Plays

Full

Unwilling and Hostile Instruments (2013 – 8W, 2M) Snapshots from a hundred years of extraordinary women. Seven awesome playwrights penned short profiles of groundbreaking, controversial, inspirational Chicago women. I wrote the Glue, about a group of ten actors putting on the plays in Jane Addams’ Hull House Theatre, abandoned by the city for lack of funding. Productions: Theatre Seven (Chicago)

Burying Miss America (2011 – 1W, 1M) When a legendary former beauty queen dies, her children reunite at the funeral for the first time in six years. Divided by distance and their mother’s mile-long shadow, Boxer and Jean relive childhood memories while delaying the inevitable question: with their mother gone, will they ever see each other again? A darkly funny and moving play about family, love and inheritance. (Excerpt.) Productions: New Leaf Theatre (Chicago)

Cooperstown (2009 – 3W, 2M) It’s the summer of 1962, and Jackie Robinson is about to be the first black player inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame. That doesn’t mean much to Junior Murphy, a black restaurant manager who can’t get a promotion, and whose little sister who has her own history-making plans. When a Midwest minor-leaguer comes to town chasing his idol, the collision of race, love, pride and progress turns a sleepy New York town upside down. (Excerpt.) Productions: Theatre Seven (Chicago), The Road (Los Angeles)

Six Seconds in Charlack (2007 – 2W, 2M) Bard is a writer. Or is he? As he climbs the ladder at his girlfriend’s father’s law firm, a life of poetry safely in the rearview mirror, Bard starts getting late night visits from a chanteuse named Candy. His girlfriend Penny’s not a fan and the weird guy downstairs — he won’t stop selling typewriters. A play about love, loss and the gravity of memory. (Excerpt.) Productions: Washington University (St. Louis), Nice People Theatre (Philadelphia), American Theatre of Actors (NYC)

Short

Bug (2013) Little kids, big words. And an insect. Productions: One Minute Play Festival (Chicago)

Waiting (2013) If you see something, say…something? Productions: One Minute Play Festival (Chicago)

63rd & Woodlawn: Robust Coffee Lounge (2011) At a hipster coffee shop in a gentrifying neighborhood, two couples reckon with blueberry muffins and a secret, hiding in plain sight. (Excerpt.) Productions: Theatre Seven (Chicago)

Trains (2010) A kid grows up Chicago, on the metal wagon at the heart of a pulsing city. (Excerpt.) Productions: Theatre Seven (Chicago)

Listening: An Autobiography (2008) That feeling when you’re in the hands of a great storyteller. The story of a life chasing that feeling. (Excerpt.) Productions: Theatre Seven (Chicago)

Not That But Something Else (2007) Thirty characters. Ten minutes. One hell of an explanation. (Excerpt.) Productions: The Side Project (Chicago)

Fragments (2006) Fragments of a woman’s shattered mind, fragments of memory, a fragmented heart. Productions: Collaboraction, Washington University (St. Louis)

Above the Old Blues Bar (2004) How impossible is it to let go of a love gone bad? Productions: Cast n’ Crew (St. Louis)

This Little Light (2003) Fireworks explode across the sky on the last night on Earth.