THE ALBATROSS Reading Monday May 19 in Portland

Next Monday night please join me in Portland at the Portland Theatre Works as they present a reading of my newest full-length play THE ALBATROSS.


By the way, that is what an albatross looks like (Photo courtesy of National Geographic, of course!)


If you’re in the area, check it out. It starts at 7 pm in the Theatre Noir at Theatre! Theatre! The reading should last about an hour and half and there will be a brief discussion with me afterwards. As this is the first public reading of this play (in fact, the first reading ever) I am going to be very curious as to everyone’s thoughts and opinions.

What is this new play THE ALBATROSS?

Here’s the synopsis:

David is an award-winning poet and teacher at a small private university. He has a great academic job and a golfing buddy in his colleague Mark, a recent divorcee. But underneath his polished lectures about “life as an artist”, he hides a secret pain, the suicide of his wife five years ago, a pain which is numbed through alcohol. He is violently shaken out of this numbness by Sofia, one of his eccentric students. A reactionary response to one of her poems begins a chain of events that will eventually cause David to drown under the watery weight of the past. He becomes a mentor to Sofia, recognizing her amazing talent yet also wary of it. There’s something else about her that he won’t talk about it, can’t talk about, and it’s this denial that will eventually cause his downfall.

In short:

It’s the anti-Oleanna.

Hope to see some of you there!