World Premier of MY HEART IS THE DRUM

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LITTLE SOLDIERS is a gritty urban musical about Rose Coleman, a tenacious New York City police detective who joined the same force as her father, but unlike him, restrained her emotions the job can provoke while he often raged and drank. When this conduct causes fights with his wife that bring on a fatal heart attack, he takes off out of guilt, leaving Rose the sole caretaker of her fourteen-year-old sister, Zoe. Rose channels her fury at her father into progressing on the job, winning promotion a a Vice detective. Her investigation is a possible multi-state sex trafficking operation. Rose's shock at how young the victims are and her fervent need to compensate for her father's shame brings an obsession with catching the exploiters. She is so focused that she criticizes and limits Zoe's desire to socialize, blind to how ripe Zoe becomes for the false romantic flattering of a pimp who coerces her into the trafficking ring. Denying rage at herself and blaming her father's abandonment, Rose launches a personal and deadly war against the traffickers.​

With Dr. Maria Caffery, Climate Change Scientist

It is 2016 and, at the orders of the Trump Administration, science is being censored, encompassing all areas from medical research to the environment.  Cat Cleary is a fighter. As the sole woman in her U.K.  school to achieve A-levels allowing advanced education, she worked for a year to afford university, then to find a way to study in America. Drawn to geology and science, Cat toured natural parks, enthralled with the flourishing of beautiful natural wonders, a vivid contrast to the graffiti-walled area of London where she was raised. Cat makes up her mind that she belongs here. But to succeed in her scientific field, the tenacious, gutsy fighter Cat was on the rough streets where she grew up would not do. With effort, she overcomes her Cockney accent and transforms her persona into the gracious Dr. Katherine Cleary, thrilled to be hired as a researcher at the National Park Service. Though anxiety reigns in her office after the 2016 election, Cat is unprepared when orders come from Trump's EPA threatening to block her career-changing, grant-awarded report on rising sea levels unless she removes all references to human influence on climate. Refusing the censor, she suffers the administration's unlawful retribution. Now, in order to hold onto the life she fought for, Katherine needs to recover the once undaunted self she willingly sacrificed while her fears are telling her that this is one fight she may not win.  

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Based on the real-life experience of Climate Change scientist Dr. Maria Caffrey, who was forced out of her job at the NATIONAL PARK SERVICE in February, 2019 and compelled to file a whistleblower complaint against the Trump administration and testify before an oversight hearing by the Natural Resources Committee entitled "When Science Gets Trumped."  

(https://revealnews.org/blog/scientist-who-resisted-censorship-of-climate-report-lost-her-job/).

In the winter of 1914, the home of widow Amelia Vane is a stir with plans for the approaching wedding of her youngest daughter, Helen.   Helen’s older sister Autumn, like their late father, appears to suffer from what has yet to be classified as an illness – manic depression.   Mr. Vane’s death by his own hand has left the women in a precarious social position at a time and place where social standing is imperative.  Helen’s engagement to a wealthy businessman, James Paxton, son of their late father’s employer, will secure all their futures.  When James introduces an artist, roguish Henry Lafont, into their midst to paint Helen’s wedding portrait, the charming facade of propriety Amelia has created begins to crumble.  The senses of all three women are kindled by Henry’s presence, especially Autumn’s which brings out erratic behavior. When Autumn discovers her father’s correspondence with European doctors about his illness, raising questions about herself, the threat she poses to Amelia and Helen can no longer be concealed.  Her relentless search for the truth not only endangers her family’s future, but may ultimately cost Autumn her sanity.

Cast: 2 men, 4 women
Running time: Approximately 1 hour, 50 minutes with intermission​

(Winner – 2000 Arlene R. and William P. Lewis Playwriting Award for Women)

In the 1930s, the Depression has curtailed finances at Thomas Mallory College in Glorious, Pennsylvania.  Joan, a young art student, is working on a sculpture of Joan of Arc when she learns that she has lost her tuition funding and will have to return to her Orthodox Jewish home where her father severely limits her artistic freedom.  Desperate to remain, she applies for a scholarship overseen by her English professor.  Attracted to her, he grants it.  When it is discovered that the professor has raped her, the College Board of Directors holds an inquiry. Joan faces the prospect of incriminating her professor, the only faculty member who, like her, is Jewish.  With her confidence and integrity shattered by the assault, she soon finds herself mistaking Joan of Arc’s trial with the ordeal in which she is embroiled. Confused about her own morality and motives, Joan is torn between betraying a fellow Jew or her own personal honor.

Cast: 5 men, 3 women (with role doubling) or 5 men, 5 women
Running time: Approximately 2 hours with intermission​

Georgia’s inability to stop drinking is destroying her marriage. She feels culpable for driving her brother Benjamin away when he forced her to choose between her husband, Michael, and himself.  Georgia has all but blocked the night Benjamin left from memory when a package containing his property, sent from a hospice across the country, arrives at her doorstep. Georgia is terrified to call the hospice and discover that Benjamin may be dead. Instead, desperate for a clue that will exonerate her, she searches through Ben’s belongings. One by one, she draws forth memories: her need and worship of Benjamin when she was young, her failed attempts to separate, her role as her brother’s protector against a father’s brutal indictment of his gay son.  When the present, and Michael, intrude, Georgia does all she can to force her husband to make the decision to leave her. By the time the memory of the night she chose Michael and rejected Benjamin plays out before her, it may be too late to save her marriage. To do that, Georgia must fight her own fear of loving and face the one member of her family she never sought to rescue: herself.

