Playwriting Contest Winners
2020 Playwriting Contest Winners
Drum roll please! The 2020 Playwriting Contest received some great entries this year. The winning playwrights are:
1st Place –Of Divine Interest by Dave Durham
2nd Place – Blood Brothers by Brad Bowman
Congratulations to Dave and Brad and all the authors who submitted plays this year. Great job everyone! Remember: your theatre troupe can perform either of these plays, royalty-free, during your next two seasons. What a magnificent opportunity to try something new!
David and Brad have both agreed to extend the royalty-free performance time for another season due to our Covid shut-downs. Your troupe many perform either play in your 2021 or 2022 season royalty-free. THANKS, David and Brad!
Thanks to the diligent judges who read and critiqued this year’s entries and special thanks to Chuck Goddeeris for arranging to have excerpts of the plays read and videotaped. The full readings are available here!
Sharpen your pencils and get your creative juices flowing – the 2021 Playwriting Contest starts January 1, 2021.
First Place:
Of Divine Interest by Dave Durham
Rosedale Community Players
Jerry enjoyed retirement for about a minute. His retirement buddy, and house mate Fran, has to listen to him complain about the boring life he has ended up with. Giving in to a repetitive daytime TV ad, he sends in for a genealogy review. Things heat up when the FBI delivers the world changing results. As news spreads, his life now must accommodate TV reporters in his living room, foreign spies, security guards, pilgrims on the porch, clergy in the dining room, professional escorts, and Aunt Sylvia – a bigger than life mystery herself. Everyone wants a piece of him – literally. All this forces Jerry to choose his lane. What does he really have faith in? What has he been missing that would make retirement a new beginning instead of a drawn-out end? Oh, and the Pope is on the way. Audiences can watch the hilarious way all these elements string themselves together to raise Jerry’s appreciation for what used to be mundane.
Written more for a modest playhouse. Set is the front room of a two-story home with a living and dining area. Plenty of room for first time actors, or even the crew can portray “porch people” visible occasionally with no lines.
11-19 players – (11) 7 m + 4 f; (19) 7 m + 4 f + 7m/f + 1 m/f (voice only)
85 pages; 90 minutes
Contact email: david.durham@stagescreenandme.com
NOTE: David has self-published this script. It is available on Amazon under the title Of Divine Interest: A Play Full of Heavenly Confusion. You may also, of course, contact David for a copy of the play.
Second Place:
Blood Brothers by Brad Bowman
Monroe Community Players
For centuries, storytellers have recounted the tales of the Norse gods of legend, and for those same centuries generations of listeners have come to know Odin, Loki, Thor, Baldur and the rest of the Aesir. In this new telling, playwright Brad Bowman turns the ancient tales on their heads with one simple twist. Blood Brothers reimagines timeless mythology for modern theatrical sensibilities. 7M, 9W
Contact:
Brad Bowman
723 Roeder
Monroe, MI 48161
(734) 548-0052
yougottacarrythatweight@yahoo.com
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Other Entries:
Dr. B’s Marvelous Cruise by Priscilla Cogan
Old Town Playhouse
Dr. B’s Marvelous Cruise is a full length drama featuring a middle-aged, charismatic male psychologist and four female clients of different ages (23-48), wealth, and class whom he has invited to join him for a cruise of both group and individual therapy with him. Except for the youngest and most emotionally fragile female, the other three women believe they are in a singular love affair with Dr. B., a therapist renowned for his book on The Drama of Trauma.
In Act I the women recount their emotional histories of trauma and soon develop a Sisterhood built of suffering, empathy, and adoration for their perfect therapist. But in the individual sessions, he is bedding the three women and grooming the fourth. The women discover his lecherous behavior and vow revenge!
While ACT I is full of sad tales and sympathetic women, Act II is a delightful romp of vengeance and humor. These women have bonded across the whole spectrum of emotions as survivors of trauma. It is a drama of reclaiming personal strength in the telling of your story in the company of your peers.
Contact:
Dr. Priscilla Cogan
27 Walnut St.
Upton, Mass 01568
508-529-6034
Priscogan@aol.com
Summer Contact Info:
Dr. Priscilla Cogan
PO Box 256
Leland, MI 49654
231-256-9302
An Elephant from Prague by T.E. Klunzinger
Riverwalk Theatre
This drawing-room comedy takes place in 1935 at the country house of the 7th Viscount Tuxford, where Winston Stanley must solve a double problem to secure his future, while dealing with the rapier wit of his mother and sister.
