n/a

n/a

Theatre Building, Chicago

2004

Writers Bloc - Chicago

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

Historical-farcical-comedy drama

-

7

2

doubling

Notes: Very successful in readings. Was being seriously considered by The Public Theatre prior to the recent regime change there.

Synopsis: A fact-based, Marxian Bros. view of the scientific/bureaucratic contretemps to preserve Lenin's body, and its mutilation for posterity, while Stalin and his ace PR man plot to bolster Communist rule by immortalizing Lenin's memory, then marginalizing him to consolidate their power. Another arc describes the journey of Lenin's soul as his Spirit is influenced by Russian life and the Shechinah (God's feminine side). Betrayals, bureaucratic snafus, revengeful violence (esp. to Lenin's left nostril), an original song about the culture of fear (parallel to America today?) plus parodies of a few Irving Berlin songs of the era are threaded throughout. Two acts. Fairly simple sets for spot staging; historic Russian film footage, and songs available.

Playwrights Center, Chicago, Body Politic Theater, Country Club Comedy Theater

1969

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Comedy

2

3

-

Notes: Boxoffice so good, show was repeated following season

Synopsis: Two young men, about 25 years old, hie to French Canada, because it's as close to France as they can afford, hoping to score bigtime. Rabbit's engaged. Frenchy, who's prematurely balding, is not; he had an engagement broken and carries the ring with him "just in case." Rabbit's has to rev Frenchy's enthusiasm for romance, and there's lots of good, clean fun in their escapades, foibles, and fractured French.

Presbyterian Church, Evanston, IL

2001

Writers Bloc - Chicago

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

Family drama

-

1

3

-

Notes: Finalist: in two recent national playwrighting competitions.

Synopsis: Another Menagerie is so named because it deals with the same family paradigm as T. Williams' great work. Here however, the brother is an activist. It's 1959: Jonah plans to marry out of his fatherless, financially strapped family. Mother can't quite put the guest list together, vainly applies for jobs she cannot handle hoping to pay off huge debts. Jonah's sister, Marilyn, is flunking out of college: because Ma uses her as a servant, or because Marilyn prefers Frank Sinatra records to homework? Little events escalate. Afraid his departure will leave Marilyn at the mercy of their assumedly hypochondriac mother, Jonah, at birthday party for his fiancee manipulates events to give Ma "truth therapy," with apparently tragic consequences.

Chicago Dramatists

2002

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

Dark family tragedy

-

6-8

2-4

doubling, extras

Notes: Simple sets, spot staging, good lighting required.

Synopsis: Basement is an epic memory play: Past/real/imagined time commingle as surviving mother and son, "cursed with perfect recall," prepare to move from their residence of 1964-75 -- when America's current economic/cultural shifts began. They relive flooding, vermin, economic hardship, political corruption, deaths of sister, father. The son, a college drop-out, serves as Stage Manager. Sardonic TV newscasts lock play in historic time.

Theatre Building - Chicago

1993

Writers Bloc - Chicago

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

Satirical Romance

Satire

5

5

doubling, extras

Notes: Small sets, spot staging, one special effect, nuns and militant feminist costumes, one miniature guillotine.

Synopsis: This Romance wrapped in Satire was suggested by Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Emmy, ostensibly a Catholic girl, commits suicide. The Dick, an aesthetically-challenged-yet-magical private eye, cons her Jewish lover, Bernie, (read "Leontes") to undertake a mythic journey (ala Joseph Campbell) to explore his culpability. This flashback-laced odyssey of guilt, stupidity, and redemption has more flights of fancy, and a happier ending (similar to The Winter's Tale) than anyone has seen in ages. Scenes include an interview with a crazed nun; Bernie's capture by Radical Feminists while backstage at a rock concert; his subsequent trial in which the Dick calls forth Emmy's spirit as a witness; nightfall in a cemetery of dead phrases, and following Bernie's dream of Western literature's classic boy/saves damsel in distress scenario, his achievement of self-awareness in The Cave of Self. Meanwhile, Emmy's addled dad revivifies Bernie's widowed mother, who begins to sculpt marble ordered by The Dick that becomes a life-sized statue of Emmy. Returning home, Bernie brings the statue back to life. Emmy's true ethnicity and marriages are announced. The Dick vanishes. Act 2 opens with a parody of the opening of The Mikado sung as a pre-trial theme of the Radical Feminists.

