WRITER AND PLAYWRIGHT
THE PLAYS
Room With Stars
RUNNING TIME: 85 minutes
CAST: 1 Female: Seventeen years old
1 Male: Late teens, Hispanic
1 Female Late thirties, Italian descent
1 Female: Late forties, Hispanic
DESCRIPTION: It is 1967. On New York’s Lower East Side, Samantha is getting ready to graduate from high school and go on to college, but her world turns upside down when she’s expelled for her anti-war activity. Both her Mother and her boyfriend strongly oppose any further political action, but Samantha disagrees. This is a story about the price of following one’s heart in a chaotic world.
Presented at Theater for the New City, NYC
Photo: Elizabeth Ruf Maldonado
Dr. Olivia J. Hooker, 2017.
Olivia Makes Waves
RUNNING TIME: 10 minutes
CAST: 2 Females
Late twenties, African-American
Early twenties, English descent
DESCRIPTION: It is 1943. Olivia J. Hooker, a survivor of the Tulsa Massacre, wants to become a WAVE . She is the first Negro woman to apply and she is determined to get in.
Available on: 365womenayear@gmail.com
And Here's . . . Boris!
RUNNING TIME: 15 minutes
CAST: 3 Males; Early teens, Jewish
DESCRIPTION: Boris Thomashefsky did not come to New York’s Lower East Side to work in a cigarette factory. He wants to sing; and sing in Yiddish, his native language. When he gets a chance to do a show, no one is going to stop him.
Presented at the Metropolitan Playhouse, NYC
Left to Right: John Maddaloni; Andrew DiTusa; Garth Kravits.
Leaving Brook Farm
RUNNING TIME: 15 minutes
CAST: 1 Male, Mid-forties; English descent
1 Female, Mid-forties; English descent
DESCRIPTION: Sophia and George Ripley have spent years building a utopian community in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. But after a devastating fire, Sophia feels she has had enough.
Presented at the Metropolitan Playhouse, NYC
Brian Poteat.
Left to Right: Marisol Carrere; Elena Adames; Yancey Quinones; Nina Howes; Carolina McNeely; Gloria Zelaya.
Our Lady of the Sheets
RUNNING TIME: 10 minutes
CAST: 1 Male, Early twenties, Hispanic
1 Female, Early thirties
DESCRIPTION: An undocumented worker fleeing an ICE Raid finds safety in an unlikely space – a laundromat.
Presented at NYC Public Libraries (staged reading)
Hercules Comes Back
RUNNING TIME: 75 minutes
CAST: 3 Males
Late sixties, Italian
Late thirties, Italian
Late thirties, African- American
1 Female: Early thirties
DESCRIPTION: Born and raised in Brooklyn, Nick comes home from a stint in the Iraq War ready to take over the family business. When his health begins to deteriorate he refuses to face the facts; until his wife , Jen, gives him an ultimatum.
Presented at the Brecht Forum, NYC (staged reading)
Roommates
RUNNING TIME: 75 minutes
CAST: 1 Male: Early twenties, Italian
3 Females:
Late twenties, Hispanic
Early twenties, Hispanic
Early fifties, Hispanic
DESCRIPTION: Rosa is a people’s lawyer on New York’s lower east side. She studies hard but doubts she could ever pass the test to go to law school. When she wins a victory to save a treasured Church from demolition; she gains a victory for the community and the self confidence to move forward with her education.
Presented at Teatro Circulo, NYC (staged reading)
Sandhog
RUNNING TIME: 10 minutes
CAST: Two Females: 1 early thirties, 1 late thirties
DESCRIPTION: At an empty subway platform on a winter’s night, Cheri needs to get her sister to confront a painful memory. But will she do it?
Presented at NYC Public Libraries (staged reading)
Poet & Bird
RUNNING TIME: 10 minutes
CAST: 1 Male, Late fifties, African American
1 Female, Early twenties
DESCRIPTION: A young teacher learns more than she bargained for when she stops to buy a book from a Vietnam vet street poet.
Presented at Clemente Soto Velez Center, NYC
Whose Dirt?
RUNNING TIME: 7 minutes
CAST: 1 Male, Late forties
DESCRIPTION: Through a series of mishaps, Willie, an unemployed construction worker, is now living in a park in Queens. The police threaten to evict him from his handmade shack; but Willie has other plans.
Presented at NYC Public Libraries (staged reading)