Plays
Welcome Art Gallery Novel and Plays About SamFull-Length Comedy
Six Men, Five Women
Two young innkeepers, Alex and Rolly, are
struggling to make a success of a once-elegant
hostelry in the Hamptons, but it's tough,
especially with the owner Lucinda Pickle
breathing down their necks. Of course it doesn't
help that the hotel's permanent resident, Mrs.
Prescott, collects pet mice; that the hotel chef,
Cookie, is given to bursting into tears and
resigning; and that a petty criminal, Willis the
pickpocket, is looking for a place to hide out.
When Hollywood horror movie producer Julian
K. Silverblatt checks in with his vain bodyguard
and his sneezing secretary, things really go nuts.
Add two romance plots and soon everything
spins out of control. Gunshots, UFO sightings,
characters falling off of roofs, chef's hats
catching flame, escaping mice and, of course,
lots of flying doors make Hotel Pickle winningly
clever and chaotic.
Full-Length Christmas Production
Flexible Cast of
Men and/or Women
The Nick of Time Christmas Show is a collection
of short comedy scenes all having to do with a
theatre troupe preparing a Christmas Eve
production. These funny sketches begin with
rehearsals the day of December twenty-fourth
and conclude that evening as the cast and
audience sing Christmas Carols.
The Nick of Time Christmas Show can be
performed with a flexible cast of as few as eight
and as many as twenty-four performers. Your
group may double or triple cast the roles or you
may wish to cast all twenty-four characters. The
characters have non-gender nicknames and thus
can be played by either males or females.
Your production group is welcome to adapt the
show to your particular needs. You might choose
to present all of the scenes or you might wish to
leave a few out. Most scenes take place in the
community hall which is decorated for the big
Christmas show. A couple of scenes take place
in other locations. Scenery is minimal and
modular. The playwright suggests an
arrangement of chairs and benches.
I have another funny comedy entitled "Bubba."
Two acts, two males, two females.
Dakin Abernathy, noted film noir director, accuses his
neighbor of having murdered his own wife. In fact,
Dakin, produces a severed woman’s thumb as evidence.
Ted Mueller protests yet as the morning spins into
afternoon and a rainy evening, it begins to look as if Ted
might indeed be a murderer. But there is something
about Dakin’s manner that suggests this could just be
one of his film noir plots. Dakin’s wife, Angela,
complicates the situation with her unpredictable
personality. Their daughter, Lana Veronica, comes
home for the weekend saying she is in trouble with the
law. Ted begins to get Lana confused with the late movie
star, Veronica Lake. Dakin and Ted play cat and mouse
over murder, breaking and entering, and the very nature
of fact and fiction. Events build until the play itself
seems to become a film noir.
An impressive home in Connecticut. The kitchen and
den blend into one another. Attractive furniture and
appointments.
Two men, two women.
The art world anticipates the next great painting by
renowned artist, Mina Davenport. But Mina has
abandoned her art and is living a Bohemian life in her
cabin in the Connecticut woods with houseguests:
Father Beau, a defrocked priest, and a runaway teen,
Pim.
Art student, Danny Boudreaux, wins a summer
apprenticeship to study with Mina. He plans to improve
his technique through Mina’s tutelage and enter the
league of fine artists.
When Danny arrives at Mina’s cabin he is surprised by
her eccentric lifestyle and her thorny and uncooperative
attitude. Soon he sees that Mina’s methods of
mentorship require him to uncover the secrets of his life
and to help her face some secrets of her own. In doing
so, he enables her to start painting again and complete
her long awaited oeuvre, The One With Olives.
Four additional actors play multiple characters, and
Mina’s Muses.
The play is stylized and calls for an arrangement of
scenic elements suggesting several locations: New York
City, Mina’s studio in Connecticut and other locales.
Shifts in lighting move the story from place to place,
time to time.