I've written several dozen plays, ranging from five minute
blackout sketches to full lengths. Listed below are synopses. If any
interest you for perusal in consideration, please contact me at
daltongn@verizon.net.
Synposes
LIFE UNDERWATER
Contemporary
Farce: 54 pages
Place: A crummy New York suburb.
Time:
Now-ish.
Characters:
Mikke: (pronounced
Mikey) is a nickname for Michela, pronounced My-Kell-A, like My Kellogs. Early 30’s, smart, attractive.
Del: Mid 40’s—mid 50’s. Overweight, shabbily dressed, hair a
disaster. Haggard. Has definitely let herself go.
Ramirez: Mid 40’s.
Latino working stiff. Slight
accent only. As he claims, a citizen.
James: Police officer, mid-30’s. Trim, modest height and build. Not bad
looking. High school wrestler, then
straight to the police academy. In his
own words, a doer not a thinker.
Truman: Female, early 20’s. Rookie cop.
Solid in build and personality.
Mrs.
Weintraub: Small and wiry. Has lived long enough so that she can say
whatever the hell she likes.
Nathan: Tall and handsome. He and Mikke would complete each other as a
celebrity couple, if they were celebrities.
Setting:
Mikke’s
studio apartment w/ a door to the outside and a door to the bathroom. Sofa, no bed.
Should be as cramped as it can appear and still accommodate the action.
Synopsis:
“Life
Underwater” is a contemporary farce about a contemporary fiasco—the mortgage
meltdown.
Mikke,
a 30-something former mortgage broker, has had her life downsized since the
bubble burst. Formerly affluent and
trendy, she now resides in an overpriced studio apartment and is lucky to be
employed at Wal-Mart. She has been
hounded by Ramirez, who she thinks is the super, because he thinks she is a bad
tenant--and immoral.
As
the light come up, Mikke is hustling to get to work, but as she opens the door,
she is startled by Del, who waves a pistol in Mikke’s face. Del has tracked down Mikke to extract revenge
for putting her in a mortgage she couldn’t afford.
Dell
rifles through Mikke’s belongings but finds nothing of value. Then, it a fit of pique, she shoots Mikke’s
wide screen TV. The gunshot brings
Ramirez into the apartment, unaware that Del is armed. Before long, Ramirez tries to break Mikke’s
lease and rent her apartment to Del for more money. After much haggling and confusion, two police
officers knock on the door. Officer
James is a dim but talkative veteran with a crush on Mikke; Truman is a female
rookie with more gray matter than James would like.
After
Truman accidentally discovers the slug that killed Mikke’s TV, James begins a
plodding investigation. Like Ramirez, he
is also unaware Del is packing heat. In
the course of his investigation, he asks Truman to get Mrs. Weintraub, the
downstairs neighbor who made the 911 call about the gunshot. As soon as Weintraub arrives, she recognizes
Del, the former investment advisor who cost Weintraub her life savings. In a few very contentious minutes, it is also
revealed that Officer James has suffered foreclosure, and that Ramirez is not
really the super-he owns the place, and insult to injury, owns Del’s former
McMansion.
Verbal
mayhem escalates when Weintraub draws a handgun on Del, the cops draw their
weapons and Ramirez, who has stepped out to retrieve some surveillance video, re-enters
with a huge firearm. With five armed,
anxious people in a small apartment, gunshots replace words, but both the
amateurs and professionals are miserable aims.
There is no bloodshed, but when Mikke finally gets to call her boss, she
learns that her day has gotten worse: she’s been fired.
Even
though multiple felonies have been committed in Mikke’s domicile, it turns out
that all five shooters are off the hook:
Office James does not fancy explaining how he discharged his weapon at
close range and missed.
After
her unwanted guests leave, Mikke has just curled into a fetal position when she
is surprised by the mysterious tenant from # 17 ½, who turns out to be a former
financial wheeler-dealer also down on his luck.
He has barely crossed the threshold before he and Mikke are headed
towards romance and renewed financial shenanigans.
The
ten page excerpt that follows begins when Officers James and Truman first knock
on Mikke’s door, with Mikke, Ramirez and Del already in Mikke’s apartment.