Contact: T.E. Klunzinger
P.O. Box 585
Okemos, MI 48805
(517) 349-0799
teklunzinger@yahoo.com
2019 Playwriting Contest Winners
CTAM fall conference attendees were entertained with readers’ theatre style excerpts from five plays submitted to the playwriting contest. Thanks to the playwrights and their readers for bringing life to their works. Following the last performance, the contest winners were announced.
Congratulations to:
1st place – Tidal Shifts by Priscilla Cogan
2nd place – Love, Lust, and Other Liabilities by Priscilla Cogan
The 1st and 2nd place plays can be performed by CTAM member groups royalty-free for the next two years! The synopses of the winners and other entries are below:
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Tidal Shifts by Priscilla Cogan
OId Town Playhouse
Tidal Shifts synopsis: Tidal Shifts is a full length, uniset drama that tackles the thorny issues of elder abuse, dependence, and the blurring of mental illness with possible onset of dementia. The “Seaside Palace” is a nursing home, with a porch overlooking an ocean inlet. The newest resident CELESTE ROCKLAND, a retired psychologist with spinal deterioration, initiates a conversation with MIMI SPINNER, another resident who writes mysterious haiku poems but has not spoken in three years. The only one to visit Mimi is her legal guardian, ANGELA, the former caretaker of Mimi’s identical twin sister, Gigi, who died under suspicious circumstances.
Celeste attempts to decipher the alarming poetry of her new friend, imagining herself as a detective and quickly suspects Angela of being a con artist. She observes Angela promising to bring Mimi’s dog, Ruffian, to visit when she had clearly revealed to Celeste that the dog did not live long after Mimi’s admission to the Seaside Palace. She even found a shelter dog that she unconvincingly passed off to Mimi as Ruffian.
Mimi is clearly holding secrets with regard to her late twin sister. Meanwhile Ellen, the nurse, delighted by Mimi’s new friendship, confronts Celeste on why Celeste refuses to live with one of her many adult children. Celeste is paradoxically determined to be independent, as her spinal condition and pain make her more dependent on nursing staff. Nurse mentions an elderly man who keeps calling to talk to Mimi but who was banned from such contact by Angela. Ellen imagines that he must have been an old lover.
Whenever Gigi’s name is mentioned, Mimi goes into an hysterical tailspin. CARY, a videographer and owner of a company, Legacy Stories, arrives with the intention of making DVDs of the life stories of elder residents, both to give their lives meaning and to leave something for their descendants. Cary is especially interested in Mimi’s life, as she is fabulously wealthy, had an interesting dysfunctional family background with her twin sister, and no heir. Both Celeste and Ellen witness Angela trying to strong arm Mimi with persuasion and then murderous threats to sign away her wealth. Celeste to the rescue!
Ultimately, Ellen and Celeste’s family confront Celeste’s increasing state of dependence. Meanwhile, Mimi appears before the lone camera to make a rambling, somewhat incoherent, confession about her sister and her old lover, a miscarriage, and murder. Unbeknownst to her, the old lover is coming to sue for guardianship of Mimi. Having made a confession, Mimi walks into the ocean and drowns herself. Reviewing the DVD of the confession, Celeste, Cary, and Ellen all agree that it appears as if Angela was the true murderer of Gigi but who had gas-lighted the confused, distraught Mimi. Police are notified.
Both Celeste and Nurse are left with a lot of what ifs. What if Mimi’s old lover had arrived in time? What if Celeste had only anticipated the suicide? To honor Mimi’s memory and give her own life meaning, Celeste insists that she will go live with her daughter, provided they allow her to find and adopt the fake Ruffian from the dog shelter.
Contact Dr. Priscilla Cogan
(Oct. to May)
27 Walnut St.
Upton, Mass 01568
(508) 529-6034
priscogan@aol.com
(May to Sept.)
