What’s in a Name?

I was born on 5 January 1944. My father was being hunted by Japanese soldiers, and he was hiding in the hills outside Manila. My mother spoke no English or Tagalog, only Chinese, and at the hospital she did not know what name to give me when they said I had to have a name.…

Summer of 1969

In the summer of 1969, I was taking two classes at the University of Kansas, and living “the high life” on the 8th floor of Oliver Hall.  My close buddies at the dorm were Judy, a cheerful lass with frizzy black hair from Scotland; Mike, a lanky Vietnam veteran who collected comic books; and Ted,…

Points of Departure: A One-Act Play

Requirements:  2F, 2M.  All four characters are Filipinos and should be played by Filipinos and/or actors who can “pass” for Filipinos. Setting:  The living room of a small apartment, somewhere in the suburbs of Manila.  Late afternoon, the present. Theme:  The role which art plays in a society interested for the most part only in…

Hatchet Club: A One-Act Play

Requirements:  2F, 4M Setting:  The living room of a small apartment in a university town, somewhere in the Midwest.  An evening in early April, the present. Plot:  Faculty members in the Department of Religious Studies at a midwestern university take turns hosting meetings in their homes.  These meetings are both social and academic in nature.  After food and…

Zooks! An Olympian Musical

Requirements:  ?F, ?M Setting:  Various locations on Mount Olympus, and occasionally in the world inhabited by mortals. Plot:  We are privy to the caprices and the excesses of the gods (in all possible sexual combinations) on Mount Olympus of yore.  And then, in the wink of an eye, it’s the 18th Century, the Age of Enlightenment. …

Lee and the Boys in the Backroom: A Play Based on the Novel QUEER and the unpublished correspondence of WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS

Requirements:  38 parts played by 8 M and 1F (Voice Only).  Additionally, Lee’s wife Jane and Allerton’s girlfriend Mary will be represented on stage not by live actors but by life-sized ragdolls. Setting:  A bar, a bed-sitting room, a movie-house, and various streets in Mexico City, 1949-1952. Plot:  Lee and his wife Jane are American…

Report to the River: A One-Act Play

Requirements:  2M Setting:  Nick’s dormroom, a small carpetted central area containing a bed, a table and chair.  Surrounding the dormroom is Jake’s campsite near the turnpike by the Kaw River in Lawrence, Kansas.  Morning, Bastille Day (July 14), mid-1990s. Plot:  Nick, a student attending summer classes at the University of Kansas,  introduces us to the facts and…

Figures in Clay: A Threnody in Six Scenes and a Coda

Requirements:  3M Setting:  Three chairs in Dr. Beatrice’s office.  She is a marriage counselor, and the three men talk to her in different combinations–sometimes individually, sometimes in alternating groups of two, sometimes all three together–but Dr. Beatrice herself is never seen or heard.  Early August, late 1980s. Plot:  Three men, twenty years apart in age,…