1st
Year H & P
44 pages
SYNOPSIS:
Characters:
Jimmy:
23, Anglo
Kim:
23, Asian
Setting: Jimmy’s bedroom
Jimmy
and Kim, first year med students, have plunged into romance at the worst
possible moment: exam time.
Both
have come to their professional training and their romance with much anxiety
and pain. Their individual tensions test
whether they will succeed in school, and as a couple.
Jimmy
and Kim are trying to prepare for a crucial practical exam by doing what
medical students have often done: practicing on each other. In the throes of passion however, they have
mostly been studying each other’s anatomy in erotic ways, and find themselves
at least three weeks behind on learning the clinical skills they will need to
demonstrate during a simulated encounter with a role-playing patient.
A
perfectionist, Kim is terrified of failure.
For the first time in her life, she has let herself go emotionally and
physically, and done so with a classmate-lover who is seriously questioning if
he’s cut out for medicine. Jimmy, a
funny, literate and soulful young man, was drawn towards medicine after he
watched his beloved mother die of breast cancer. His greatest desire at the moment is to
forget about cranial nerves and liver palpation and indulge in conversation,
play, and sex with Kim. But Kim is
wary. Her sky high achievement has
always made classmates jealous, and she lives in the shadow of her father, an
accomplished surgeon. Although drawn to
Jimmy, she has no way of processing all the feelings that overwhelm her,
especially how she has lived as an outsider to both her peers and her family.
As
the clock winds down towards the History and Physical final, both Jimmy and Kim
struggle with their feelings, and discover that although it would be easier to
quit on each other, they have only grown closer.
Dirty Bomb: Des Moines
Synopsis
One-Act Black Comedy/Farce
25 pages
Cast:
A: CIA
agent, male, 45 B: CIA
agent, male, early 30’s
Prisoner: Middle Eastern
Dentist, 30’s
Setting:
Can be played with furniture
on a bare stage.
Two CIA
agents, exhausted from interrogating a Middle Eastern prisoner in an
undisclosed location, differ strongly about the veracity of the suspect’s
confession. The older, more experienced
agent believes that the prisoner has tried to placate his interrogators in
order to end torture. The younger, more
aggressive agent believes that the two have uncovered a plot to explode a dirty
bomb in Des Moines. Sleep deprived and
under the gun, the agents bungle the interrogation and must repeat important
segments so they can report to headquarters.
Before they can complete the re-do, the suspect dies and the acrimony
between the two agents explodes into open combat before they are able to pull
themselves together and await their fate.
EYES ON THE GROUND
31 pages Setting: Afghanistan
Time: The
not-too-distant future
Characters:
Lieutenant
Adams, late 20’s-early 30’s, Army Special Forces Trooper.
Voices:
Major
Shuntway, Adams’ commanding officer
Hal: A voice-interactive battlefield intelligence
supercomputer.
In the not too distant future, Army special forces lieutenant Adams is on a mission in the wilds of Afghanistan that is going terribly wrong. His partner has died by tumbling into a ravine, and he's almost at the end of his physical and emotional reserves. He's lucky to be backed up by a super computer. Or is he? The computer not only injects him with drugs when his energy wanes, it also provides him with company as he waits for Tailban movement so he can call in a drone strike. But when the battlefield situation gets out of hand, Adams finds that his life depends on a silicon brain humming away in Nevada.
A WILLOW GROWN ASKANT THE BROOK
17 pages
Drama
Cast:
Mr. Johnson, 30’s, a high
school English teacher of average appearance.
Shelly, 15 year old female
student. Her appearance should be
adolescent, not womanly. Far from
stunning, but sexy, both studied and natural ways.
Setting: A high school classroom.
Can be represented by just the teacher’s
desk.
Mr. Johnson, a high school
English teacher, has called an after school appointment with Shelly, a problem
student who is underachieving. For an
autobiographical assignment, Shelly has submitted a short vulgar poem. Johnson uses the inappropriate poem as a
springboard for a discussion not only about Shelly’s class work, but also about
her provocative behavior, which has earned her the reputation as the school slut. During the meeting, Shelly propositions
Johnson and disrupts both his sense of himself as a teacher and a
divorcee. In the end, Shelly gets a
different sort of attention from her teacher than she imagined.