PO Box 256
Leland, MI 49654
(231) 256-9302
priscogan@aol.com
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Love, Lust, and Other Liabilities by Priscilla Cogan
Old Town Playhouse
Love, Lust, and Other Liabilities synopsis: A few hours before the opening of a daring art exhibition of “The Lust Generation, “ replete with her paintings of young people in the throes of passion, DEB MORGAN sends her husband of 40 years, CARL MORGAN, out for champagne. In walks TRAVIS SPELLMAN, the man who had awaken her sexuality in a torrid two year love affair while she was in the process of leaving her first husband 42 years ago, Having not seen him for 40 years, she doesn’t recognize him at first. He reminds her that he had asked her to marry him then and she had turned him down, marrying Carl instead. As he tells her that he still loves her, in walks KELLY ANN SPELLMAN, his much younger wife. They have come to town for the birth of a new grandchild. Kelly Ann does not know their intimate history whereas Carl knew all about Travis. They agree to meet after the opening for drinks at the hotel where the Spellmans are staying.
The play then alternates between scenes of the young lovers 42 years ago (DEE DEE REESE and TB SPELLMAN), and the two older couples in present time. Dee Dee is unhappy and lonely with her first husband and TB is coming off a spell of abstinence; they soon fall into a passionate affair with a lot of witty repartee and fun. Things are more serious in present time between Deb and Carl. Carl is stable, “like sheet rock” a faithful husband, and a responsible, serious man. He does not play with imagination in the manner of TB and the older Travis.
Thus Deb is drawn back, not only in her artwork, to that time of great passion but the fun she had with Travis when they were both young. Kelly Ann mocks Travis’ age; there is tension in that marriage and she is a bit slutty in appearance. Travis is a Peter Pan type of man, plotting how to get Deb to run off with him and leave both Carl and Kelly Ann behind. He arranges to meet Deb alone the next day in the hotel lounge, saying he wants to give her a gift that is in his hotel room. Reluctantly she follows but tries to refuse the gift (a ring), as she had done 40 years ago. Seeing that he can’t get her to leave Carl, he asks for one last favor – a kiss. Deb sees no harm in that but Kelly Ann walks into the room during their embrace and screams. End of the first Act.
Act II begins with that scream and the fury of Kelly Ann. Originally there had been plans for dinner at the hotel between all four which now Deb and Travis try to abort. But Kelly Ann insists on the dinner to get her revenge by telling Carl. Carl stays out of touch all day as he has arranged a secret 40th anniversary gift to surprise Deb at the dinner. Travis arrives with bandages on his face. It is a dinner filled with tension, double entendres, as an increasingly drunk Kelly Ann who tries unsuccessfully to flirt with Carl and then to smear Deb. Finally Travis drags her away. Upset, Carl demands to know the why and wherefore of that kiss and the impact on their marriage. He shows Deb the anniversary gift of an around the world trip. There is a tentative reconciliation between them.
It is a play that will resonate with the older generation as they remember the incredible passion they experienced in their twenties, now replaced often by a sweet affection in their mid-sixties in which stability becomes more in focus than the frantic tearing off of clothes.
Contact Dr. Priscilla Cogan
(Oct. May)
27 Walnut St.
Upton, Mass 01568
(508) 529-6034
priscogan@aol.com
(May to Sept.)
PO Box 256
Leland, MI 49654
(231) 256-9302, priscogan@aol.com
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OTHER ENTRIES
Abe Lincoln on Speed by T. E. Klunzinger
Riverwalk Theatre
Synopsis: In recent years, some historians have begun to ask, “Was Abraham Lincoln gay?” Drawing on much published data, this work presents a plausible answer.
[Simple sets, minimum cast of five – 2 M, 1 F are undoubled; 1 M & 1 F can play 4 M & 3 F, although of course all roles may be played by separate actors.]
Contact T. E. Klunziner
PO Box 585
Okemos, MI 48805
(517) 775-6775
teklunzinger@yahoo.com
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Bare Cabin by J.R. Spaulding Jr.
Players de Noc
Synopsis: Jigger and Topsy have chosen an austere life of isolation deep in the forest, far from the human settlements where they were raised. Though dedicated to sheltering their son, Junior, from the destructive nature of humanity, the forest around them has been slowly dying off and food has recently become scarce. Now, as the people from the settlements begin encroaching upon their cabin, the family must decide if their struggle to live apart from society is worth fighting for after all.
Contact J.R. Spaulding Jr.
