n/a

n/a

NY Shakespeare Festival, NYC

1977

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY

1982

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Play/Drama

3

1

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:
The scene is a rundown farm in Vermont where two brothers, Billy Irish and Joe Witness, tell each other tales of their conversations with the likes of Mick Dagger and Bob Dylan and (as they also imagine themselves to be Jesse and Frank James) of the men they have killed in the course of their criminal careers. When a young couple appear, claiming that their car has broken down, Billy and Joe suspect a trap - a premonition which is borne out when the boy and girl shortly steal back, announcing that they ate Bonnie and Clyde and taking the two brothers captive. When all four are then encircled and held at bay by an unseen force which gives them two minutes to surrender, the line between fantasy and reality is blurred still further and yet, somehow, also illuminated by the ensuing talk of Vietnam, political assassinations, religious fanatics, Charles Manson and other people and events of America's turbulent recent past. In the end Billy shoots Joe and then goes out to face a fusillade of bullets himself - but no

New York

1997

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:

Public Theatre, NY >>>

1983

-

Dramatists Play Service, New York & Methuen, London

1983

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Comedy

3

2

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:
The scene is the newsroom of a small-city newspaper, the time late in the evening. The morning edition has just been "put to bed" and, ironically, so has the paper-as the editor has received word that this edition will be the last. The tired staffers-the editor; his long-time mistress (who edits the women's page); the aging copy boy (who used to be a promising reporter until drink and frustration took over); and the brashly self-confident cub reporter-are further jarred by a report that a bomb has been planted in the building and will explode within the hour. Dealing with this double-edged crisis leads to challenging and revealing confrontations, which reach a climax in two particularly vivid and dramatically gripping scenes-the unexpected appearance of the editor's neglected wife, and the exposure of the bomber. In the end the building is saved, but the paper must still die and, with it, the purpose and focus of the wise-cracking, cynical, fallible but essentially decent people for whom it has been a real ho

New York

1987

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:

Philadelphia

1990

-

-

-

-

Musical

3

3

-

Notes:
written with Arnold Weinstein, music by William Bolcom

Synopsis:
Problems of a faltering marriage with West Indian Couple in a single room

Performing Arts Repertory Theater tour

1979

-

auth manuscript

-

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Childrens

Youth Audience

-

-

-

Notes:
for children produced on tour

Synopsis:

Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Waterford, CT, USA >>>

1988

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

1989

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Play/Drama

6

2

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:
Jimmie, a salesman who loved his work, is thrown for a loop when his job is "extirpated" and seeks solace in bourbon. Jimmie, who is full of self-deluding swagger about his sense of dedication, and is, perhaps, not too bright, is grateful when his friend Curly offers him a job working for his father, Vinnie-even though his prospective employer turns out to be a loan-sharking mobster. Put to work collecting debts and performing other unsavory tasks, Jimmie, eager as ever to satisfy his boss, is eventually jailed on a murder rap, but bargains his way to freedom by agreeing (secretly) to inform on his associates. But as Jimmie moves up in the mob hierarchy, the more his anguish and longing for respectability increase, exacerbated by the defection of his friend Curly (who falls into disfavor with his father and takes a lowly job in a diner); the guilt he feels at murdering a derelict (a former friend who happened to owe money to Vinnie); and the disaffection of his daughter, Wanda (who loves to fish, but is alway

Costa Mesa, California

1989

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:

NY Shakespeare Festival, NYC

1978

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY

1980

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Play/Drama

15

4

-

Notes:
Starred Richard Chamberlain as Bill, Dixie Carter as Calamity Jane, and Brad Davis as Jack McCall. There were songs, yes, sung by those leads and others, with music by Brad Burg and lyrics by Thom Babe. Also, the script was later bought for films and inco

Synopsis:
The scene is a bar in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, in 1876, where Wild Bill Hickok, now aging and growing blind, holds court. Despite his failing powers, Bill is respected and feared by the colorful habitues of the "Number Ten" saloon, and even the suggestion that he was a ruthless, cowardly killer who shot his victims in the back cannot dispel the aura of invincibility which surrounds him. But his confidence is shaken by the arrival of Jack McCall, a fiery tempered young desperado who vows to kill him and who claims to be Bill's illegitimate son. Taunted by Calamity Jane, McCall pours out the bitterness he feels at Bill's abandonment and humiliation of himself and his mother and, as the tension mounts, it is clear that, this time, Bill will not resist the inevitable. His death is, in a sense, an expiation, and for his killer, a desperate attempt at communication with the man he both loves and hates and cannot reach in any other way.

