...for further productions.  Details below:

Closing Night
Produced by David Van Gaasbeek, Head of the Canal Fulton Players, in August of 2015 under the direction of Zach Donahue
Comedy/Drama/Murder Mystery
Cast Requirements: total of ten players, roughly half male, half female, although gender can be altered for some of the characters, of which there are 47.  All the actors play multiple roles throughout.  This worked a lot better than you would think, and kept the audience engaged.
Set Requirements: Minimal
Running Time: Approx. 2 hrs.

Set in 1955, this is the story of a terrible Broadway play being mounted for all the wrong reasons.  Wheelchair-bound playwright Emory Lovelace eagerly awaits the opening of his dreadful melodrama, Deadly Nightfall...but will it even open after all the changes demanded by its leading man, stage, film, and TV star Drew David Hoffman, and the fireworks between the director, Anton Corsanno, and his two leading ladies, the seen-better-days theatrical star Margo Treadwell, and faded movie queen Nadine Delacroix, who is usually too drunk to remember who she's playing?  The long friendship between former war comrades Emory and Anton is all that holds the proceedings together, while tempers erupt, quarrels rage, and the play continues to crumble during its final rehearsal.  During that rehearsal, a sudden death--most definitely murder--brings in a detective, Inspector Wingate, and his stage-struck partner, Officer Banks.  Will the doer of the dastardly deed be brought to justice?  Will Deadly Nightfall ever actually face an audience?  Will that audience allow the cast to live?

Think All About Eve crossed with Noises Off! with a heavy dollop of Murder on the Orient Express.


Below the Surface
Produced by the Victorian Players of Youngstown, in April of 2013, under the direction of Jack Ballantyne
Psychodrama/Murder Mystery
Cast Requirements: three men, three women
Set Requirements: basic living room, with at least a portion of a staircase
Running Time: Approx. one hour and forty-five minutes

Set in 1950, Below the Surface examines an incredibly dysfunctional family, the Donovans, through the eyes of Richard Latimer, a young man who has paid a visit to the Donovan home with the news that he has published some poetry by the eldest daughter, Clarissa...for whom he holds more than a friendly interest.  Unfortunately, her hostile parents have much to hide, and will go to great lengths to hide it from Clarissa's unwelcome guest.  When Clarissa's mentally ill younger sister, Lydia, returns from a sojourn in a mental institution on the very day Richard arrives, and her former lover, Paul Trask, who had worked for the Donovans, makes a belligerent visit hoping to pick up where he and Lydia left off, it will be quite a challenge for Mr. and Mrs. Donovan to keep all the bodies buried while Richard is present.

Think The Little Foxes mingled with any number of Alfred Hitchcock's films.

Royalties for both plays are negotiable.  For more information, you may contact Craig May, author of both works, at retroman35@gmail.com.