Cast: 2 men, 2 women
Running time: Approximately, 2 hours with intermission​

In the summer and fall of 1955, the country seems focused on the World Series, none more so than Brooklyn Dodger fan, Russell, awaiting not only the outcome of the Series but his sixteenth birthday.  Russell was only three when his glamorous mother Irene divorced his father and moved in with her own mother, Millie.  When Irene died, Russell’s father allowed Millie to raise his son.  When Russell uncovers a journal his grandmother has hidden of Irene’s writing, he becomes fascinated with the mother he scarcely remembers.  Enthralled by Irene’s accounts of studying dance in Manhattan, Russell finds himself wanting to be a dancer himself.  When his father shows a sudden interest in drawing closer to Russell and taking over his care, father and son clash over Russell’s fierce adoration of Irene.  Their conflict forces all concerned to confront their unsettled grief and love.

Cast: 2 men, (1 adult, 1 teen), 4 women
Running time: Approximately 1 hour, 50 minutes with intermission

Nicky, convinced that her violent husband Joe might kill her, appeals to Suzanne, a New York police officer, who is interested in Nicky romantically.   The two women hatch a plan to threaten Joe by provoking him into attacking Suzanne’s partner and being shot and injured as a result.  The ruse of a social evening they arrange is all going according to plan when a few drinks unleash Joe’s racist and anti-Semitic views.  Silently steaming, Suzanne, who is Jewish, makes it clear that the plan has changed.  Not long after Suzanne’s partner arrives to taunt Joe, Nicky realizes that they are going to kill her husband.  She tries to communicate secretly that she wants to cancel their scheme, but it is too late. Joe’s behavior has fanned Suzanne’s violent mission into a deadly personal flame.

Cast: 2 men, 2 women
Running time: Approximately 1 hour, 45 minutes with intermission

Premiere:  Soho Rep, NYC

Meg Riley won the part of Masha in an Off-Broadway production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters,” but believes in her heart she should have been cast as Irina. Meg ardently identifies with Irina who insists that work is the only thing that matters. Meg’s own work, however, is hardly to Irina’s taste. To tide her over between acting jobs, Meg receives calls from phone sex customers whom she does her best to satisfy. At present they are annoying interruptions to her preparation of an argument that will prove to the play’s director that he made a grave casting error. Everything changes when a caller whose voice sounds familiar to Meg describes her Brooklyn apartment from his window where he apparently has a perfect view. Meg thinks she recognizes the young man’s voice – connecting it with something unspeakable that happened the year before which brought on a mental breakdown, causing her to drop out of college. The proximity of the caller can mean only one thing – whatever the ordeal – it isn’t over.

Cast: 3 women, 3 men play 14 roles
Running time: Approximately 1 hour, no intermission​

One-woman show

Lavinia Lewis, a woman of color and an actor, supports her dream with two jobs, each of which strains the amiable facade she has struggled to maintain. She is alternately at the mercy of an attorney who hasn’t a clue that she, his part-time secretary, is human, and a brood of precocious children learning from Lavinia how to "act" for TV commercials. In the midst of this her father is hospitalized and doesn’t seem to want to live. As his anger is directed at Lavinia, she discovers her own wrath which appears to have a life of its own, placing her jobs, relationships, and dreams at stake.

Cast: One woman
Running time: Approximately 15-20 minutes, no intermission

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On the evening of July 4th, a middle-aged beauty salon operator, Clemmentine Jenkins, stops at a seedy bar she has never before stepped foot in on her way out of Bartow Florida, her hometown. Clemmie has summoned all her savings and courage to leave home for a more elegant lifestyle in Palm Beach but can’t help herself from making the last stop at Madge’s Bar, a place she has seen frequented by a migrant worker who calls himself Tom. Clemmie observed Tom that afternoon in town taken into custody by police when he harassed a young woman marching in the Independence Day parade. Nevertheless, Tom does show up at Madge’s and Clemmie finds herself half attracted and half repelled as he questions her reasons for leaving and suggests that perhaps her fate lies elsewhere. As her responses to Tom’s advances change with each revelation he unfolds, Clemmie faces her own guilt over surviving the fire that killed her parents and struggles over what to do with the freedom to escape she now holds in her hands.

Cast: 1 man, 1 woman
Running time: Approximately 1 hour, no intermission

Middle-aged Lila, a dedicated Roman Catholic, prays fervently in the waiting room of a women’s clinic when she is interrupted by Pauline, young, with a defensive arrogance. The two women reluctantly connect, sharing their identical purpose: to end pregnancies. Lila soon becomes as impatient with Pauline's careless attitude as Pauline is by Lila's jittery apprehension. As irritation rises, Lila blurts out that the child she carries is not her husband's but belongs to a stranger. This younger Younger than she, this man gave Lila with an intense experience, unlike anything she had encountered before. In her effort to explain, she relives the enchantment of the night, the beach, the full moon, how adored she felt, how completely transported. Finished, she is again shaken, torn between her intention to proceed and her ingrained religious practice. Certain she is now being punished Lila pleads with Pauline for forgiveness. Faced with the sincere pain of this older woman’s confession, Pauline recognizes the hurt she has repressed multiple times breaking through her carefully constructed armor. The manner of her insistence to Lila that there is no sin in being loved, even briefly, frees each to accept their decision. As Pauline keeps her appointment, Lila leaves, determined to treasure that singular magical evening and keep it alive. 

Cast: Two women
Running time: Ten minutes

In Ennis, County Clare, Ireland, in the 1930’s, Katherine, a young Roman Catholic novice, discovers her younger sister, Annie, is pregnant.  The discovery forces her to confront an unspoken shame the two share. It is an acknowledgment that will force a choice between the depth of Katherine’s love for Annie, or the need to transform herself into a pristine example of womanhood.

Cast: 2 women, 1 adult, 1 teen

Running time: Approximately 10 minutes