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LEON CHASE (1973 - ) |
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Nationality: USA Email: Click here to contact Website: Click here to visit |
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Literary Agent: n/a |
Leon Chase grew up 20 miles south of Detroit in a place called Riverview, Michigan (where, incidentally, there is no view of the river.) The town is part of the larger sprawl of industrial suburbs known collectively as "Downriver," an area notorious for its noxious concentration of steel mills, auto factories, chemical plants, refineries, sewage treatment plants, nuclear power plants, former missile silos, abandoned salt mines, toxic waste dumps, and fishing. The Last Carburetor was Chase's first full-length play, and was published as part of Martin Denton's Plays and Playwrights 2003. Chase also wrote the book, music, and lyrics for Temp!, a musical comedy about office workers. A scene from this musical, which he directed, was produced by San Francisco's Popcorn Anti-Theater in January 2000. He holds a degree in written communications from Eastern Michigan University, and his story "Acetylene" won second place in the San Francisco Bay Guardian's 1997 Summer Fiction Contest. He has also penned various comics and pop-culture articles for small publications over the years. He is the co-founder of "Don't Come Knockin'" (www.rockinvan.com), a Web site celebrating custom-van culture, as well as creator and proprietor of Brooklyn Country (www.brooklyncountry.com), an online celebration of New York City's surprisingly fertile country music scene. Since the publication of The Last Carburetor, Chase has written four more plays but, as of this writing, has deemed none of them "good enough" to produce. He now lives in Brooklyn, New York, where in his daytime hours he "gets paid to fix robotic things that light up" and, at night, he fronts the garage honky-tonk band Uncle Leon and the Alibis (www.uncleleon.com). He is currently at work on a full-length novel.
Plays by Leon Chase
Last Carburetor, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Present Company Theatorium, New York, NY | 2001 | ||||
Company: | Overlap Productions | |||||
| 1st Published: | in Plays and Playwrights 2003, The New York Theatre Experience, Inc >>> | ISBN/ASIN: | 09670234-4-0 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #58146 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | full length Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| The American family, or what's left of it anyway, comes under scrutiny in a taut drama of dysfunctionality. Doug, 50, is a broken-down shadow of a man-not unlike the rotting 1970 Plymouth Barracuda that has awaited repair in his suburban Michigan garage for more than two decades. Doug's elder son Keith left home to become a success in the computer biz on the West Coast. Younger son Josh, who idolized dad and car, grew up with neither affection nor respect. He served in Desert Storm (to the consternation of his Vietnam vet father), and now works as a bounty hunter. Mom has left, though Doug seems unable to say for sure whether she's on vacation or gone for good. The youngest child, Ayla, is in college, looking eagerly forward to escape from her family. Josh and Doug maintain an uneasy truce. And then Keith turns up, unannounced, in a ditch near Doug's house. Thus begins, in earnest, Chase's drama, in which all the stuff Doug thought he knew, and everything Ayla and Josh though they understood, and the old emotions Keith thinks he's going to rediscover-all these things blow up in everybody's face, in a cathartic, life-changing weekend. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Temp! | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #61491 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Musical Comedy Musical | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | wrote the book, music, and lyrics | |||||
Synopsis: | about office workers | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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