Playwrights Center, Chicago, IL

1974

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Comedy

2

3

preschool girl

Notes: Set boxoffice records in 3 productions

Synopsis: Jewish family sent to small town so salesman, Marv Fine, can corner Jewish office supply business there. His wife, Derva trapped in a too-small apartment with 5 year old who's regressed with toilet training and infant with near constant earaches longs to return home. But Marv chooses to support his rabbi against his biggest potential customer, Lou Michaels. Knowing this will keep them away from home, Derva calls her mother, an immigrant "Bubbie" for help. Marv saves the rabbi, but Michaels offers hinm another chance with Derva's mother taking his side in the argument.

Theatre Building, Chicago

2007

Writer's Bloc

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

Historical drama with a humorous touch

-

6

2

doubling, extras

Notes: Written cinematically in small, simple set scenes using cross lighting effects.

Synopsis: The true story of Israel's Ambassador to Italy, Avi Pazner, securing a private audience with Pope John Paul II, despite lacking the credentials required to meet the pontiff. Their meeting led to the Vatican's recognition of the State of Israel, and JPII's pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 2000. The play shows Amb. Pazner's struggle to gain a meeting with JPII. This includes his (and his wife's) unhappiness at being posted to Rome; his continuing conflicts with the Israeli Foreign Ministry which wants him to focus on "bread and butter" issues, and his frustrations at failing to penetrate the Vatican hierarchy until assistance comes from the U.S. A corollary arc discloses the Vatican's point of view. The private audience ends warmly, but neither the Ambassador nor his wife can be sure what the Pope meant by his closing remark. Once the Vatican's decision to negotiate is given, Amb. Pazner is visited by his immediate supervisor in which their prior relationship is revealed, a new one forged. To move negotiations forward, Amb. Pazner arranges for the Chief Rabbi of Israel to meet with the Pope: they discuss their common experiences during WWII, then discuss evil and the Abrahamic religions' ways to counter it; simultaneously the Chief Rabbi's older brother tells Amb. Pazner how he saved his younger brother during a Nazi death march.

Organic Theatre, Chicago

1992

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

Tragi-comedy of manners

Tragedy

2

1

-

Notes: Virtually no set required. Hugely successful in readings. Just right for aging Baby Boomers.

Synopsis: Tzigane -- is Hungarian for "Gypsy," also a virtuoso piece for violin by Ravel). Its a tragi-comedy of the 1990s: He's married, she's not! She's macho, he's not! What a courtship! Thirty-something serially monogamous Regine fiddles with mid-60s Soren, a violinist who's never cheated on his wife before. They've been "friends" for 15 years, during which he has fantasized about her although unconsciously seeing her as a Moloch. She's recently lost a few parts to cervical cancer, he's now suffering arthritis of the left hand. His Hamletic fears of having an affair dissipate after he thinks he discovers the secret of perpetual courtship to the tune of Sibelius 2nd Symphony. Intercourse, modestly done as the Narrator, plays a virtuosi passage from Tzigane on the violin, produces comically unanticipated results. The Narrator plays various roles, including Soren's god, Jascha Heifetz, who introduces the characters, key themes, and interprets Soren's thoughts.

Theatre Building - Chicago

1988

Writers Bloc - Chicago

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

Multi-disciplinary biography of an absurdis

-

10-12

5-7

doubling, extras

Notes: Continues to prove itself in subsequent readings. Recent finalist in a national play writing award. Spot staging for mostly small scenes, but few large ones, simple special effects. Some choreography needed, two songs, onstage band.

Synopsis: You thought the old West was wild? Check out pistol-toting Alfred Jarry, credited with penning Ubu Roi (a.k.a. King Turd), a travesty on Macbeth considered the world's first absurdist play. This kaleidoscopic look at Jarry's evolution from brilliant, bi-sexual scholar, to notorious playwright, and social terrorist embodying Ubu's grotesqueries, parallel the development of the play, it's premiere, and aftermath that isolates him from those he loves. Two songs, nudity, lots of raunch. Includes Act 1, Scene 1 of Ubu Roi, and (The Mime) dares audience to respond as it did at the play's 1897 Paris premiere -- a conceit proved hilarious in readings.