NEW TESTAMENT
38 pages
Characters:
Sister: A Catholic Nun, 35-40
Dr.
James Burns, Surgeon, late 40’s
Setting: Sister’s Office
Dr. Burns has become a lightning rod at the Catholic hospital where he works for because it's been revealed that he's an atheist. The only person who can perhaps redeem him in the eyes of the patient community is a nun with a Ph.D. in clinical psychology who has sequestered herself in a family therapy practice. Although she has the power to protect Dr. Burns, she first needs to find out how she really feels about him--and herself. The two doctors struggle to find common ground with life changing consequences in the offing.
DOMESTIQUE Synopsis
Comedy
11
pages
THE
CAST:
--The
Cyclist: A lean, fit man in his early 30’s.
American.
Playing
Multiple Roles:
--The
Woman: Late 20’s—early 30’s. Must be tall and elegant in the role of The
Wife.
--The
Man: Middle aged character actor.
TO
BE PLAYED ON BARE STAGE WITH LIGHTS AND SOUND.
“Domestique”
is the story of an elite American cyclist’s tribulations with performance
enhancing drugs, family and failure.
After the cyclist goes along with the pack and starts doping, his family
and career spiral down into crisis, and his true loves are revealed: his
attraction to endurance competition. A
very human sports story with a touch of French farce.
GODMOTHER
Synopsis
30 pages
Cast:
All are in their early to mid
forties.
John: Longish, somewhat
unkempt hair, both graying and thinning.
Extremely active attention, as if he is always primed to react to
something.
Mary: Attractive, intelligent
and self possessed. Extremely well
expressed and willful.
Ed: Casually but neatly
dressed. A placid ferocity.
Ellen: Strikingly attractive. An actress in her prime. Dress tilts slightly towards a sexy, earth
mother/hippie look.
Setting:
Ellen’s living room. An eclectic mix of furniture, theatre
memorabilia and original art, all of which she accumulated in her bohemian
past. Many of the objects are familiar
to Mary and John. The room suggests the
attractive, upscale home of a lively woman.
Mary and John meet at the
home of their old friend Ellen, along with Mary’s new husband, Ed. Mary and John are trying to resolve an
acrimonious dispute about how to raise their 13 year old daughter, Sara. In their younger days, John, Mary and Ellen
were creative partners in left-wing theater collective. Only Ellen works in theater/show biz now. Since leaving John, Mary has become devoutly
religious in a traditionally Christian manner, and John has become increasing
afraid that he will be cut out of Sara’s moral and intellectual education. During the battle over how Sara is to be
raised, Ellen’s judgment becomes increasingly important to John, Mary and
Ed. The soul of an adolescent is at
stake as four adults grapple with their personal spiritual imperatives, past
and present.
An X-Mass Fable orBlack Friday
PERFECT FOR HOLIDAY PAGEANTS!
Wonderful role for a 11 year old wippersnapper!
Santa As You've Never Seen Him Before!
Synopsis
28
pages
Satire
of sorts.
A
one-act play in four scenes.
To
be played on a bare stage w/minimal furniture.
Characters: Suzie: Cute, earnest. First in fifth grade, then sixth. Santa: Thin, African-American. Somewhere between age 30 and eternity.
Reporter:
Young local hotshot. Serious hair, less
serious I.Q.
President: A combination of George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney.
Wally: CEO of Wal-Mart: Like Rush Limbaugh or Newt
Gingrich, or worse.
Recorded
voices of individuals and multitudes.
What
could put you more in the holiday spirit than watching the CEO of a big box
retailer psychologically torture and eleven-year old? Than watching an emaciated, chain smoking
Santa dispense worldly wisdom? This
fantasia follows fifth grader Suzie Smith as she tries to put some of Christ’s
teaching back in Christmas, and ends up talking turkey with the president of
the United States. A bit like Annie, without the stupid dog or the
mind-numbing chorus of brats. Perfect for church groups and elementary school pageants!
