FENWAY- AN AMERICAN VANYA

My play Fenway: Last of the Bohemians, just got published online by Indie Theatre Now. This is the fifth play I've had published on that most indispensable site, and I couldn't be happier.  Of course, the voices told me to cut an entire scene last night.  Woke me up, in fact.

What voices?  The ones that tell me what to do from time to time.  I know, that makes me insane.  I'm cool with that.  It's not like they're  telling me to go on a shooting spree or anything like that.  No, they just wake me up from time to time and tell me what to write.

What scene did they tell me to cut?  The first scene of the play.  The entire freakin' scene.

What's left?  A leaner, faster show- the product of several readings in NYC, a reading by Seattle Playwrights Collective, a production by Boomerang Theatre Company & Impetuous Theatre Group, and a workshop reading by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  As I wrote in my last entry, it's based on Uncle Vanya, by Anton Chekhov- but it's one hundred percent American- dealing with the rise of conservatism, and the struggle of the liberals to cling to their ideals in an increasingly hostile world.  It's also kind of funny.

Here's an excerpt- Moss, the local environmentalist who also works as a doctor at the methodone clinic is talking with Rita, hippie chick with pot brownies, about how old he feels:

MOSS

I fight the good fight, try to stop them from destroying the planet- they lock me up.  You know what I am?  The Lorax.  I speak for the trees- and it's made me little and ugly and alone.

RITA

Have a brownie.

MOSS

I don't want a fucking brownie! (pause) I pulled a triple shift at the clinic last week.  Junkies to the left of me, junkies to the right...this one- he was fourteen.  Isn't that crazy?  We live in a world that has fourteen year old junkies.  He went into cardiac arrest.  Fourteen years old, addicted to junk, and going into cardiac arrest. And I...I did everything right- everything!  I shot him up with adrenaline- pounded his chest, blew air into him...I just wanted to force him to stay alive, to maybe somehow become a normal little boy...but he was more determined than I was.  Fourteen years old.  You should have seen his face-  his sweet, sad, dead little innocent face. Like a fallen angel. (pause)  I don't think I was ever fourteen.

RITA

Have a brownie.

Yes, I want you to buy a copy.

And yes, more excerpts will be coming soon.