A Godawful Small Affair: A Play in Two Rooms

Jodie and Nessa, a twentysomething lesbian couple, are put in an unexpected U-haul situation; their neighbor Luca, a touch-starved, non-binary stoner, is visited by the alien angel ghost of David Bowie. A pandemic rages outside. A wall separates them, but they’re all about to be connected, sort of. Can a relationship become routine if there’s nothing else? Can life? And can a change in routine become a blessing? A relatably messy, kind of sad, kind of hopeful, and deeply intimate play exploring touch, longing, time, and routine in the age of Corona, and what the pandemic has done to us. And also David Bowie.

It’s Confusing, These Days: An Election Week Companion

After a summer full of tumult, time passes more normally again for neighbors-turned-throuple Jodie, Nessa, and Luca. When the pandemic hits close to home on the eve of the most important political week of the year, an unexpected road trip to maybe say goodbye is in order. Capturing the messiness of Election Week 2020, this short play functions as a bonus third act to “A Godawful Small Affair” and explores anxiety, hope, fear, and the generation gap between millenials and their boomer parents during a politically-fraught week in a year unlike any other.

When Jonah and his partner Giancarlo decide to adopt a baby from a foreign country, their friends hold a baby shower for them. But there’s trouble in paradise as Giancarlo had doubts about taking on the responsibility of raising a child. Will the baby help or hurt their relationship?

• Cast Size: 6M
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

Baker’s Dozen is a collection of 13 short comedies and dramas for 1, 2, or 3 actors of various ages. From a drama in which the same-sex partner and the homophobic sister of a dying man meet for the first time, to a comedy about a man summoning a demon on a dating app; from a monologue in which a man recalls the sexual abuse he suffered when he was thirteen, to the gentle humor of an older gay couple bickering about aging and flirtatious baristas—these pieces—and more—demonstrate the great variety of the gay experience.

• Cast Size: Flexible
• Running Time: Variable
• Royalty Rate: $75 for the whole evening, Contact for individual pieces

Carly Weekes and her sisters, Lolly and Shirley, are witches. Determined to find Carly a mate, the three cast a circle to summon a popular recording artist from Colorado. However, Shirley casts what appears to be a dubious and deadly spell. Worried that Carly and her new family might now be cursed, Lolly endeavors to reverse the hex, but fails, resulting in her expulsion to an alternate world. Years later, twin sisters Tina and Rose Pacheco mysteriously drown. The case goes cold, but many believe Carly’s oldest son, Johnny, is responsible. Cold Rain is an account of a family bound by black magic, a dark and comical tale of ill-conceived machinations, misdirected resentment, and repressed desire.

• Cast Size: 4M 5W
• Running Time: 120+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

When Paul gets invited to New Mexico for the summer for an artist’s retreat with his gay bromanticcollege buddy Alonso, he discovers that Alonso’s sister Blanca is tasking Paul with keeping Alonso on his medication for temporal lobe epilepsy, which he doesn’t want to take since he identifies with Van Gogh, who had the same condition.  Paul and Blanca begin a clandestine affair as he increasingly offers teases of his body to Alonso as incentive to take his meds.  All comes to a head when Blanca’s boyfriend Gabriel returns unexpectedly from the army. Tormented painters, sexual obsession, and crossed boundaries combine for a scorching new play. 

• Cast Size: 3M 1W
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

Gays is an evening of theater comprised of gay monologues and short plays. The plays require minimal furniture, just some chairs and a small table will do. The same actors can appear in multiple plays and perform multiple monologues. 

• Cast Size: Flexible
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

Set in 1968, the play is a poetic homage to the style of Tennessee Williams. Brother Linus is a monk who has been exiled to a remote monastery on an island, where he has lived alone in quiet contemplation for the past 20 years. Then, during a huge thunderstorm, a young man named Christian washes up on the beach with memory loss, and in giving succor to him, Linus begins to question to what exactly he is truly devoted, and if he has allowed his life to be wasted.

• Cast Size: 2M
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

Psychologist Margot Welles is taking a “sabbatical” from her marriage to explore her “untapped feminine potential” by giving lesbianism a whirl. Hoping to make Margot jealous, her husband Phillip, a philosophy professor, starts dating the lovely Antonia… a much older woman. Margot and Philip both employ their best friend Brighton, a romantically disadvantaged film professor, to keep one another posted… but Brighton’s “gay best friend” duties are waylaid when his former student Nick begins to court him out of the blue. Mayhem ensues.

