Chops

Winner, New Works Festival, Actors Bridge Theatre, 2004.

Nate Kleiman was the greatest orchestral trumpet player in the world—thirty years ago. At the age of sixty-five he is still hanging on as principal trumpet of the American Philharmonic Orchestra. His friends, second trumpet Phil Rabowski and third trumpet Angie Vaccaro, try to convince him that it’s time to retire, but for Nate, a widower, playing the trumpet has become his life and only reason for being. The situation remains at an uncomfortable stalemate until Mitchell Harris, a brash, talented young trumpet player, joins the orchestra. The presence of Harris, obviously being groomed by conductor Andre Capalov to replace Nate, breaks the stalemate and leads to a series of events forcing Nate to face his own mortality.

Besides witnessing these events, we explore the world of the symphony musician through preconcert “chats” by Phil Rabowski, by hearing the musicians’ thoughts as they play, and through the sounds of cascading words-as-music at rehearsals and in concerts.

The Last Shaker

Finalist, New Southern Theatre Festival, Mockingbird Theatre, 2002.

Mildred Horton is lonely. An old woman now, she is the last surviving Shaker. Mildred lives at Canterbury Village, a Shaker community in New Hampshire, which is now more a museum than a home. In a nearby town, sixteen-year-old Callie Woodruff learns that her parents are separating. Callie, longing to escape her problems, decides to run away.

The lives of these two troubled women intersect at Canterbury Village, and they become unlikely friends. In the process they discover the Shaker truths that we find ourselves by reaching out to others, and that simplicity is not the same as loneliness.

Still Life

Winner, New Southern Theatre Festival, Mockingbird Theatre, 2001.

Sixty-year-old artists Joe Luchetti and Connie Roca grew up together in Brooklyn and have been lifelong friends. Connie still lives in Brooklyn, where he practices a monklike devotion to the art of painting, selling barely enough canvases to eke out a living. Joe moved to Los Angeles, where he has become a successful commercial illustrator with a sizable staff, producing illustrations for books featuring licensed cartoon characters. 

Connie, who hates to travel and disrupt his daily routine, shows up unexpectedly at Joe's house on Joe's sixtieth birthday, announcing that his birthday present is to reach inside Joe and drag out the true artist, kicking and screaming. As he invades the household and begins dictating his terms of occupation, we learn about the complicated relationships among these three close friends and about secrets that have remained hidden for thirty years.

“A beautifully crafted drama about life, death, and the problem of pursuing one’s dreams when doing so won’t pay the bills….The scenes crackled with the energy that always hovers around the real thing.”

The Tennessean

Christ of the Coopermans

O'Neill Playwrights Conference, 1994.

What do you do if your family is coming apart at the seams? If you're 17-year-old Mark Cooperman, you try desperately to hold them together: Harvey, the unemployed father; Bernice, the political activist mother, and Lennie, the kid actor who's supporting the family. Into this chaotic environment comes Rosa Morales, a young Mexican homeless woman. Though Rosa speaks no English, her presence is deeply felt, especially by Mark, who in the end must decide between responsibility to his family and responsibility to himself.

Shaker Loops

Finalist, Nantucket Short Play Competition, 1994.

Shaker Loops is a theme-and-variations for the stage. The theme is announced in a brief opening scene, in the form of chanted lyrics to Shaker hymns, overlapping and "looping" back upon themselves. Each of the three subsequent scenes presents a variation on that Shaker theme: (1) an encounter between an elderly Shaker woman and a newspaperman who has come to interview her; (2) a monolog by a woman who imagines herself to be the last Shaker; and (3) a presentation by a salesman introducing his new "Shaker Fifth Avenue" line of furniture. The opening theme is repeated as the play closes

Tough Call

O'Neill Playwrights Conference, 1992.

Tough Call presents a tumultuous weekend in the life of that most maligned and misunderstood of sports figures, the major league umpire. The action unfolds from beginning to end in the umpires' locker room, where Zeb McGraw and his crew are shocked to learn that their favorite hangout, Cantini's, has been declared off-limits by the league president because of alleged gambling activities. Zeb defies the order, setting off a chain reaction involving old grudges, an evil-smelling milkshake, and a chicken with its head cut off.