For Your Consideration
Word Works
Stage
Grande Hysterie
When a conservator of European paintings finds herself entangled in the twisted world of a live-in artist friend with a multiple-personality disorder, she attempts to free herself and seek help for the friend—only to find the gravity of her friend’s world much stronger than she thought.
Length: Full-length (2 acts)
Genre: Drama
Set: Unit set
Number of actors: 4
Hospitality Suite
In a small hotel room high above Wichita, Kansas, conflicting notions of character, salesmanship, honesty, religion, and love simmer until they boil over as two experienced salesmen and a young research engineer await a CEO whose visit to their modest hospitality suite could save their company from ruin. (Adapted and produced for film as The Big Kahuna.)
Length: Full-length (2 acts)
Genre: Drama
Set: Unit set
Number of actors: 4
Hunger's End
On the eve of a rare conjunction of May Day and Easter, a reclusive modern-day Renaissance man receives a visit from a young admirer who is eager to chronicle his life. As the visit unfolds, the masks of decorum are peeled away, revealing the true motivations of both and the ultimate cost of one man’s creativity.
Length: Full-length (2 acts)
Genre: Drama
Set: Unit set
Number of actors: 4
The Imperative
When a curmudgeonly professor of evolutionary biology at a small, underfunded private college inadvertently offends a freshman student with his opening address of the semester, he sets the stage for the greatest moral challenge of his career… and the possible demise of his institution.
Length: Full-length (2 acts)
Genre: Drama
Set: Unit set
Number of actors: 3
So Many Words
On the day that he is to receive a prestigious award, a renowned novelist receives a visit from a beautiful young devotee whose world view manifests the unstated philosophy of his writings. The visit triggers a cascade of exploding revelations that lay shambles to his marriage and shake the foundations of his philosophy to its core.
Length: Full-length (4 scenes)
Genre: Drama
Set: Unit set
Number of actors: 4
Screen
The Big Kahuna
In a small hotel room high above Wichita, Kansas, conflicting notions of character, salesmanship, honesty, religion, and love simmer until they boil over as two experienced salesmen and a young research engineer await a CEO whose visit to their modest hospitality suite could save their company from ruin. (Adapted from my stage play Hospitality Suite.)
Starring:
Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, Peter Facinelli
REVIEWS:
Roger Ebert
Boys & Girls
Boys & Girls is a Web series launched in 2012 and supported by the European Union Health Programme. As lead writer, I worked with the Tilapia Animation Studio in Naples, Italy, to oversee development of the scripts.
The challenge: To create a 75-minute story divided into 25 chunks to address issues of drugs, alcohol, exercise, and nutrition for teenagers between the ages of 13–18, especially those from the most vulnerable parts of the population, across a political and economic union comprising 24 official languages and cultures.
No problem. (And no dialogue.)
Discovering the Soul of Your Story
At the core of every great work of fiction lies its soul—the mysterious thing that motivates its characters’ actions and speaks to the world with their voices, saying, “Let me tell you something you need to know.” The writer who aims for greatness must ask: “Where do I find that soul, and how do I unveil it?”
Discovering the Soul of Your Story answers both.
In a far-reaching exploration launched from first principles, this book introduces two new and original techniques for revealing the deeper meaning of any story and charting its truest course—as well as a third technique that combines the first two to generate stories from scratch.
Transcend Press
ISBN:978-0-9844688-1-2
ISBN:978-0-9844688-2-9