Mabel and the Talking Cat: A new one-act quirky comedy/drama

“If I had opposable thumbs like you, I should rule the land!” ~Patches, the Talking Cat

How far are we willing to go to get the things that we want? How can doing a good thing enable a bad thing? How much would you sacrifice for a loved one? How long do you hold onto a far-fetched hope? How do you connect with those in the dark once you’ve been brought into a new light? Does guilt ever go away?

For a one-act play, Mabel and the Talking Cat sure brings up a lot of questions! On top of all that, we have a bit of magic, a witch in the neighborhood, an ogre, a missing husband and a talking cat! And you won’t find out until the end of the play which well-known fairy tale this play launches into…

Mabel and the Talking Cat is the story of a lonely baker, Mabel, who finally has the opportunity to adopt a child of her own. But her best friend, Patches, a talking cat, has grave hesitations about the questionable method she’s using to secure this precious child…

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"The Prettiest Duckling" - To Be Published by YouthPLAYS

Happy to share that YouthPLAYS will be publishing my one-act play, The Prettiest Duckling. In this dark comedy, two “mean-girl style” ducklings plot the ousting of their gray-feathered sibling… But they’re always—only—always, thinking of her. Because they, you know, “love her so so much.”

Right?

This play was first performed as part of the production, When Fairy Tales Falter. Buchanan Highhouse and Jessica Caputo fabulously brought to life Gorgeous and Cutesy (yes, those are the names of the ducklings! What do you think Mama will name the gray-feathered duckling?), Nate Flower directed, and Georgia Evans did the costume design.

This play was a TON of fun to write. It went through lots of revisions and tweaks to really land it all (thank you, Kevin Christopher Snipes, Gabe Davis, Mike, Dylan, Luke, Nate, and team!). Can’t wait to see it take life beyond my local world soon. Stay tuned for more information when it’s published. But for now, I’l leave you with these empathetic words from Gorgeous:

“Being gorgeous is also, like, kind of a burden…I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

Photos by JCP Images

Monologue from "When Marshmallows Burn" Published in The Best Men's Stage Monologues Anthology

I’m honored that my monologue from When Marshmallows Burn has been published in Smith & Kraus’s anthology, The Best Men’s Stage Monologues 2022, edited by Debbie Lamedman. Did you know Smith & Kraus has been publishing anthologies of the best men’s and women’s stage monologues for over 30 years? Very cool! In my dark comedy/drama:

Sammy and his mom are enjoying roasting marshmallows over the fire under the full moon when something very strange starts to happen. Sammy’s arms look a little furry. His teeth look a lot like fangs. And he has a sudden urge to kill squirrels—and eat them raw. What (or who) else will he have an urge to kill? Is there anything his mother can do to stop him, or can she ultimately accept and love her wereson? Read the whole play here.

Missy Flower and Buchanan Highhouse in When Marshmallows Burn, directed by Nate Flower. Photography by @designbyraegan.

This is a play about a werewolf, yes. But moreover, it’s a play about a mom and her son. I recently read Celeste Ng’s new novel Our Missing Hearts and in it, a central mother character says, “But in the end every story I want to tell you is the same. Once upon a time, there was a boy. Once upon a time there was a mother. Once upon a time, there was a boy, and his mother loved him very much.”

This hits me hard.

And when I was telling my 2 sons basically the whole story of Our Missing Hearts, you can bet I was choking up relaying this part of the book (and then hugging them!).

When Marshmallows Burn is not only a dark comedy about a boy becoming a werewolf. It’s a story about familial acceptance and the love of a mom and a son, in the face of changing identity.

The monologue selected for the anthology (What My Fangs are For) takes place the moment Sammy has returned from his first kill in the woods. He is proud he found his late-night snack without troubling his mom for help. As he relays killing the squirrel to her, he realizes his mother is becoming increasingly scared of him and his pride turns to fear that she will no longer love him as a werewolf.