FINGGA ON THE
TRIGGA
Synopsis
Comedy,
18 pages.
Cast:
Kamar,
African-American Jeff,
white, 21
Setting: College dorm room.
Synopsis:
Jeff,
a computer savvy, hip-hop obsessed college student, has stolen the rap persona
and internet identity of a fellow student he’s never met, Kamar, a.k.a
A-Bom. Kamar attempts revenge by
terrifying Jeff into submission. At the
top of the play, Kamar busts into Jeff’s dorm room and then threatens to shoot
Jeff unless he immediately produces a self-humiliating web posting. Intimidated, Jeff tries to comply, but he
can’t help but try to strip away the mask of the young rapper he has been
trying to emulate. The showdown quickly
turns in a direction that neither the supposed tough guy Kamar, or wise ass
Jeff, would have expected.
The Liberal
Brain
Synopsis
Satire, 8
pages
Cast:
The
Speaker: Female, late 30’s earl 40’s
The
Flunky: Male, 20’s-early 30’s. Non-speaking intern type who turns flip
charts to the best of his ability.
Setting:
Bare
Stage
The
speaker comes before an audience of downtrodden right-wingers to impart the
secrets of political success, which she insists can only arise from attacking
liberalism at its root: the dysfunctions common to the liberal brain. Part pep rally, part black-ops briefing, the
lecture on the liberal brain offers a political battle plan much more ambitious
than anything Karl Rove ever dreamed of.
ANYUTA
Synopsis
Adapted from the story by
Anton Chekov by Gulgun Karamete and Mark Dalton.
11 pages
Cast:
Klochkov: Male, 21
Anyuta, Female 25-28, slight
of build
Fetisov, Male, 21
Setting:
Moscow,
1880’s. Furnished room in a very cheap
hotel; Fetisov’s studio.
To be played
with some furniture on a bare stage.
Klochkov,
a young medical student, lives with his mistress/servant, Anyuta, while
struggling to keep himself in school on the pittance allocated to him by his
father. Their daily grind is interrupted
by Fetisov, a young bohemian and aspiring artist, who is looking to ‘borrow’
Anyuta as a model for his next painting. During the course of the transaction
over Anyuta, Fetisov’s pretentions bruise Klochkov’s delicate ego and make him
ashamed of his companion, Anyuta. During
the modeling session, Anyuta’s mind rattles around her past, present and
future. Fetisov, however, is oblivious
to Anyuta’s distress; he is so engaged in his art that he can’t really see his
subject. Upon being returned to Klochkov,
Anyuta faces dismissal because Klochkov has seen his circumstance through
Fetisov’s eyes.
Stilllife with
Gun Shots
Synopsis
7
pages
Cast:
-Man: 65
-Old
Man: 96, wheelchair bound.
Setting: Bare stage
This
play is primarily a monologue by the Man.
A
healthy 65 year old retiree has visited his 96 year old father, who has been
living in a nursing home. The Man is trying to figure out how to deal with his
father’s request to be put out of his aged misery via gunshot. The man struggles not only with his father’s
request to be euthanized, but also his own inability to acquiesce to his
father’s dying wish.
THE CURSE
Comedy
13 pages (but of course!)
Setting:
Bare
Stage.
Time:
The present.
Circumstance:
Evening
after the final dress rehearsal of a quasi-amateur production of Romeo and Juliet.
Characters:
A
& B
Two
male actors in their mid to late 20’s.
Both are on the leaner side and neither is particularly impressive
physically.
A and B are young actors who think they are on the way up. One wants to direct--a certain Shakespearean tragedy believed by centuries of theatre people to be cursed. Except the wannabe director, who defies the curse by name dropping the moniker of a certain homicidal Scottish king all over the theater. When his friend takes exception both see red--as in their own blood. The comedy is driven by two elements that often power actors: envy and fear.
Is Barak Obama REALLY Black?