New York

1997

-

-

-

-

Musical

-

-

-

Notes:
written with Mildred Kayden and William Squier

Synopsis:

Costa Mesa, California

1992

-

Broadway Play Publishing, New York

1998

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-

4

4

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:
The author himself has called this sprawling opus `a little of this, a little of that, part musical, part tragedy, part melodrama' and he should know. GREAT DAY is all of the above and more, drawing heavily for its inspiration from Elizabeth Wharton Drexel's book `King Lehr and the Gilded Age', but laced also with inventive helpings of Babe's own brand of vitiating humour and sobering seriousness. The seriousness is personified in the fictionalised Wharton Drexel character, here called Bessie, the young, wealthy, recently widowed Philadelphian who moved to New York in the late 1800s in search of adventure. She found more of it than she bargained for in the shape of a curious new husband: glittery Harry Lehr who sang for his supper at all the `A' parties of New York's upper crust. To assess that tainted, extravagant whirl, Babe juxtaposes Elizabeth's innocence with Harry's decadence, tossing in various examples of the Rich (arrogant Caroline Astor, outree Mrs Stuyvesant Fish) and Famous (a gently wise-cracking

New Haven, Connecticut

1977

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY

1981

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Play/Drama

5

4

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:
The play is comprised of two distinctly separate yet interconnected acts, in which a group of high-spirited young people learn first of the shooting, and then the death, of Robert Kennedy. The action begins in a park, where several teenagers-male and female-talk tough; rail against their parents; and experiment with drugs and sex. Their actions seem almost aimless and random on this warm spring night, until the news that Kennedy has been gunned down leaves them stunned-and unable to comprehend the meaning of this awful act. In the second act a young couple go home together, joined by another boy. Sex is on their minds, but they are distracted by the droning TV set which monitors the ebbing life of the mortally wounded Kennedy. When word of his death finally comes their emotions give way at last in a flood of anger and confused bitterness. But, as they reach out to console and somehow reassure each other, the young couple decide that it is love, rather than mere sex, which draws them together. And as the other

New York

1988

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:

Baltimore

1981

-

auth manuscript

-

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-

-

-

-

-

Notes:
Revised version of Kathleen

Synopsis:

Denver

1991

-

Prima Facie, Los Angeles

1991

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-

-

-

-

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:

New York

1980

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Notes:
aka Home Again, Kathleen

Synopsis:

NY Shakespeare Festival, NYC

1974

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY

1980

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Play/Drama

7

4

-

Notes:
music by Jim Steinman

Synopsis:
Charismatic, dazzling and attractive to both sexes, Kid Champion has achieved the pinnacle of success as a rock star. He is surrounded by an entourage of groupies, press agents, would-be biographers and adoring fans-all of whom seek to share in the glittering excitement of his almost frightening notoriety. But even as the play captures the aura of this high-powered world, it also exposes the emotional and intellectual complexities of its title character, and the uncertainties, faced by a gifted, attractive kid from Kansas who is skyrocketed to sudden wealth and fame, and eroded by the drink, drugs, and messianic power which are so much a part of the rock scene. Inevitably, as pressures mount, there is tragedy and sudden decline, and the sense that all the beauty and ugliness of the 60s have been compressed into one brief, but remarkable, lifetime.

