Scripts

Here you’ll find play scripts and screenplays I’ve written over the years.

Eventually every writer feels compelled to tell the story of his or her own “coming of age.” Well, Big Questions was mine. It’s loosely based on my undergrad years at East Central University and my unsold (not to mention widely unread) novel The Big House.

Century City was the first full-length screenplay I ever wrote (1997). It’s an anthology based on short stories I wrote as an undergraduate, so it tends to meander. I wrote it while listening to Radiohead’s OK Computer on a near-continuous loop. Rereading it now, it amazes me how quickly the future got dated.

Words, words, words! Why squeeze dozens of people onto a vast stage when you can focus on the bare essentials? With apologies to Billy Shakes, I give you Free Hamlet!

I wrote Jan. 6: A Dramatization in 2023, with hopes of having it produced (at least as a staged reading) before the 2024 election. I wanted to remind people exactly how horrifying the events of that day were, how little the 45th president did to stop it and his central role in inciting the crisis in the first place. Unfortunately, my venue of choice had to close, and besides: It’s an odd little duck of a play, too short to produce economically. Therefore, the best I can do before Nov. 5, 2024, is post it here. It’s based on the excellent work of legitimate journalists and the Jan. 6 Committee, including several conscientious Republicans. I’m profoundly grateful for their dedication and candor. The quotes and texts reproduced here are actual texts. As painful as it is to recall, this is exactly what happened. It’s what that man and his amoral, avaricious cronies forced our country to endure. We must never forget. And from here on out, we must always vote accordingly.

When I read it for the first time during the rise of the #MeToo movement, I couldn’t believe the uncanny prescience of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.

My favorite movie of all time is Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. I set out to write my own space opera, with the added complication of James Cameron-style hard science. The result was Son of Man, which I conceived as the first screenplay in a trilogy. The ensuing scripts, Prince of Peace and King of Kings, would have continued the starfaring life story of David Hammond.

Squatty-Body was written in “director’s form” (meaning camera directions were included) because my friends and I intended to shoot it. That never happened, unfortunately. It’s dated (to 1999) in about a hundred ways, but I dig it all the same. Good, nostalgic fun.

Stardust was a short play I wrote for an anthology production called Creative Juices 2, an unofficial offshoot of the Project Greenlight program, in 2001. I’m obliged to admit I cribbed the climactic incident from a Larry Niven short story, Inconstant Moon — hence the name of its male character, Larry. As for “Larry’s” gift to his wife and daughter, that’s a tribute to my late stepfather, Walter Shelton. I later changed the story so it didn’t steal from Niven, and that went into the roster for C Is for Collection.

The problem with The Storm and the Fisherman is it actually got made (in 2002). Unfortunately, what looked at first like a promising effort rapidly degenerated, thanks to a lousy producer (me) and a stoned editor. I still like the script, though, and I can’t fault the actors, cameraman, and composer. They gave it their best.

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