Players de Noc
Escanaba, MI
(906) 748-2047
waneshaka@gmail.com
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Beyond Sex by Arnold Johnston & Deborah Ann Percy
Kalmazoo Civic
Synopsis: Dennis is an auto executive married to Katherine, a freelance writer; and Jenny is a sculptor married to Ben, a museum director. By most standards, both couples are happy. Nonetheless, when Dennis and Jenny are thrown together professionally, they fall in love and embark on an adulterous relationship, with tumultuous consequences for their respective marriages. In this serious comedy, four bright, well-meaning people do their best to cope with the effects of the “funny thing called love” in a world where family, work, life—and death—continue to make their unavoidable demands. Intriguingly, the audience never sees the lovers together until the play’s final scene. NOTE: this play also exists in a Romanian translation by Dona Roşu and Luciana Costea. 2 women, 2 men; 2 settings (unit set).
| Contact Arnold Johnston | Deborah Ann Percy |
| arnie.johnston@wmich.edu
471 W. South Street, #102 269-870-0703 |
dajohnston2@gmail.com
471 W. South Street, #102 269-870-0704 |
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Plant Security by Richard Hingst
Lapeer Community Players
Synopsis: Ed Musielewicz (MUSE-a-lev-itch) is the Captain of Security at a bustling Toledo assembly plant set in 1981. He loves his job and so does the people that report to him. Sure, it gets boring at times but then some character always comes along to liven things up. They all thought that they had job security until the day Steve Blakely showed up.
Steve Blakely is a recent MBA graduate. He’s got nice hair, big ideas, AND the full attention of upper management. Why? He’s going to show them how to save money by outsourcing plant security services. Management will let him test his theory by replacing company employees at a nearby plant with an outside service that pays lower wages. Steve has six months to outshine Captain Ed and his team to propel himself up the company ladder. They have six months to outshine him or lose their jobs, and nobody wants to lose their job.
Contact Richard Hingst
(810) 348-0216
richardhingst@yahoo.com
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Small Slam by Arnold Johnston & Deborah Ann Percy
Kalmazoo Civic
Synopsis: Two couples—Karl and Barbara, Joel and Ellen—meet regularly to play bridge; Barbara’s terminal illness causes various simmering problems—including career frustrations and suspicions of infidelity—to erupt into open conflict. Contributing to both humor and tension are the play of actual bridge hands, a magazine sex survey, and the thematic counterpoint of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II, in which Karl is playing the title role in a university production. 2 women, 2 men; 1 setting (unit set).
| Contact Arnold Johnston | Deborah Ann Percy |
| arnie.johnston@wmich.edu
471 W. South Street, #102 269-870-0703 |
dajohnston2@gmail.com
471 W. South Street, #102 269-870-0704 |
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A Weekend in Wisconsin by Art Nemitz (anemitzjr@gmail.com)
Kalmazoo Civic
SYNOPSIS: A Weekend in Wisconsin in an old-fashioned, fast-paced sex farce. There are no great social messages or ponderous themes. It’s just a couple of hours of broad comedy as the audience follows the antics of its characters, in and out of six doors, in a madcap race toward an “all’s well that ends well” conclusion.
At the beginning of the play, Anne Foyle (a popular actress on professional Chicago stages) and her husband Patrick (a successful partner in a high class law firm) are in the midst of a domestic crisis. Anne believes Patrick is having an affair. She is so convinced of his infidelity that she has kicked Patrick out of their Michigan Avenue condo and obtained a legal separation. Since then, she has refused to communicate with him in any manner. Patrick’s tendency to admire full-figured women does not in any way minimize her conclusion that he is cheating on her. Fed up with Patrick’s annoying attempts to contact her, she enlists the aid of the flamboyant Bruce Bannister, her friend since childhood and now a highly successful divorce lawyer. Together they plan a weekend getaway to the Foyle vacation home in Wisconsin. There they intend to hammer out the legalese that will spell out “what she gets” and “what he doesn’t.”
Unbeknownst to them, Patrick has also decided to spend the weekend in Wisconsin, bringing with him a new acquaintance, Tracy Ashton, a college girl, working as a part time waitress in a Hooters restaurant. Her career goal is to become a professional nature photographer. Patrick tells her about the natural beauty surrounding his Wisconsin lake cottage and of the gorgeous sunsets on Lake Buttakaka.
When they discover they have all arrived on the same weekend the stage is set for a merry romp. Too stubborn to change their plans, the weekend becomes one of domestic disaster, witty exchanges of insults and accusations, much door slamming, and a lot of drinking, all leading to a lot of hilarity for the audience.
