THEATER: When there's life onstage, there's nothing else better!

THEATER

My plays are listed in the order they were performed along with its casting requirements.

THE RAKE (one-act monologue)
Hearing male (30s/40s)
Originally presented at The Lower Levels of Society in 1992.
A well-respected schoolteacher commits an unspeakable crime at the local shopping mall.

SIX WOMEN IN SEARCH OF A PERFECT PLAY (six monologues for the same actress).
Hearing Pakistani female (40s)
Originally presented at the Dixon Place Theater in 1994.
When a wealthy Pakistani woman decides she wants to stage Medea in her home country, six women from all walks of life in Pakistan and England come forward. (This play is available in my book Silence Is A Four-Letter Word: On Art & Deafness.)

DAFFODILS (full-length)
Deaf Asian female (30s)
Deaf Black female (30s)
Voice actresses as needed
Originally presented at the American Sign Language Institute in 1995.
A deaf social worker and her client form a very unlikely friendship.

SNOOTY (full-length)
Hearing ASL-fluent female (30s)
Hearing ASL-fluent male (40s)
Hard-of-hearing male (20s, or younger)
5 Deaf males (20s, or younger)
2 Deaf females (20s, or younger)
Voice actors as needed
Originally presented at the Worldwide and National Deaf Theater Conference in 1996.
A hard-of-hearing seventh-grader must decide between his own comic-book fantasy of being Snooty, the #1 hit man in Chicago's South Side during the 1920s and the reality of being labeled "snooty" by his deaf classmates. It is now available as a book from The Tactile Mind Press.

WHISPERS OF A SAVAGE SORT (full-length)
2 Deaf females (30s/40s)
2 Deaf males (30s/40s)
Deaf female (20s)
Voice actors as needed
Originally presented at the Robert F. Panara Theater in 1996.
When a bag of money disappears at a bowling tournament, a small-town deaf community falls apart due to unproven accusations and rumors.

AMONG FATHERS (full-length)
Hard-of-hearing male (30s)
Deaf female (30s)
Deaf Black female (30s)
Deaf male (30s)
Hearing black male (40s)
Hearing female (60s)
Voice actors if needed
Originally workshopped at the Mark Taper Forum in 1997.
When Harry Bowman, Jr., the hard-of-hearing son of the renowned Senator, decides to run for Congress, he must deal with familial obligations, especially when his wife announces her pregnancy.

INTERPRETATIONS (one-act)
Deaf male (20s)
Hearing ASL-fluent male (30s)
Originally presented by the Illuminations Theater with the Deaf in 2001.
An ASL interpreter feels increasingly detached while watching the impact of AIDS affecting his deaf gay friends in the year of 1983.

HIPPOS & GIRAFFES (one-act)
Deaf female (30s)
Voice actress as needed
Originally presented (along with INTERPRETATIONS) at the HERE Theater in 2002.
A straight deaf woman shares her infatuation with a deaf gay woodcarver in the year of 1979.

THIS (full-length)
Deaf Black male (30s)
Hard-of-hearing Black male (20s)
Originally presented by Invisible Hands, Inc. at the Gallaudet University Ely Auditorium in 2003.
THIS is an elegy to the one person who made a star out of a nobody: Curtis Higgs, a talented dancer cursed with low self-esteem, meets Dwight, a charismatic and funny hard-of-hearing dancer who is incredible onstage and yet exploitative of his friends offstage. It is through the hunger of wanting to be somebody like Dwight, who is unmistakably a star, that Curtis learns the true value of friendship and gains faith in himself, moreso after Dwight dies of AIDS.

LOVE IN MY VEINS (full-length)
Deaf female (40s/50s)
Deaf male (40s/50s)
Originally presented by the Illuminations Theater with the Deaf, Houston, TX, in 2003
An episodal look at the tumultuous 25-year relationship between Hugh and Mindy, as they experience the challenges of culture, marriage, family and AIDS.

BEAUTY & THE BEAST (full-length)
Originally presented by the California School for the Deaf in Fremont in 2004.
A stage adaptation of the classic tale with some inspiration from Jean Cocteau's 1946 film.

What follows is a list of unproduced stageplays that are now under review for possible production around the country. As they are picked up, I will add a play description.

DEAL (one-act)
Deaf female (30s)
Hearing sign-fluent female (30s)
Hearing non-signing male (40s)

HONEYMOON (one-act)
Deaf female (30s)
Hearing sign-fluent female (30s)
Hearing non-signing male (40s)

GAMBIT (full-length)
Deaf female (40s)
Deaf female (20s/30s)

PENNY LOVER (one-act)
Deaf female (30s)
Hearing male (40s)

My unproduced hearing plays, which have nothing to do with deafness, include: THE HAPPY DE VON CAMPERS, LIFEGUARD, JACKHAMMER, WHITE CHOCOLATE, DARKEST ROOM IN THE HOUSE, and THRESHOLD. If you're an artistic director or producer, please feel free to contact me about my work. (Thanks.)