Plays

..in “noir” there are always losers struggling against bad choices.. -but what if
some were destined to test the balance of “good” and – an alternative? Chiaroscuro takes
place in a 1940’s metropolis of slang, seediness, murder, and every twist of badtime souls
can know.. all the while unknowingly playing out an immemorial wrestle with deliberate
evil..
This is a play in Two Acts.

In the wake of her mother's death, an African-American television exec, Ioni Mitchell, navigates feelings of isolation and loss of family – until memories of her deceased mother direct Ioni to focus on the mysterious family heirloom of a portrait..

In identifying the artist of the painting, Ioni discovers choices made in an America of the 1870's, whose consequences and deeper secrets haunt an unexpected ancestor, in contemporary France..

Grandmother knows best, as an adult grandson is shown -passing dreams have magic consequences..! One evening ahead of his own son’s fifth birthday, CHARLIE intends to confront his eccentric grandmother, ENID, about her mad behavior. But his demands turn into unexpected revelations, as ENID reaches into his deepest, unexpressed fears.. agitating memories of CHARLIE’S own fifth birthday – and the magic they shared together.. Real magic, that terrified his own father..

This play was my first work produced in London, and premiered in 1994 at The Man In The Moon, Pub Theatre, through faith in the work by its director, Areta Breeze. It is a style that solidified my thinking, in British terms, of theatre opportunities, with all permissions of context, concepts, staging, and forums of performance -pub, studio spaces, community hall, theatres, Festivals. This was an initial freedom of exploration – in imagination and writing at the start of a journey, orienting how I would work in the medium of live stage performance..