• Cast Size: 3M 4-6W
• Running Time: 120+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

Brought back to their childhood home to care for their ailing grandmother, young prodigal playwright Sloane and their botanist husband Gwyn are struggling to settle the estate after their lives are uprooted by tragedy. A sudden spiral of Sloane’s obsession with completing their masterpiece in the unsettling old house forces Gwyn to confront the safety of Sloane regurgitating their family trauma into their art. When Gwyn’s childhood friend Beckham arrives to help the couple bury the hatchet, they soon discover there may be more to the house, and to Sloane, hidden beneath the foundation. If the basement is the stomach… then what’s the basement door?

• Cast Size: 2M 1W/NB 1NB
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

KISS AND CRY by Tom Rowan

Fiona Blake is a hot young actress who has just made her debut in a big summer horror movie; Stacy Clifford is a male figure skater headed for Olympic glory. They meet late one night at a Hollywood party, strike up a friendly conversation, and end up sneaking out together—but not without catching the attention of the paparazzi. When the gossip columns turn them into a couple, they decide to play along—in order to cover up the fact that, in reality, both of them are gay. As the lie snowballs, it begins to wreak havoc with their careers, their relationships, and every aspect of their lives. 

Set amidst the neon-colored pop-cultural obsessions of the late 1990s, Kiss and Cry is a romantic comedy with a sharp satiric edge.

• Cast Size: 3M 3W
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

St. Louis, MO. 1858. Charlotte Cushman’s opening night as Romeo, one of her most famous male roles, leads to a case of the jitters, and encounters with an amorous young female fan and a frontier woman and her mail-order bride. Charlotte’s hectic life on and offstage is held together by her trusted assistant Sallie Mercer, a free and educated black woman during the time of slavery in the U.S. Based on the life of the most famous actress in the English-speaking theatre in the 19th century, who lived her life loving other women, including sculptor Emma Stebbins, designer of Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain.

• Cast Size: 5W
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

Alex and Erik live in Battery Park, just minutes from the World Trade Center and the impact of history. In this terrible time, the tensions and challenges humanity grappled with are played out in the microcosm of one, small apartment. They don’t agree on most things … except their devotion to each other. At all costs.  
What do you hold onto? What does it take to let go?

• Cast Size: 2M, 1GN, 11Voice Only Roles 
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

The play takes place in an upper East Side Manhattan apartment, switching back and forth in time from the early 1990s to present day. The earlier scenes explore the relationship of Richard, a handsome, irresponsible actor in his 40s, and Rodney, an slightly older, attentive, well-off member of a theater’s Board of Directors. The two are sometime partners, sometime roommates who share a tumultuous, unequal association, wherein Richard does not completely return Rodney’s affections, yet finds himself frequently availing himself of Rodney’s generosity. In the present-day scenes, some 25 years later, an older version of Rodney brings an older version Richard to his apartment to care for him in the end stages of Pancreatic cancer. The two have had no relationship to speak of for many years, and Richard is both perplexed and wary of Rodney’s motives in fetching him from his Brooklyn apartment after all this time. As Richard’s illness progresses, he has bouts of anger, amnesia and confusion, testing the limits of Rodney’s devotion to him. Taken together, Like Drowning is a complex, detailed exploration of the nature of unrequited love from both the giver’s and receiver’s point of view, and the bonds of friendship and devotion that somehow manage to withstand turmoil and time.

• Cast Size: 4M
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

The Love Song of Sidney J. Stein follows the relationship of Sidney, a 45-year-old man who works at an NYC half-way house, and Dennis, an 17-year-old streetwalker. Sidney is a snide, funny and guarded former prostitute who tries to set Dennis straight, despite Dennis’ immaturity and indoctrination into the street life. They begin tenuously living together, though Dennis is not quite willing to give up his past. Both end up bringing out something in the other that is revealing and unexpected. With humor and pathos, Love Song explores the struggle to truly connect with another human being, and the role one’s past has in dictating one’s future.

• Cast Size: 2M
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

In 1930, E.M. Forster met and fell in love with Bob Buckingham, a policeman 23 years his junior. Before long, fear of discovery forced Bob to court and marry May, a young nurse. The ensuring love triangle, turbulent and unique, evolved until Forster’s death nearly forty years later.

• Cast Size: 3M 2W
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

An Iranian, same-sex couple seeks to migrate from their homeland to a country where they will be able to live a peaceful life as their authentic selves. When a pious community member discovers their relationship, he threatens to destroy their lives. The couple struggles to navigate the situation hoping to find a way out.