Sammy’s monologue runs about 1 minute long and is great for any gender actor. It gives the performer a significant journey from being proud of something new and exciting to being deeply worried and terrified to lose what matters most. It also lets an actor showcase both dark comedy as well as dramatic skills.

Debbie Lamedman’s foreward

I was so lucky to have an outstanding team bring this play to life for the first time: Missy Flower as the mom, Buchanan Highhouse as the son, and Nate Flower as the director (produced by Free Space Theater, in collaboration with the Harrison Public Library). We performed the play around Halloween, at night in the great outdoors, and this was an absolute amazing backdrop for the play, which takes place at night, in the great outdoors…

Along with Sammy’s monologue, this anthology includes dozens of other wonderful monologues. As Ms. Lademan writes in her foreword, “These pieces present great acting challenges, and actors will have the pleasure of sinking their teeth into this sublime material while continuing to perfect their craft in their online or in-person workshops.”

Click here to get The Best Men’s Stage Monologues on amazon. You can also get Sammy’s monologue, What My Fangs are For, by itself here. Additionally, you can read an excerpt here of When Marshmallows Burn, or click below for the complete digital copy of that play:

1-Minute Monologues

One-minute monologues are an important way to make a quick impression to agents, casting directors, schools/colleges/universities. While longer monologues definitely have their place, sometimes actors are required to stick with showing their chops in less than 60 seconds. One-minute monologues also fairly easy to memorize because, well, obviously, they’re short, and they work well for younger actors who may not be ready for a 2-minute monologue or longer. One-minute monologues are also great to perform in festivals, competitions or classes, and an accessible way for actors to hone their craft privately or with a coach.

Having only 1 minute to showcase yourself as an actor can be a bit daunting though, so I’ve started a new page of my 1-minute monologues to make things a little bit easier for actors. These monologues have story and character arc, even if short, and they help actors showcase versatility and evoke emotion from their audience. There are dramatic 1-minute monologues, comedic 1-minute monologues, 1-minute monologues for women, men, any gender, teens and children. From candy-inspired monologues for kids to mean girl monologues for teens to hopeful love or scorned love—these 35 monologues allow actors to dig into complexities and give a memorable performance, in one minute.

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The Moon River Raft: New Dark Comedy Play for 2 actors

A wounded rabbit and her loyal sister, fleeing for their lives, hold onto hope that a secret Moon River Raft will carry them to a perfect land with no predators, filled with rainbows and radish tops as far as the eye can see… All they have to do is wait for this mysterious raft…in the middle of the night…in the woods…until Peak Full Moon…at a very creepy river bank…

You can check out what happens at this creepy river in my new one-act (miiiight slide by as a 10-minute) dark comedy, The Moon River Raft. It runs about 15+ minutes and has two great roles for ages teen through adult (the parts are written with female pronouns but the casting can be any gender). Yes, it’s dark, but it’s also funny as you lean into the cruelty, naivety and absurdity of the world these rabbits are in. It’s a play with minimal setting requirements and could adapt well to outdoor theater. CLICK BELOW TO READ MORE

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Pitfalls and Treasures: Published in The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2022

Before we ring in 2023, I’m happy to share that Smith & Kraus’s anthology, The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2022, edited by Debbie Lamedman, is out and available! I’m so honored that my 2-person play, Pitfalls and Treasures, has been published in this fabulous anthology. In the play:

Mary and Andrew are lonely and troubled parking lot seagulls, each ostracized by their former flocks. When Mary happens upon the injured Andrew, she embarks on the desperate challenge to remove twine wrapped around his leg. This play is about, well, yes, seagulls. And being seagulls, in a parking lot, with a numb leg and no flock, the stakes are high. But it’s also about love and loss, hope and failure, trust and apprehension, desperation and resignation. And of course, a seagull and a french fry! It’s a bit dark, a bit funny and a bit sweet.

