Oh, Edgrr!
Oh, Maurice
PLAYS
FULL LENGTH PLAYS
The Caroline In a mid-size city in Pennsylvania, three men compete to win a mobile home by seeing who can remain the longest on an advertising billboard over the course of Memorial Day weekend. None come down. Inspired by a real event. 2 Women, 4 Men, one set. Premiere: Six weeks at the Hole in the Wall Theater, a ninety seat theater in New Britain CT, under the working title HeAVEN (revised/renamed 2025), Directed by Ted Guhl, original music by Beldon Dominello, set design by Peggy Messerschmidt and Bill Arnold. original cast: JoAnne DeWind, Michael Eck, Steve Kelly, Tony Palmieri, Matthew Pollack,Regina Erpenbeck.
A Dog’s Tale On a remote farm, three engage in an Epicurean romp about food, love, aging, transformations and outwitting the inevitable. 1 Woman, 2 Men, one set. Premiere: Directed by Anthony Palmieri and featuring Broadway veteran Carolyn Kirsch, the six week run broke attendance records for then twenty year old Hole in the Wall Theater, New Britain, CT. Cast: Carolyn Kirsch, Steve Kelly, Myron Gubitz.
from the plays:
"I could drop myself into your pocket. I could live right there, next to the rumpled tissue and half a stick of gum. You got that furnace burning. What is that- like the tropics, that’s how you smell." - The Caroline
"Wren, this can never be popcorn, honey. It’s frozen corn."
- The Last of the Flightless Songbirds
"I’m going, only I don’t know where. I know I have to keep driving until I get to a place that smells like cut grass. And baking bread. And I know the coffee will be fresh and hot. It’s just ahead-there’ll be somebody there that loves me and waves me in. Maybe it’s a mother, maybe it’s a father, or a lover, or a son. And then I’ll get out of the car and I’ll be held—really held, and I mean soulfully held—as if I really mattered."
- The Driving Force
"Senator Bob: Tell me, is that tattoo? Or is it a birthmark. See it? Right up there along the inner thigh? Looks just like some kind of bird."
Senator Tod: Really? Like Tweety Bird?
Senator Bob: No, no Tweety Bird. It’s like a real bird—like an egret.
Senator Tod: I think it’s a swan.
Senator Bob: Why would she have a swan way up there? Was she thinking she would mate for life or something?
Nurse: For Pete’s sake. That’s a birthmark.
Senator Tod: are you sure?
Nurse: Of course I’m sure. Anyone can tell it’s a birthmark.
Senator Bob (steps back): One of those cancerous ones?
Nurse: I shouldn’t think so. It looks—nope! It’s smooth and-well-I can tell. That’s a regular birthmark. More like a heron. A blue heron.
Senator Bob: Heron or egret. Swans are not indigenous.
Senator Tod: Immigrant interlopers. They’re good for guard birds, though.
Senator Bob: As good as Canadian geese? I don’t think so. Anyway, that’s a heron. — The New Age of Consent
"And that’s another thing. What the hell am I supposed to do with a fishing pole on a tar roof? Catch a second husband? Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?" — Fly Fishing in Tribeca
Carolyn Kirsch, Steve Kelly, Myron Gubitz in Jenny Lecce’s A Dog’s Tale at Hole in the Wall Theater. Photo by Mark Englehart.
Dinner at the Evergreen A play about the reunion of half-brothers: one who stayed, one who returned, and the ties that bind, choke and lead to something like acceptance or to burning down the house. 1 Woman, 3 Men, one set. Premiere: Douglas Fairbanks Studio Theater, 432 W.42nd Street, NYC, directed by Steve Zimmer. Cast: Anthony Piazza, Jeremy Fortner and Terri Shaver Piazza.
Rosa D on her Daughters One Brief and Everlasting Love Affair
In the course of one night, Rosa relates, with heart and humor, her active-duty daughter’s assault, recovery and only love affair (with another female veteran) while examining her own missteps, false hopes and finding a new way forward. 1 woman, 1 set. A new work in progress 2025.
SHORT PLAYS
The New age of Consent A Women’s Center (i.e. faux clinic) becomes the set for a live-streamed, politician-hosted show about saving women and stopping abortions. Mixing a real life story among the absurdly fictional, the play uses elements of clowning. Cast: 3 persons unspecified gender, 2 Men, 4 Women. Staged reading: Floating Theater Company’s New Works for Stage held at Wesleyan University’s Green Street Arts Center. Work in development, 2025, and is a re-envisioned version of Getting Consent.
Fly Fishing in Tribeca A writer for a TV soap finds that her unemployed husband has illegally built a cabin on top of a building in lower Manhattan where he wants them both to live. 1 man, 1 woman, 1 set. Production venues include: Pace University, NYC (directed by Charles Maryan), Common Basis Theater, 46th St, NYC, Creative Place Theater, 8th St, NYC, The Buttonwood Tree, Middletown, CT, NEAT, New Haven, CT, Acts Factory Players, Collinsville CT.
Second Cousins A same-time/next-year riff in three short scenes, a semi-annual coupling follows a pair from their basement dwelling youth into their unsteady adulthoods. 1 woman, 1 man. Premiere: New Works on Film, Brooklyn College, aired on their public access channel. Originally commissioned by the now defunct HA! Comedy channel.
Henry’s Day A man steps out the second story window of his telecommunications office building and is witnessed momentarily hovering in the air. 2 men. Neighborhood Playhouse, E 54th St, NYC (dir. Charles Maryan), San Diego New Play Cooperative, CA, Best New Play, Common Basis Theater, NYC, The Buttonwood Tree, CT, Act Factory Players, CT, published Bent Pin Quarterly Oct 2008.
The Driving Force Two strangers disrupt their routine post-coital escapes with an argument for deeper intimacy. 2 adults. Boston Theater Marathon held at Boston Center for the Performing Arts, MA, New Britain Festival of New Plays, CT. Included in the Boston Theater Marathon anthology.
The Last of the Flightless Songbirds An absurdist play about fertility. 1 man, 2 women. Floating Theater Company Festival of New Works at Wesleyan University’s Green St. Arts Center.
Getting Consent Based on a news event, a young woman pursues an illegal abortion in the days when underage women needed a judge’s permission in the absence of parental consent. 3 men, 4 women, single set. Nat Horne Theater, W42nd St, NYC, Love Creek Productions at Westbeth Theater (Bank St), NYC, Best of Evening.
