Category: Plays: Full-Length

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Twinges from the Fringe

15 funny short plays. Including Bob’s most popular shorts: Scene Analysis for Fun & Profit, Men’s, Talking Cure, Nixon, Fun City, Sinatragate & Atlantis, The Lost Continent.

Great for Fundraisers.

Excellent for Auditions.

Fun to read.

Read on: (Kindle | Paperback)

Productions

Off-Broadway: Grove St. Playhouse (NYC)
Trilogy Theatre (NYC)
Streetlight Productions (NYC)
Shooting Star Theatre (NYC)
Regional: Heartlande Theatre Co (Ann Arbor MI)
Sauk Theatre (Jonesville MI)
May 2008, NEYT (Brattleboro, Vermont)
International: Nov 2001, KIMEP English Language Theatre (Almaty Kazakhstan)
Sept 2006, Teatrul Pi Buni Piatra Neamt, Romania

Publications

Reviews

  • Elias Stimac of BackStage calls Twinges “comical success… laugh inducing, eye opening, or thought provoking–and sometimes all three at once.”
  • Arlene McKanick of OO–Broadway Review says Twinges is “worth seeing!”

A few words from actors

  • “Audience” was a fitting end to the evening, and the audience really seemed to enjoy to breaking of the fourth wall — Nathan Fleming Director KIMEP English Language Theater, Almaty, Kazakhstan
  • “I used the ‘Fun City’ monologue at an audition at Park Square Theater (a prestigious theater company in downtown St. Paul, MN) for the play Born Yesterday, and I got a part!” — Barb Keith, actress
  • “I recently read ‘Donnyworld.’ I thought it was one of the funniest things I have ever read.” — Luke Leek, performer
  • “Thank you so much for the copy of Twinges , it is a very fun play.” — Samantha Wilson, actress
  • “The scene [Atlantis, The Lost Continent] from Twinges is great. It would be an honor to perform it as part of my audition.” — Jonathan Kapner, actor
  • “[Fun City] is quite possibly the funniest monologue known to man.” — Audrey Leigh Francis, actress
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The New Life

An “art rock” sci-fi thriller set 125 years hence, it’s a wild ride of a play where immortality, Italian poetry, terrorism, and the emergent intelligence of networks interfold DNA-like into the Rudolph Maté film noir classic D.O.A. Massive in scope, the story covers a whole new world where evolution has itself evolved, becoming strange, free, and wondrous. Rich and multi-layered, The New Life’s flexible casting options mean you can perform it with a cast small as 8 or large as 22. Likewise, you can make it a tour de force of technical theatre, or perform it simply on a bare platform with human-generated effects.

Read on: (Kindle | Paperback)

Details

cast: 12 (6 F, 6M)
set: Multi-media stage
length: 120 min.

Productions

Off-Broadway: Commissioned 2004 by Praxis Theatre Project

Published:

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A New Theory of Vision

Lee Krebs, professor of philosophy, specializes in the works of George Berkeley, who proposed that because reality could simply be sensations in the mind, that it wasn’t real. When a bright but socially-awkward young student proposes a simulation project that brings the philosopher back to life, Lee’s ghosts are brought to life with it. A New Theory of Vision asks the question – if life is a dream, are we responsible for its impact? And how are we to do good?

Read on: (Kindle | Paperback)

Details

cast: 6 (2 F, 4M)
set: Unit set
length: 90 min.

Productions:

Off-Broadway: Produced by Sanctuary: Playwrights Theatre (New York, NY)

Reviews:
Village Voice
BackStage
The Brooklyn Rail

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The Buffoon Piece

The compromises of art, compromising the artists.
Italy, 1937. For 500 years, kings and tyrants came and went but life’s unchanged in tiny Volpe Nero. Alessandro and his father, of Italy’s last Commedia Dell’Arte troupe, scrape a meager existence from tradition’s crumbs, That’s all about to change. As Mussolini and Hitler forge their tragic alliance, two fugitives from a Fascist prison camp arrive seeking refuge — with Blackshirts and a vengeful clown in hot pursuit. Father and son clash: do what’s safe, or do what’s right?

Read on: (Kindle | Paperback)

Details

cast: 10 (3 F, 7 M)
set: Commedia Dell’Arte stage
length: 130 min.

Productions & Publications

Staged Reading: April 1999 at 78th St. Theatre Lab (NYC)

Published:

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subCity

A time-jumping comedy about architecture, sexuality, the priesthood and right livelihood. In a collapsed subway tunnel we find Alex—a busted-down architect, and Wall—a gay tunnel-worker who prefers the dark. Which will get them first… falling concrete blocks… oxygen gone… gas… or their shared past?

Read on: (Kindle | Paperback)

Details

cast: 3 (1 F, 2 M)
set: Unit set (Subway tunnel).
length: 105 min.

Productions

Off-Broadway: Sept 2000 by NY Play Development
Staged Readings:
Apr. 1998 78th Street Theatre Lab (NYC)
Sept 1999 Dramatists Guild (NYC), Dec 1999 FatChance productions (NYC)
July 2000 Abingdon Theatre Co (NYC)

Published:

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Hemlock, a Greek Diner Tragedy

As humanity rockets toward Millennium, strange red-garbed men known only as Cardinals complete plans for universal domination by capturing Socrates, Greek philosopher and David Chagall, Bronx diner owner. Can our intrepid men free themselves from the clutches of the mother of all conspiracies…and save the cosmos? HEMLOCK is a black, black, black comic fantasythat skewers end of millennium paranoia, western philosophy, conspiracy theories, time travel, and Catholicism.

Read on: (Kindle | Paperback)

Details

cast: 7; (1 F, 4 M, 2 M/F)
set: Realistic diner
length: 120 min.

Productions & Publications

Regional: Summer 1997 by Extra Virgin PC (Dallas TX)
Staged reading: Oct 1998 at 78th Street Theatre Lab (NYC)
Published:

Reviews:
Dallas Observer
Award: Dallas Observer

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We Are Now: a comedy about the future of us

The site-specific comedy starts at the front door & pulls you in on a WILD journey. From the moment you enter, drawn in by the music, questioned by the interlocutors, you’re challenged by this Looney Toons nightmare helium infused romp of a future; carried by the live music & immersed in propulsive, hilarious first-hand experiences all around you. Engage your friends in a serious argument about the future – or bask in the UTTER DELIGHT OF IT ALL.

Read on: (Kindle | Paperback)

Hear the cast album on (iTunes | Amazon music)

Details

cast: 8 (4F, 4M)
set: site-specific or multi-performance
length: 120 min.

Productions & Press

Off-Broadway: Sanctuary: Playwrights Theatre
Press:
Works by Women

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Flowers of War

Iraq: February, 1991. High-tech weaponry from eight nations hammers Baghdad’s smokestacks and high-rises to dust. In one nameless shelter huddle eight cold, tired, angry Iraqis. To keep their sanity, they propose a storytelling contest. The result: Eight war stories, full of war’s sadness, horror, and sometimes even laughter. Flowers of War is a “Fantasia on American Themes” — you won’t get the characters you see to resemble the Iraqis you have been conditioned to expect.

Details

cast: 8; (4 F, 4 M)
set: Environmental or site-specific (bomb shelter)
length: 145 min.

Productions

Off-Broadway: Nov 1992, Mosaic Productions (NYC)