These are some of the plays of mine which have been produced over the years. They are all available for production. Contact me for information about rights.
Currently, I am working on four new projects: Doctors Jane and Alexander, a play about my grandfather (who discovered the Rh factor), for which I received a Sloan Grant from Ensemble Studio Theatre;Rudolf II, a new play about the Emperor who lived in Prague at the turn of the seventeenth century;Blind/Sight a play about neurological disorders affecting sight; and a musical (unnamed) about lobotomy..
Click on each play to read a short excerpt—or, in the case of Brains and Puppets and Unauthorized Magic, to see them on YouTube. The one exception is Cat's Cradle, for which I provide no excerpt, so as not to infringe on Vonnegut's copyright.
Brains & Puppets
Two short plays about the conditions of autism and synesthesia. Although these plays were originally performed with puppets, they could be performed in a variety of fashions. The first, The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Robot, is a Pinnochio tale in reverse presented as a fairy tale from a foreign culture—the culture of people with Asperger’s Syndrome. The second, The Taste of Blue, is about a teenage girl who can taste color and see music. She has synesthesia, a condition in which the senses are mixed, a condition shared by many artists, from Kandinsky to Nabokov.
CAST: Both shows were performed as 1 person shows (the first by a man, the second by a woman). However, the first can also be performed with a larger cast.
RUNNING TIME: Together they run about 40 minutes. Each is about 20.
Carnivores
A short meditation on sausage.
CAST: 1 man, 1 woman.
RUNNING TIME: 7 minutes
Cat's Cradle
A calypso musical based on the novel by Kurt Vonnegut. An examination of the stupidity and visciousness of mandkind, featuring Bokononism, a religion based on lies, and ice-nine, a brilliant invention with the capacity to destroy the world. With original music by Henry Akona.
CAST: Performed originally with a cast of 21 (13 men, 8 women), though that number is flexible, depending on doubling.
RUNNING TIME:About 2 hours 30 minutes, with intermission.
Fairy Tales of the Absurd
"One Head Too Many" is one of the three short scripts that made up Fairy Tales of the Absurd, performed Off-Broadway in 2003. It tells the story of a Princess who falls in love with her second head.
CAST: The show performed with a cast of 2 women and 3 men, as well as a number of puppets. However, the number of cast is flexible.
RUNNING TIME: "One Head Too Many" runs 40 minutes. The whole production runs 1 hour 30 minutes.
Golem Stories
Winner of Best Play (Playwrights Award) from the Spotlight On Festival. A retelling of the legend of a clay man in 16th century Prague. Rabbi Loew creates a Golem to defend the Jews, but this Golem seems more interested in listening to the Rebbetsin's stories and falling in love with the Rabbi's daughter. Is he the reincarnated spirit of her murdered lover? Or does his childlike façade hide the face of a demon?
Included in the book: The Golem, Methuselah, and Shylock.
CAST: 3 women, 5 men
RUNNING TIME: 1 hour 30 minutes
The Living Methuselah
Methuselah, the world's oldest man, has lived through the Flood, the Plague, Sodom and Gomorrah, Pompeii, and his own extremely poor judgment, thanks to his wife Serach, the world's oldest woman. Now age and a poor health regimen have caught up with him, and the doctor tells him he won't make it past the end of the play. Afflicted with every disease known to man, Methuselah fights on, flashing back in his delirium to former disasters and fantasizing about having handmaidens. Will he survive? It ain't necessarily so.
Included in the book: The Golem, Methuselah, and Shylock.
CAST: 3 women, 2 men
RUNNING TIME: 1 hour 15 minutes
Lysistrata
An original adaptation of Artistophane’s ancient Greek comedy, in which the women refuse to have sex unless the men call off their war.
Published by Theater 61 Press.
CAST: The show was performed with a cast 100, including chorus. As written, it has 16 principal parts, with 11 women and 5 men. The number of chorus is flexible.
RUNNING TIME: 1 hour 15 minutes.
Playing Dreidel with Judah Maccabee
A modern-day boy encounters Judah Maccabee in an abandoned room of his temple, for eight consecutive nights. The future is not what Judah Maccabee expects, and Judah Maccabee is not who the boy expects. Can Judah understand why latkes and dreidels are meaningful, when his world is full of battles and animal sacrifice?
CAST: 1 man, 1 boy
RUNNING TIME: 60 minutes
Strangers and Linguish
Two plays about neurological conditions. "The first part, a two-hander pregnant with Pinter-esque pauses, manages to convey the numbing repetitiveness and frustration of life with an amnesiac. The second, an inspired absurdist comedy, follows four strangers infected with a mysterious form of aphasia who are quarantined in a No Exit bunker. Literally at a loss for words, they must invent a new language in order to communicate—or to keep from going crazy. Side effects may include hilarity, we are told (it's definitely contagious)." The Village Voice
CAST: 1 woman, 1 man
RUNNING TIME: 35 minutes
LINGUISH CAST: 2 women, 3 men
RUNNING TIME: 1 hour 10 minutes
A Shylock
Antonio says that Shylock was a capitalist. Jessica says that he was a Freudian nightmare. Tubal says he was a good Jew. Whom is Jacob Levy to believe? Perhaps Hamlet can guide him—although this Hamlet seems to be a woman. Jacob Levy, a mild mannered professor, is taken on a tour of Shakespeare's Venice, as he tries to find his own answer to Shylock's legacy.
Included in the book: The Golem, Methuselah, and Shylock.
CAST: 3 women, 5 men
RUNNING TIME: 1 hour 15 minutes
One-Eyed Moses and the Churning Red Sea
Rabbi Tzipporah Finestein is having dreams that Moses is a pirate captain, battling Pharaoh on the high seas. Are they nightmares, or more? Two congregants may be the key to an answer.
Included in the book: The Golem, Methuselah, and Shylock.
CAST: 2 women, 1 man
RUNNING TIME: 15 minutes
Possessed by a Rebellious Spirit
Winner of TADA Theater's annual playwriting contest (plays for teen actors). Casey, a teenage girl, gets a little "visit" from her recently deceased grandmother. In an effort to grab just one more taste of reality, grandma gets a chance to see the world out of the eyes of her teenage granddaughter. In the process, Casey learns a lot she didn't know about her family history and herself.
CAST: 2 teen girls, 2 teen boys, 1 adult woman
RUNNING TIME: 40 minutes
Unauthorized Magic in Oz
Edward Einhorn takes his Oz novels and brings them to the world of puppetry! Buddy, a small boy, has a mother who likes to perform sorcery and a good friend who's a magician. But Glinda won't be happy when she finds out they are defying Oz law to do so. See the Living House, a two and a half foot tall puppet filled with characters in its windows! See Dr. Majestico attempt to destroy his own home! See Glinda, Omby Amby, Tempus the Parrot-Ox, and many more!
CAST: 2 women, 2 men
RUNNING TIME: 20 minutes
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