Along with Pitfalls and Treasures, this anthology includes 50 other great new plays. While all of the plays included are diverse in theme, topic, style, and genre, in her foreword, Ms. Lamedman points out their commonality; they are all, “timely, cutting-edge, thrilling pieces of theatre.”

Ten-minute plays are unique pieces of theater. The “short stories” of theater, they give us a window into a few meaningful moments in time, and it’s a delightful challenge as a playwright to make sure the audience is brought in to the world, the characters and the story pretty darn quickly. I love writing in this format, and, short as it may be, I fall in love with my characters, as they become much larger than 10 minutes. I hope may feel a similar way as you dive into a 10-minute theatrical short!

Gregory Perry Photography, WCT 2021 production featuring Rob McEvily and Missy Flower, directed by Mel Nocera.

The original production of Pitfalls and Treasures was especially sweet as I had a fantastic team of people bringing the play to life: Under Mel Nocera’s keen direction, Missy Flower and Rob McEvily made the seagulls Mary and Andrew charming, funny, sharp and heart wrenching. Much gratitude also to WCT and their Executive Director, Alan Lutwin, for producing the play and their dedication to new work. And of course huge thanks and recognition to editor Debbie Lamedman for her amazing work on this anthology!

Click here to get The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2022 on amazon. Additionally, you can read an excerpt of Pitfalls and Treasures here or click below for a complete digital copy of the play:

30-Second Monologues

While not as common, these bite-sized monologues can come in handy! So I’ve started a new page solely devoted to these 30-second monologues. Finding an impactful monologue that is less than 1 minute can be challenging. You want to convey engaging emotion, a bit or story and arc, and hopefully have a powerful opening and closing line. This is not easy in such a short time! But I’m up for the challenge and I know you, as actors/directors, are up for that too! So enjoy my growing list of memorable little monologues that can leave your mark in only 30 seconds.

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Holiday Treats: Plays, Monologues, Movies and…Chocolates!

It’s December 1st, friends! That means I can whip out our family’s 2022 Advent Calendars! Which would you choose? 1) Funko Marvel 2) Chocolates in a penguin 3) Cocktail truffles? Hm… Mind you, young folks, my advent calendar as a kid consisted of opening a door on Santa’s sleigh and the reward was viewing a drawing of a toy! And I had to rotate every third day, sharing with my 2 brothers. Ah, but since we didn’t know what chocolates we were missing, that paper sleigh was still so sweet.

December 1 also means that I can post sans judgment about all the fun Christmas and Holiday theater you’ve been emailing me about and downloading since August! And personally, I’m fine thinking Christmas in August—because holiday theater takes some prep. Auditions for Christmas plays started months ago, and seasonal rehearsals don’t rehearse themselves a week before they open, right?

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A Play for International Raccoon Appreciation Day

20 MAGICAL MINUTES OF DARKNESS & SILENCE & PEACE, featuring Brian Bagot and Brenda Hettmansberger. Directed by Susan Ward at WCT. Gregory Perry Photography

October 1 was International Raccoon Appreciation Day! I only just discovered this today, but even though we are two days past the official date, we can all still celebrate these pretty amazing and adorable creatures. Raccoons are not simply partying around that pile of trash they dumped out of your curbside can. They’re important for many reasons. They distribute seeds from berries and nuts. They help keep our land clean by taking care of (aka eating) dead animals which would otherwise attract disease and insects. They also eat insects (including ticks) and rodents.

I love that the idea of this Appreciation Day is not only to celebrate raccoons, but all creatures who are commonly misunderstood as “pests,” but who play vital roles in our ecosystem. Isn’t this an important message that can apply to many facets of human living too? Many of us feel misunderstood at times, but we all have value and place in our world. I also personally love that raccoons exemplify “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure” (In fact, in my play, Pitfalls and Treasures, two seagulls refer to trash cans as “treasure cans.”). What is “trash” after all?

