PRIVATE PROPERTY A Dark Comedy by William Ivor Fowkes How far would you go to hold onto the ones you love? Retired banker Samuel Becker has been living in the woods for 30 years with Gregory South, a retired interior decorator with a big libido and the temperament of a child. Gregory misses their life in the city, but Samuel has found ways to keep him happy. His strategy starts to unravel when a reporter comes snooping around in this darkly funny mystery play. DEVELOPMENT HISTORY PRIVATE PROPERTY was first produced at the Late Night Summer Series at The Players Ring, Portsmouth, NH, 2018, where it was directed by Marina Altschiller. The cast included Rick Watts, Jay MacDougall, Aimee Gigandet, Joshua Bernard-Kriegl, Chris Ferrill, Joshua Moore, and Gwen Higgins. PRIVATE PROPERTY was presented in a reading at the 6thAnnual New Works Festival: Northern Writes, Penobscot Theatre Company, Bangor, ME in 2012. Subsequent readings were presented at the Pulse Ensemble Theatre under the directorship of Alexa Kelly and Brian Richardson, New York City, in 2015, and at The Players Ring, Portsmouth, NH, in 2017. CHARACTERS: GREGORY SOUTH: Age 60s. Retired interior decorator. Has a big heart and a big libido. Childish, impetuous, and excitable. Walks with a limp and a walking stick. SAMUEL BECKER: 60s. Retired banker. Imperious, articulate, exacting, and controlling. At his wits' end. BIRDY BOCK: 50s. Housekeeper and hanger-on. Feisty, energetic, and eccentric. YOUNG GREGORY: 30s. Interior decorator. Impulsive. Horny. YOUNG SAMUEL: 30s. Banker. Articulate. Somewhat controlling. BRITTANY: 20s. Young Birdy. A flower child (hippie). Flighty and insecure. JOE CASEY: 20s. Hitchhiker and recent college graduate. Outgoing, opportunistic, and sexy. Irish. PATRICK SHEEHAN: 20s. Freelance magazine writer. Solicitous but cunning. VOICEOVER: Tony Vescio - a realtor on the phone. VOICEOVER: David Acheson - a magazine editor on the phone. SETTING A house in the woods near Milford, PA. TIME 2005 and 1975 SCENES 1: 2005-an August afternoon. 2: 1975-an August afternoon. 3: 2005-two months later. An October afternoon. 4: 1975-a week later. 5: 2005-later that night. 6: 2005-three days later. 7: 1975-later that night. SYNOPSIS: How far would you go to hold onto the ones you love? That's the dilemma faced by Samuel Becker, a wealthy retired banker who first came to the woods of northeastern Pennsylvania thirty years ago with his partner, Gregory South, an interior decorator with a big libido and the temperament of a child. To keep Gregory occupied and happy in the woods, Samuel has been buying houses in the area for him to decorate. By this point, they've acquired a large collection of these houses, each decorated in a different style. The third member of their household is Birdy Bock, a strange and feisty woman who wandered into their lives and set down stakes many years ago, eventually becoming their housekeeper and eyewitness to all their shenanigans. And then, of course, there's everyone's special friend, Joe. Samuel runs the household with an iron fist, enforcing a list of "house rules" designed to preserve their security and privacy as well as his sanity. His strategy seems to be working, since they've managed to settle into a comfortable if dysfunctional life together for all these years. But all that's starting to change with the arrival of some suspicious new neighbors-who may or may not have murdered Mister Wiggles, Birdy's beloved cat-and the snooping around of an inquisitive reporter who wants to write an article about their strange collection of decorated houses. As the world starts to intrude on the privacy Samuel has worked so hard to preserve, everyone's nerves start to unravel to the point where it's not clear if the real danger lies outside the household-or within.
About the Author: WILLIAM IVOR FOWKES is a playwright and author based in New York and a member of the Dramatists Guild. His plays have been presented in 24 states. Several have been published. His full-length plays include All in the Faculty (Dramatists Play Service), Museum Lovers (Harlequin Productions), Sunshine Quest (Fresh Fruit Festival), The Best Place We've Ever Lived (Love Creek Productions), Couple of the Century (Downtown Urban Theater Festival), The German Lesson (Great Plains Theatre Conference), and others. His short plays include The Dakota (Best Short Play, Downtown Urban Theater Festival), The Brazilian Dilemma (First Prize, McLean Drama Company), The Next Move (Best New One-Act Play, Brevard Theater), The Session (Pushcart Prize Nominee), Table Manners in Chicagoland (Winner, Nor'Eastern Play Writing Contest, Vermont Actors' Repertory Theatre), An Accident in the Park (William Inge Theatre Festival), and others. A graduate of Yale University (B.A., magna cum laude) and Northwestern University (M.A., PhD), he has been a finalist for the Reva Shiner Comedy Award and the W. Keith Hedrick Playwriting Contest. His fiction has been published in many journals. His books include A Hegelian Account of Contemporary Art (UMI Research Press) and Skyline: Tales of Manhattan. He is a former philosophy professor and a former media & entertainment industry executive. He is married to Stephen Michael Smith, a music conductor, and has two daughters, Laura and Julia, both in the fashion industry. For more information: www.williamivorfowkes.com