Book promo for Amazon These 14 one-act plays call for small casts, minimalist sets and props. Eight of the plays call for 2 actors; none requires more than 4. Running times are 10-35 minutes. The plays capture the joys, sorrows, conflicts, absurdities and unanswerable questions in the lives of couples: Is it okay to buy a new couch when a younger neighbor falls over dead for no apparent reason? (What about the Couch?) Should we give more "rent" money to a hapless son-in-law who's probably putting it up his nose? (Fourteen Across) Do all those empty wine bottles mean we are drinking too much? Or recycling too infrequently? (Recycling) Is it okay for married partners to have "luncheon dates" with members of the opposite sex? (Leftovers) Now that the kids are out of the house should we quit our jobs, sell our home, buy a cheap place down in Mexico and live there "like kings" forever? Or should we stay here and settle for dinner at the Mexican restaurant in the mall? (Foreverville) Small cast sizes and set requirements make the plays ideal for festival productions and acting/directing classes. Several of the shorter plays were staged in 10-minute play festivals; others were grouped together (3 or 4) to create a 90-minute production. Adult language, always used normatively, appears in several of the plays.
About the Author: As a young man I blew off college to follow Jack Kerouac "on the road" to California where I fantasized about writing one of the "great" novels of the era. But life got in the way: marriage, kids, jobs, leaking pipes and cars that wouldn't start in the morning. So I wrote and edited newspapers, reported for United Press International and wrote legal briefs for attorneys defending death-penalty cases . . . all the time thinking, someday, someday, someday . . . But when that someday finally came and I sat down at the keyboard and said "go" what happened was not the "great" novel of my dreams but one play after another until, finally, I realized I wasn't a novelist. I was a playwright. The news was something of a shock. But, hey - if the shoe fits, wear it. Goodbye Jack Kerouac. For the past 40-plus years I have been living with my wife in our owner-built home off the grid in the mountains of northern California. Our kids, who grew up here, couldn't wait to get away, but their kids, who grew up someplace else, love it here. Isn't that the way those things always seem to work? Thank god for grandchildren. As the song line goes, "You don't always get what you want, but you always get what you need."