20 MAGICAL MINUTES OF DARKNESS & SILENCE & PEACE, featuring Brian Bagot and Brenda Hettmansberger. Directed by Susan Ward at WCT. Gregory Perry Photography

In honor of International Raccoon Appreciation Day, enjoy my short play, 20 Magical Minutes of Darkness & Silence & Peace. The play features 2 raccoons, Grace and Joffrey. Yes, there is talk of pizza in a dumpster, but the play transcends exclusive “raccoon issues,” and is mainly about personal connections. After a tragedy, Joffrey has run off from the gaze. Grace is charged to find him and bring him back home. But when she discovers him at a train station parking lot, he refuses to come back with her. Yet. He is reeling in grief, and in order to find solace and closure, he has to do something first. At this train station. And he needs her help.

Check out an excerpt here, or get the full play below.


JACK AND DEAR RAVEN: A new 10-minute 2-person comedy/drama

Jack is known as being a “dull boy” around the village. But would a “dull boy” impulsively climb up a random giant beanstalk that grew up in his back yard over night and then once he reached cloud-level, suddenly miss his mom and turkey and fence post, want to go back home, and now be too scared or stuck to climb back down?

Um…Maybe…

At least, this is one of Jack’s worries (besides being pecked to death, falling to death, starving to death—stuff like that!). He has something to prove to his village. He IS more than the boy who chased a baby bear thinking it was a sack of gold coins. He may get into more pickles than the average fairy tale boy, but he also always finds ways to get out of those pickles. He’s made it up this giant beanstalk because he has the spirit of adventure inside of him—and that passionate spirit will ultimately get him off this beanstalk too. It’s just might happen in the order he thinks it will…

In Jack and Dear Raven, high in the clouds, Jack begs for the help of a raven passing by—the only creature who has shown Jack any attention as he’s clung to this slippery beanstalk through the wee morning hours. This bird, whom Jack quickly dubs “Dear Raven,” has their own worries in raising a brood of birdlings while trying to finish their novel, Aviary Ethics (which no other bird seems to care about). Dear Raven is not only curious about this human in the sky, but also irritated as Jack and his giant beanstalk are blocking an important flight path. Jack and Dear Raven need to figure out a way for Jack to get off this beanstalk. Now. Before the hawks and eagles come to peck out his eyes after their morning mice.

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Summer Monologues

If you’re looking to beat (or lean into!) the heat of the season with a summer-themed monologue, check out this list of 17 monologues that go along nicely with Summertime. Whether it’s someone’s connection to growing veggies, a safari vacation that goes amiss (in all the coolest ways), seeing a lame mermaid at the beach, pushing someone in a mud puddle, spooky things that happen in the woods at night, or ice cream your dog can’t have—enjoy these 17 comedic, dramatic, thriller, teen and children’s monologues that are great for Summer!

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Pitfalls and Treasures to be published in Smith & Kraus's "The Best Ten-Minute Plays"

I’m honored that my dark comedy play, PITFALLS AND TREASURES, has been selected to be published by Smith & Kraus in the anthology, “The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2022” (editor Debbie Lamedman).

In the 2-person play, Mary and Andrew are lonely and troubled parking lot seagulls, each ostracized by their former flocks. When Mary happens upon the injured Andrew, she embarks on the desperate challenge to remove twine wrapped around his leg. This play is about, well, yes, seagulls. And being seagulls, in a parking lot, with a numb leg and no flock, the stakes are high. But it’s also about love and loss, hope and failure, trust and apprehension, desperation and resignation. And of course, a seagull and a french fry! It’s a bit dark, a bit funny and a bit sweet.

Huge thanks to the super talented original team: actors Missy Flower and Rob McEvily, director Mel Nocera, and all those at Westchester Collaborative Theater for its first production.

The play will be published in the anthology toward the end of the year, but you can read an excerpt of Pitfalls and Treasures here or click below for a complete digital copy of the play.