Yale Summer Cabaret, New Haven, CT

1975

-

auth manuscript

-

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-

-

-

-

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:

Rochester, New York

1985

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

1987

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Play/Drama

4

2

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:
The action of the play centers on the picaresque adventures of Henry Hitchcock, a Union Army deserter, and Will Hill, a runaway slave with whom Henry has journeyed to the north. They join the traveling circus run by a flamboyant impresario named Bartholomew Van Amburgh, who wants to make Will, the newly freed slave, the centerpiece of his sideshow. A shrewd capitalist ringmaster, Van Amburgh is obsessed with money and machines-the sinister harbinger of the increasingly industrialized nation which will arise from the ashes of the Civil War. The irony of the play is centered on the question of how such "growth and progress" will benefit the country and what quality of life-and freedom-it will provide for its citizens, black and white alike. Along the way Henry and Will encounter, and debate with, such personages as Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and even Abraham Lincoln-with results that are both comic and dramatic, and which foreshadow the dilemmas and disorders which we are still struggling to resolve

O'Neill Theater Centers National Playwrights Conference, CT

1977

-

Samuel French, NY

1977

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Play/Drama

4

-

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:
A middle aged homosexual and his druggie partner are interrogated by the police after an old woman's murder.

NY Shakespeare Festival, NYC

1976

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY

1977

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Play/Drama

9

4

several of the men are bits

Notes:
-

Synopsis:
As the Union forces approach their gracious Georgia mansion, a group of Southern gentlewomen nervously await the appearance of General Sherman himself-sure that he is a barbarian who will allow their estate to be pillaged and looted. When Sherman arrives he proves to be gruff enough but, at the same time, a complex and feeling man whose intellect is at odds with his responsibilities. One of the ladies, several months pregnant, pleads for the release of her husband, a minister who has been taken captive by the northerners; while another, young and impressionable, falls under the spell of the Yankee mercenary whose job is to provision the troops. Out of the fascinating confrontations which ensue come understanding-and even romance-and, in the end, an illumination both of the awful accommodations which must be made between unwilling enemies and of the disturbing uncertainties that still lie ahead for all.

NY Shakespeare Festival, NYC

1980

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY

1980

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-

Play/Drama

13

2

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:
The time is 1915, the place the Salt Lake City courtroom where Joe Hill, the celebrated local radical, is on trial for murder. Obviously mistrusted by the conservative folk of his day, Hill senses that his cause is lost, even though the evidence presented against him is less than decisive. This, he knows, is his last forum, and he uses it to expose the complacency and small-mindedness of his attackers, even refusing to use the one alibi which could save him, because doing so would compromise a lady whom he loves and respects. Taking over his own defense, and punctuating his telling, irreverent interrogations with songs and fantasy sequences, Hill angers, dismays and ultimately shames his tormentors-bringing the play to a powerful, poignant conclusion and establishing the martyrdom which, he knows, will be his greatest contribution to the ideals which have motivated his short and turbulent life.

Actors Theatre of Louisville, KY, USA >>>

1997

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-

-

-

-

-

-

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Notes:
-

Synopsis:

NY Shakespeare Festival, NYC

1979

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY

1979

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-

Play/Drama

-

5

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:
The action of the play takes place in the basement of a New Hampshire church, which has been set up for a small reception, on the day of a wedding rehearsal that never takes place. The bride, her sister, her mother and her aunt, a patrician group who have come up from New York, wait in vain for the groom and his family to appear-but they are apparently off at a local hostelry busily getting drunk. They are, however, joined by Dixie, a down-on-her-luck entertainer who has been engaged by one of the absent men to sing at the wedding. The unlikely and sometimes abrasive interaction between the bored, sophisticated women and the earthy, outspoken Dixie leads on to some disturbing revelations, as the ladies let down their defenses and, in turn, expose their secret, private feelings-and the bitter frustrations that lie beneath their well-bred veneers.

Twyla Tharp Foundation, 38 Walker, New York, NY

-

-

Twyla Tharp, The Wintergarden, NYC

-

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-

-

-

-

-

Notes:
-

Synopsis:

New York

1981

-

-

-

-

Adaptation

18

3

extras

Notes:
Original Playwright - Henrik Ibsen. Translated by Erik J Friis

Synopsis:
greatest account ever written of the destructiveness of missionary zeal