Also involved in the shenanigans are Helga and Otto, German immigrants, employed as the Foyles’ housekeeper and handyman, and their son handsome son, Willum, who is immediately attracted to the beautiful Tracy, which adds another level to the general confusion.
But like all good farces, everything is ironed out by the end of the play to everyone’s satisfaction and to the audience’s as well.
A Weekend in Wisconsin begins with a short scene, set in a pet shop. This can be done quite simply in an “in one”, in front of a stage curtain, or on a side stage. The main set in the rustic interior of the Foyle’s vacation home. Six doors are required (it is a farce, after all). A two-level set is indicated, but it can be modified if the theatre stage cannot accommodate a two-level set.
Contact Art Nemitz
anemitzjr@gmail.com
1692 Bradenton Place
Portage, MI 49002
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2018 Playwriting Contest Winners
CTAM Fall Conference 2018 attendees were entertained with readers’ theatre style excerpts from six plays submitted to the playwriting contest. A big thank you to the playwrights and their readers for bringing life to their works. Following the last performance, the contest winners were announced.
Congratulations to:
1st place – Town Car for Sale by Linda LaRocque (play synopsis and contact info below)
2nd place – Winona’s Web by Priscilla Cogan (play synopsis and contact info below)
The 1st and 2nd place plays can be performed by CTAM member groups royalty-free for the next two years! If you are part of an organization that is not a member affilliate of CTAM you may reach out to the playwright directly for royalties; contact info included below.
Honorable mention – Bird of Passage by Colby Halloran (play synopsis and contact info below)
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Town Car for Sale by Linda LaRocque (Ichabod’s Little Theatre)
Synopsis: When longtime friends Earl, Rich and Gordie move into a modest retirement community, they find delight in going to the casino, redeeming their coupons and eating macaroni and cheese at the buffet. However, when Rich runs out of money, loses his license and is forced to move in with the daughter he doesn’t get along with, life begins to turn upside down for everyone. But it’s when Earl, the crusty old bachelor suffers a heart attack that real changes occur. This poignant, yet comedic play, allows the audience to get a glimpse into the mind sets of many seniors, with the take-away value being that one looks at life far differently at age 80 than one does at age 40.
The play requires two simple sets. All but one scene takes place around Rich’s kitchen table and the other takes place around Gordie’s table. The cast calls for 3 elderly men, 1 elderly woman and 1 middle-age woman.
Contact Info:
Linda LaRocque
118 Superior Street , South Haven, Mi. 49090;
(269) 637-3416, Linda.l.larocque@gmail.com
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Winona’s Web by Priscilla Cogan (Old Town Playhouse)
Synopsis: This full length drama by Priscilla Cogan is a theatrical adaptation of her award-winning, internationally acclaimed novel by the same name. It explores the cultural differences between the traditional Lakota view of death (and life) from that of an Anglo psychologist. Winona Pathfinder, a widowed, elderly traditional medicine woman has announced to her modern native daughter, Lucy Arbre, that the Spirits are going to collect her in two months’ time. Lucy drags her relatively healthy mother off to see the middle-aged clinical psychologist, Dr. Meggie O’Connor, recently divorced and joining the rural practice of her colleague, Dr. Bev Paterson. Initially Meggie is convinced that Winona is depressed and perhaps suicidal. Winona resists the therapy process, but perceives the therapist as unbalanced and in need of her own native interventions. While Lucy and Bev serve as skeptics of traditional Lakota assumptions, Winona challenges Meggie to look at reality in a different way. Hawk/Slade is a native middle-aged man, a student of medicine and known to Winona as Hawk, but known only to Meggie as the handy man Slade. He provides the love interest, subtly promoted by Winona, to the fiercely independent Meggie O’Connor. While Death serves as the focal point between these two strong women from very different traditions, Life and unexpected Love emerge as counterpoints. Typical of the native world, there is a lot of humor in this drama, because in everything funny there is something serious, and in everything serious, there is always something funny.
The play calls for four women and one man. The set features a therapist’s office and small waiting room, a forward tree and stump, a background woodland setting, an upstairs bedroom, and space with a circle of chairs.
Quick biographical note: Married to a native, I have been trained by three medicine people in Lakota ceremonies and am also a clinical psychologist. In the past, our homes have been the center of intertribal ceremonies. The three books in the Winona series have been well received by the traditional medicine people.
