Music • Photography • Writing
Introduction • Novels • Short Stories • Plays • Haiku
Plays
Calling this section "Plays" is a bit of a misnomer, since only one actual play is available here. I experimented with plays long ago, but one of my short stories led me to the only success I've had as a playwright.
In the late 1980s, I wrote a story called "Your Money Or Your Life" set in the home town of my youth, Colorado Springs. An old-fashioned hobo arrives via box car and has a brief brush with instant success. In 1998, I revised my manuscript and sent copies to a few friends as part of my Christmas gift, since the story had a Christmas theme.
One of my dearest friends, Ida Boatright Hutchison, liked it enough to take it upon herself to adapt the unpublished story into a script that she entered into a contest for radio plays, and she won second prize. Never one to hog credit, she shared the modest prize with me. I was in the process of figuring out what gift to buy her with the money when she passed away suddenly in February of 2000.
As luck would have it, the company that produced and acted the radio plays needed a Christmas story that year, so our play made it into production. Then the following year another contest, this one requiring a classical music theme, furnished no viable entries, so the producer asked me to write something that might fit the bill. What I came up with was the quirky story of the one and only romance the early avant-garde composer Erik Satie had in his life. I titled the play "Vexations, " a reference to a typically peculiar work he wrote which he indicated on the score should be repeated 840 times, a feat rarely accomplished.
I have recordings of the KCME productions of both "Your Money Or Your Life" and "Vexations." CDs are $15 and include both plays. If you're interested, contact me.
