, focusing on both the life and the ideas that motivated it. When the play opens, Goldman is approximately in her early fifties, about the time of her exile from the U.S. in 1920: stout, near-sighted, plain.

Screenplays

Full Lengths

Ain't Ethiopia - After local whites lynch his wife as a suspected Communist, African-American Jesse Colton travels to Spain in 1937 to fight Franco. But there he finds that his real battle is with the fascists in the small Mississippi town from which he escaped and that he must return to face them down if his life, and his wife's death, is to have any meaning.

• third Place in the 2005 Filmmakers International Screenplay Competition (out of 1273 entries) • one of 200 projects for the 2004 IFP Conference & Market out of a field of 1600 entries.

By The River - This is a screenplay version of the play A Question of Color. Two people, John Wicks (white) and Susan Morgan (black), defy an early 20th-century North Carolina prohibition against miscegenation and get married. The story follows Susan and John as they struggle to make full lives under the shadow cast by color and prejudice.

• finalist, Sundance Institute 2002 screenplay competition.

The Nun Drops Her Veil - A nun doing missionary work in Patagonia, Argentina, during the government's "Dirty War" must trust a priest with military ties to find who has been killing the peasants and union leaders who are also her friends.

The Sunlight Dialogues - Based on the novel of the same name by John Gardner, a small-city police chief must confront the meaning and purpose of her own existence when she takes into custody a self-proclaimed anarchist named Sunlight.

Shea Man - An anthropologist plants the bones of the "missing link" on his family's farm to generate hype and cash. But when the "evidence" falls into the hands of a P.T. Barnum-style promoter who sees gold in gullibility, all goes awry.

Georgia's Miss Baby - A young man loses his mother, and to deal with his grief, he joins the Marines. But during his last summer before shipping out, he meets a nervy nonagenarian with her own battles about an absent mother.

Shorts

Downsize - Hannah spills water on the boss and melts him down, just like the Wicked Witch in Oz. What now? -- 17 pages

Touching Down - Seneca Indian Thomas Touch-Fire, aged and tired, wants to exit his life with son-in-law Lindbergh's help. But Lindbergh, remembering the legends his father-in-law taught him, offers Thomas another way out. -- 24 pages

Everything's Jake - When Jane reveals to Jacqui her strong love for Jacqui, she finds that Jacqui is willing to accept it -- but there is the small matter of someone named Jack that Jacqui needs to talk about. -- 14 pages

In The Fort - At school someone calls Pablo's father a "wetback," but Pablo mis-hears it as "wetvac," which confuses him: his father a vacuum cleaner? Luz, his mom, soothes him but knows that the world is closing in. -- 10 pages

Hold On - As Cappy and Ronnie discuss the end of their relationship, a car crashes on a bridge and teeters on the edge -- only they can keep it from falling over. As they hold on to the car, they wonder if they can hold on to themselves. -- 19 pages

Glory Train - A young woman threatens her fellow subway riders all with a vial of what she says is anthrax. -- 12 pages

Equal. Separate. - Pat, white, and Chris, black, long-time friends and survivors of being "women in the building trades," lose their friendship when, over a shot and a beer, Chris finds out that Pat wouldn't let her daughter date Chris' son. -- 17 pages

Tips - Two dollars on the counter, a tired waitress eying her tip, and a down-and-out man with itchy fingers. -- 2 pages.

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