Contact Info:
Priscilla Cogan,Ph.D.,
(9/21 – 5/19)
27 Walnut St., Upton, Mass 01568
(508) 529-6034, priscogan@aol.com
(5/21- 9/19)
PO Box 256, Leland, Mi. 49654
(231) 256-9302, priscogan@aol.com
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Bird of Passage by Colby Halloran (Kalamazoo Civic Theatre)
Synopsis: Her life in shreds – again – Ginny, a struggling writer, rents a cold, neglected house on an island in Maine where she hopes the sea, the silence, the snow will help her recover from recent events in Wales. With any luck, she’ll decide how to tell her story (or give up on it) and get back on her feet. Solitude is the ticket, but it only lasts a few hours — punctured first by the former owner’s cleaning lady Rose, who stops by to tell stories about dead Larry (the former owner), and then by Larry himself, who never left. When Larry reveals he’s Lawrence S. Hall, Ginny recognizes his name. Lawrence S. Hall wrote ‘The Ledge,’ a harrowing short story published in over forty anthologies. Intimidated by his fame (not his ghostliness), Ginny worries she’ll never be able to write in Hall’s house. But she can’t start looking for houses all over again — besides, she loves this house. Larry says he planned to leave when he died, but he can’t seem to move on. Perhaps he can help Ginny write about Wales? And so begins a journey neither of them ever expected to take, in this life or the next.
Bird of Passage explores how writers tell their stories; how their imaginations, and the characters they create, sustain and shape them, and what can be gained when we embrace the unthinkable.
The setting is Lawrence S. Hall’s coastal home, Orr’s Island, Maine. It’s winter in 2010. The play calls for 1 man and 3 women. Copyright © 2017
Contact Info:
Colby Halloran
1015 Ferdon Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 478-0574, colby@toast.net
Website: birdofpassageplay.com
NOTE: Bird of Passage has a website for more information: www.birdofpassageplay.com. In September of 2019 the play will have its world premiere at the Bagaduce Theatre in Brooksville, Maine. Until then it’s still in development and not available for production. After that, it is free to CTAM member groups through October 2020.
2017 Playwriting Contest Winners
CTAM fall conference attendees were entertained with readers’ theatre style excerpts from six plays submitted to the playwriting contest. Thanks to the playwrights and their readers for bringing life to their works. Following the last performance, the contest winners were announced.
Congratulations to:
1st place winner, Erin Osgood, for her play Family Pains
2nd place winner, Art Nemitz, for his play Down on the Farm
These plays can be performed by CTAM member groups royalty-free for the next two years!
Family Pains by Erin Osgood
Farmington Players
Synopsis: Pippa Matthews hasn’t been home in 2 years. She returns home to reveal her true self to her very Catholic family. Her goal is to announce she is, in fact, gay, married, and expecting a baby. The reality isn’t exactly what she imagines in her mind. Her brother, Claw, tries to help take the heat off Pippa by announcing that he is gay first. The problem is Claw is not gay. Phil/Dad comes from a very strict Catholic upbringing and is a Republican. He does not adjust to the news very well. Patty/Mom is obsessed with cleanliness, good manners, and tries to welcome the news with grace but fails miserably. Her sister Pam has inherited Mom’s OCD tendencies. She isn’t very close to either Claw or Pippa, but her cold demeanor cracks at the end of the play. Pam shows she has longed for closer relationships with her siblings after having a few shots of alcohol. Pippa’s spouse Bobby shows up at the end of Act I and helps Pippa navigate her dysfunctional family. The play shows Pippa’s imagination of how she would like her news received by her family, only to surprise the audience that it was actually very different. Although in the end, not all of her family members agree with Pippa’s life choices, there is the hope of acceptance.
