Playwriting
(Cynthia Shaw, Richard Keyser, Nora McCarthy and David A. P. Brown. Photo: Fernando Natalici)
Moral Support
Moral Support is a naturalistic family drama, autobiographical in detail, that mixes elements of poetry and surrealism with a very real and devastating portrait of a troubled family and the demands of love. It is a full-length play with a cast of four.
Production History
Moral Support opened an eight-performance premiere production run at Medicine Show Theatre on February 21, 2019, directed by Félix Gardón, with Richard Keyser, Cynthia Shaw, Nora McCarthy and David A. P. Brown, stage manager Brie Mann-Hernandez, costumer Janet Mervin and lighting designer Patrick John Ashcroft.
(Poster by Rose-Marie Brandwein)
The Mysteries
The Mysteries is a full-length verse play set in archaic Greece, as history emerges from myth that resonates with contemporary concerns. Based on a story in Plutarch’s Life of Solon, the play is rich in poetry and lively in action. Dramatic scenes include a scene of wrestling exercises enlivened by political unrest; a confrontation with the Delphic Oracle; a march and convocation of women; a “mad” poet’s outcry for war; secret rites of the women’s mysteries at Eleusis; and a battle.
Production History
The prologue and first scene, directed by Kevin O’Brien, were performed at La Mama Theater, NYC in the St. Marks Poets Theater Festival in 1990.
The entire play had a staged reading at Medicine Show Theatre in June 2015.
A staged reading, directed by Rose-Marie Brandwein, took place at Polaris North in NYC in June 2019, with John L. Payne as Solon and with Allan Brown, Elizabeth Caruso, Eric Diamond, Meliora Dockery, Albert Insinnia, Emil G. Keller, Cam Kornman, and Carla Torgrimson.
(Portion of cover photo by John E. Daniel. Cover design: Elae Elae)
The Furies
The Furies is a collection of related, produced plays that challenge in dramatic verse the mythic sources of war and the tragic cycle. What starts in jest and hope becomes tragic and then deeply personal.
Prologue: Prehistory sets the stage at the dawn of history, in theater and theory. Agamemnon, King of Cars is a comic goat song. Electra turns the foretold stories on their head, as Electra and Orestes refuse their parts, leading to new tragedy. Lincoln in Queens is a tale in which Lincoln commands a contemporary poet to go in search of the fabled Furies, to free them and abolish war.
These pieces, produced separately over the years in small venues in New York, are brought together here for the first time as a unified series.
Publishing
The Furies was published by The Operating System in 2017. It is available on Amazon.
(Chris Brandt, Dorothy Cantwell, Sara Costantino, Ronnie Norpel and Elinor Nauen in Persephone’s Return. Photo: Davidson Garrett.
Short Verse Plays
Publishing & Performances
Persephone’s Return had a staged reading at Sidewalk Café in NYC in September 2018, as part of the Boog City Poets Theater Festival. An audio recording, with an earlier cast and a soundscape by Ambrose Bye, is on the CD, An Early Spring, from Fast Speaking Music. The text was published in the POSTmortem issue of the POST(Blank) journal, from Mad Gleam Press and is included in the chapbook, The Other Myrtle.
Aunt Peg the Computer had a reading at Bowery Poetry Club in February 2020 as part of the Boog City Festival. Directed by Rose-Marie Brandwein, it featured actors Mary Keefe, Jennifer Nolan, Cam Kornman and Kristin Avila.
Odyssey’s End and an expanded version of Persephone’s End had a reading on Zoom and YouTube from Polaris North in December 2020. Directed by Rose-Marie Brandwein, the program featured J. B. Anderson, Ange Berneau, Elizabeth Caruso, Meliora Dockery and John L. Payne.
John Milton in the Tower had a reading on Zoom starring Bob Holman as Milton and featuring Bill Considine in August 2021 in the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the Boog City arts journal. It can be seen here: John Milton in the Tower - YouTube.
The dramatic monologue Over Drinks was directed and performed by Leslie Lynn Meeker at Polaris North in February 2023.
Oedipus in Love, featuring Nicholas Galimi and Elizabeth Caruso and directed by Rose-Marie Brandwein, was performed at Ivy House Studio, Bushwick, Brooklyn in the Boog City Arts Festival and again at Polaris North in September 2023.
A Common Tongue was performed in February 2024 in the SMA Playwrights Festival in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, featuring Catherine Bryne and Clara Dunham and directed by Marc Taylor. A video of the performance is online here: A Common Tongue on Vimeo