• Cast Size: 10M 1W (with doubling 6M/1W)
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

On the evening of Sunday, June 24th, 1973, thirty-two men perished in a fire at The Upstairs Lounge, a sanctuary bar for working-class homosexual men in New Orleans. On that same evening, several blocks north, nearly a dozen women, including a gifted young nursing student, Sydney (Syd) Trahan, were taken into custody and charged with lewd and lascivious conduct for dancing together at Brady’s, a notorious lesbian bar in the French Quarter. Hopeful that the deadly fire and the controversy surrounding its multiple victims might overshadow Syd’s arrest, Bud, a reputable blacksmith, and Helen, a God-fearing woman, do everything in their power to curtail the impact of their daughter’s transgression on their seemingly near perfect lives.

• Cast Size: 2M 3W
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

Seven charming and sometimes fiery Southern lesbians volunteer to plan the first LGBTQ prom for the local high school students. The twenty plus years of life since college have not dulled the jealousy and unrequited love of a few of the old friends. A successful sorority sister returns to town determined to romance the woman she has loved all of her life. Grief and mourning are on full display as the lovers expose their separate pain. As prom night arrives, plans unravel, infidelities are revealed and these women are forced to confront their fears. The first dance commences at dusk on the worn floor of the café in hopes that dreams really can come true.

• Cast Size: 7W
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

Ellie Wolcott, a Southern Baptist woman fearing a tepid and lonely old age, attempts to reunite her daughter, Kate, with long time paramour Alan John in order to salvage her remaining years with some semblance of dignity.  When Kate shows up with an unexpected “guest”, Ellie is forced to confront many demons including her ideas about race, biology, bigotry, and sexuality.

• Cast Size: 1M 3W
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

A Tree Grows in Longmont: A year after Allen’s death, Philip visits the park in Longmont, Colorado, where a tree has been planted in his memory. There he meets with Allen’s spirit, and they remember their life together.

Allen’s Big Adventure: Memories come flooding back as a spouse says goodbye to his soulmate.

Last Exit: Moving day brings closure to a relationship. Or does it?

Going for a Walk with Sam: Allen, Sam, and Philip meet up at a park in the spirit of remembering good times and the last time they were together.

Another Park, Another Sunday: Allen and Jill, two spirits, meet up every Sunday at the park to talk about life, the universe, the meaning of life, and peaches.

• Cast Size: 3M (1 dog), 1W
• Running Time: Variable
• Royalty Rate: $75 for the whole evening, contact for individual plays

V (Veanne), recently separated from her twin brother Baz as a result of their parents’ divorce, starts her senior year at a brand-new school in Elmira, NY. With her boyish appearance, manner, and nickname, V gets misgendered by the other kids at school—but she goes along with their misconception because she feels surprisingly welcomed by them. Misunderstandings, miscommunication, and misdeeds abound in this freewheeling, contemporary, high school-set adaptation of William Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT.

• Cast Size: 6M 4W; 1W or NB; 1 M or W off-stage voice; Extras M, W, or NB
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

High-powered film executive Caroline Davis is on her way to a very important meeting on the Oregon coast. Preoccupied with phone calls, she takes a wrong turn and ends up stuck in the mud, on an old logging road. Thunder rolls. Cell service drops. Rain begins to pour. But there’s a light, in the distance. A cabin in the woods. Perfect! Caroline jumps out of the car and hurries off, through the rain, in search of a phone, unaware that her life is about to change forever, thanks to a mysterious old woman who lives in the cabin. Her name is Violet Underwood, and she’s the last living resident of Valsetz, Oregon – Population 1. 

• Cast Size: 2W
• Running Time: Over an Hour
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

Dan and Eric have a new marriage license, a new baby, and a new house in the country. As they settle into this new life, Dan is having what seem to be sleepwalking episodes. A ghost story told by a young visitor leads Eric to suspect that Dan’s sleepwalking incidents are actually something far more sinister — but are they what he thinks they are? Or are there other forces at work? WAKE is a ghost story for the post-AIDS generation, a play about marriage, expectations, and the power of narrative to both heal and harm. 

• Cast Size: 4M 1W
• Running Tine: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance

Willow and Poppy live in a society where Order is chaos, but they have found a constant- an empty stairwell they’ve claimed as their own secret Neverland. Appointing themselves Peter and Wendy, they vow to protect the Fourth Floor’s children (Chrys, Daff, and Violet) from the sinister truths of the world they live in. But when the shadows of their dystopian reality begin to seep into their haven, these “lost children” must learn how to hold onto the light and- more importantly- each other.

• Cast Size: 1M 4W
• Running Time: 90+ minutes
• Royalty Rate: $75 per performance