Synopsis
Satirical Sketch
5 pages
Cast:
THE HOST: A STRIKING BUT SEVERE LOOKING WHITE FEMALE,
40’s
THE IMPERIAL WIZARD: VERY,
VERY WHITE MALE
DR. WONT: ASIAN, 30’s--40’s
PROF. NORDSTROM: VERY, VERY
NORDIC, 40’s WITH A SERIOUS BLONDE COIFURE.
TV STUDIO. POLITICAL TALK
SHOW.
A conservative talk show host
has stacked the deck with right-wingers in a supposed exploration of Barak
Obama’s racial identity. Her supposed
“fair and balanced” panel quickly descends into partisan bickering—creating
exactly the kind of “good political journalism” her audience craves.
Point of Honor
Synopsis
Drama
11
pages
Cast:
Jackson:
African-American female, 21
Ng: Vietnamese American, male, 21
Setting:
Bare
stage, plays as U. S. Military Academy, West Point.
Two
West Point seniors, Jackson and Ng, discover that a cheating scam they
engineered several years prior is likely to be exposed. Both face ignominious expulsion, and their
distress is heightened because both cadets come from military families. Both are forced to face each other as
dishonorable partners and have to decide how to handle the biggest crisis in
their young lives.
NAILING IT
Synopsis
6 pages
Monologue for one woman, late
20’s, with a voice from offstage, actor unseen.
Stetting: A bare stage that
plays as a television studio.
Monica Phips-Grawtowski, a
former Olympic gymnast, is filming a television commercial years after her gold
medal success. Unhappily married, the
glare of the studio lights cause her to both verbally and physically ruminate
on growing out of gymnastics and into life as a shill for dietary
supplements. The action splits between
Monica’s professional pitchwoman persona and her wild and ironic repressed
teenage persona, which longs to turn back the clock or to rebel against the
life she’s blundered into.
Intelligent
Re-Design
Synopsis
A Blackout
Sketch
5 pages.
Cast:
God: Many Casting permutations
possible
St.
Peter: “
Setting:
Heaven. On stage, this heaven can be VERY simple
We
are present as God creates the dreaded MRSA bacteria, much to the befuddlement
of his second banana, St. Pete. In the
end, St. Pete learns that what God has made is forever mutable, and he gets a
brief peek behind the curtain at the master with his hands on the levers of the
universe.
HURRICANE
Romantic Comedy
with Foul Weather
11 Pages
Cast:
He:
Thirties
She:
Thirties
Drummer: Either male or female, could probably be
anywhere between 20-70.
Must be a
reasonably adequate rock drummer--for at least the short bits of drumming
called for in the play.
Requirements:
Bare stage with drum kit.
Some lightweight furniture/props that move on and off.
Several quick costume changes.
Moderately complex sound design.
A yuppie couple from New York has their vacation
ruined when a hurricane approaches their beach resort, requiring
evacuation. She is domineering and high
strung; He is easygoing to the fault of passivity. After contention leads to acrimony, he
decides to stay and face the hurricane rather than ride out an evacuation-route
traffic jam with his fretful lover. In
spite of an onslaught of wind and water, he makes it back to New York alive, a
changed man who is able to surprise his girlfriend by taking action she’d never
expected.
Safeword
8
pages
A blackout
sketch
Cast:
2 Adult Humans-use your imagination!
Ripped
from the annals of “Savage Love,” this brief encounter depicts two erotic
adventurers as sex play turns to word play.
The moral of the story: never bring the word “hippopotamus” into the
bedroom. A perfect chance to reuse those
Rocky Horror costumes.
Can
be played as a radio play for the faint of heart.
Is
this synopsis a tease? You bet it is
Hate Speech
Synopsis
Comic
Sketch
9
pages
Cast:
Three
men in their thirties.
Place: Bare stage, plays as bar.
Three
guys, on their third beer buzz, inventory all the ethnic groups they
despise. This is a bonding opportunity—a
chance for them to throw political correctness out the window and let their
very resentful hair down with some dis at the expense of others. The bitch session almost gets botched when
one of the three reveals a prejudice that seems totally off the wall. After some serious ball busting, all three
get their ducks goose stepping in a row.