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New Christmas One-Act Play for a Large Cast: Chaos in a Christmas Snow Globe

If you’re looking for a large cast Christmas play for young actors or young audiences, with lots of gender inclusive/neutral roles, check out Chaos in a Christmas Snow Globe. Yup, it takes place inside a Christmas Snow Globe, complete with Christmas Tree, train and ice skating pond. Designers can be as detailed or as representative as desired for this world which leaves lots of room for creativity.

The Christmas Gang loves their place of honor in 8-year-old Stella’s bedroom, come the Sunday after Thanksgiving when all the Christmas decorations are displayed, but they’re also getting a bit bored of the same routine. Luckily, they’re in a Snow Globe with Santa himself who has a pretty cool ability to evoke, oh, I don’t know…a little something called… Christmas Magic! CLICK FOR MORE

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New Comedic Christmas Monologue: A Case for Astronaut Caroling

Have you ever wanted to spice up a traditional Christmas Caroling outing? Santa hats are fine and all, but how much cooler would you look if you wore…say…an astronaut costume? That is Sam’s small request in this 2-minute comedic monologue, A Case for Astronaut Caroling. But before he can sing into that awesome voice-changing space helmet, he has to convince his mom of his plan… Does he make a compelling enough case to win her over?

Check out my free comedic monologue, A Case for Astronaut Caroling. This monologue comes from the one-act play, Christmas Superpowers and Beleving in Blitzen (check out that play here. It has a lot of other comedic monologues). The character role is a child, so this monologue is great for children actors, or tween through young adults who would like to play children (good audition material for children’s plays). This role is gender inclusive/flexible.

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Great Virtual or Social Distancing Christmas Play: Christmas Superpowers and Believing in Blitzen

While some theaters and schools are open for in-person performances, there are many throughout the world which are not able to be open in this capacity yet. (We are all in different situations throughout the globe and my heart is with you all!) If your school or theater is looking for a family-friendly Christmas show which lends itself to social distancing or virtual theater, check out the one-act play, Christmas Superpowers and Believing in Blitzen. Since this is a monologue-heavy play, it allows for increased social distancing in rehearsals and performances and also slides more easily into virtual theater. CLICK FOR MORE

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New Thriller Monologue: Where's Your Hand, Chloe?

Let’s be honest - the woods at night can be creepy for even the bravest of us. It’s not quite so bad though if we have someone by our side. But what if that someone suddenly…disappears? And leaves us alone, calling their name, only to find…someone else appear instead?

That is the premise behind my new thriller/dramatic/horror monologue, Where’s Your Hand, Chloe? Addison’s friend, Chloe, disappears on their walk home in the woods (NEVER TAKE THE SHORTCUT THROUGH THE WOODS!). At first, Addison is relieved when she thinks the person in the distance is her friend. But she soon discovers the bloodied soul that is getting closer and closer to Addison is not at all Chloe. Addison’s panic increases as she sees the grotesque Being holds Chloe’s braid wrapped around its shoulder.

As we round the corner toward Halloween and all things spooky, check out my new suspenseful 2-3 minute monologue, Where’s Your Hand, Chloe? This is a great monologue for actors who really want to tap into their horror/frightened/panicking-but-trying-to-stay-calm side. The monologue arrives to you just in time for those awesome Halloween Monologue Slams! Enjoy an excerpt below and check out other suspenseful monologues here or creepy monologues here.

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21 Mom Monologues

As we honor our mothers for this season (and every day!), enjoy over fifteen (15) “mom monologues.” These monologues are either specifically about moms, spoken to moms, or spoken by moms. From a werewolf’s conflicting feelings about his mother to children asking their mom for a pet skunk, from a mother struggling with her own mortality to a woman adopting a child in her 50s, these monologues range from comedic to absurd to dramatic. Enjoy these children, teen and adult monologues all centering around mother relationships!

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