Contact Erin Osgood, Farmington Players, (810) 355-8472, erin.osgood@comcast.net
Down on the Farm by Art Nemitz
Kalamazoo Civic Theatre
Down on the Farm synopsis: The time is 1946. The war is over, but conflict is ongoing in the Mueller family. Fred Mueller, a prosperous dairy farmer and businessmen, lies dying while his five children are engaged in various ongoing personal battles of their own, some of which have origins from many years past. Charlie, the oldest son who is in charge of the farm, is greedily impatient for the family’s fortune and assets to come completely under his control. The second brother, Tom, has recently returned from the war with his new wife to take his former job of partnering in the overseeing the farm, but Charlie and his vapid wife Lola, plot to get him out of the way. Their sister, Ruth-Esther, is reluctant to give up her position as CEO of the family’s creamery business given to her by Fred when he took ill. Lydia, hysterical by nature, and Albert, interested primarily in beautiful blondes and having fun, add their own special problems to the family’s combustible dynamic. As the situation spins out of control, a murder occurs and the family is shattered. Following Fred’s death, the reading of his will forces the family to deal with some long-kept secrets that they must face before they can hope to find resolution to their complicated relationships.
The play calls for a two-story set, representing a farmhouse living room and two upstairs bedrooms. The cast calls for 7 men and 7 women. Double casting is possible for one man and one woman.
Contact Art Nemitz, at anemitzjr@gmail.com for perusal copies. Perusal copies of his prior works are also available: The Zimmerman Annual 4th of July Picnic and Romance Guaranteed, both 1st Place winners in the 2015 and 2016 CTAM Playwriting Contests.
For more information on the plays or the contest, contact the Playwriting Committee at ctamplaywriting@gmail.com
2016 CTAM Playwriting Contest Winners
1st PLACE: Romance Guaranteed
by Art Nemitz
Kalamazoo Civic Theatre
Summary: Romance Guaranteed is a two-act romantic comedy for two women and one man. A woman and a man, meet in a seedy Detroit-area Italian restaurant for a first date after connecting via an internet dating site – romanceguaranteed.com. The woman, a shy city bus driver, is a nervous and unsure introvert. The man is a wildly eccentric, talkative extrovert with a mysterious background. During the course of a spaghetti dinner, this highly unlikely pair shares their life stories, argue, empathize, quarrel, laugh, and cry. Food gets thrown, but ultimately, the two misfits find a mutual connection. A wise-cracking waitress, worldly and quick, becomes involved in the couple’s budding relationship. The play is easily adaptable to any type of staging: proscenium, arena, or black box.
Cast: 2 women, 1 man
2nd PLACE: The Summer Cottage
by Priscilla Cogan
Old Town Playhouse
Summary: The central questions of the comedy, The Summer Cottage, are – What do we owe our ancestors and what do we owe our descendants?
Middle-aged Melody arrives to open up the beloved summer cottage and rudely awakens the cranky ghost of her grandmother, the eccentric, meddling Olivia. Plunged into a marital crisis, Melody continues to deny the existence of ghosts, but Jazz, her rebellious graduate-student daughter, delightfully discovers that she can actually hear her great grandmother’s voice! Soon, Frankie, Olivia’s dead daughter, appears, prepared to drag her resistant mother over to the Other Side. Jazz’s pronouncement that she plans to eventually sell the cottage sends all three former generations into an absolute tizzy of manipulations, until the four generations work out what it really means to be a family.
Cast: 4 women
Any CTAM member group can perform either of these plays royalty free for the next two years (until September 2018). For a reading copy of Romance Guaranteed contact playwright Art Nemitz at anemitzjr@gmail.com. For a reading copy of The Summer Cottage contact Priscilla Cogan at Priscogan@aol.com.
Honorable Mention: Keeping Cadence
by John & Ellen Young
The Village Players – Birmingham
Summary: For most of the year, Cadence lives a quiet, reclusive life as a mortuary makeup artist. However, each year as her family’s annual Christmas gathering draws near, she undergoes a manic metamorphosis. With Cadence’s seasonal swings becoming more and more severe, her coworkers fear that this year’s reunion may do her irreparable harm, and decide to risk an intervention. Can Cadence’s friends, with both support and opposition from her misfit family, help her let go of the demons of the past and embrace a new future?
Cast: 3 men, 6 women
(Note: John and Ellen have a website with information on each of the 7 plays they have written at www.arisingdrama.com)
For more information on the plays or the contest, contact the Playwriting Committee Chair, Pat Paveglio at ppaveglio@gmail.com
PAST PLAYWRITING CONTEST WINNERS
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2013
2012 First Place Second Place 2011 Second Place 2010 Second Place 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2000-2001 1999-2000 1998-1999 1997-1998 1996-1997 1995-1996 1992-1993 1991-1992 |
1983-1984
The Thunderer 1982-1983 1981-1982 1979-1980 1978-1979 1977-1978 1976-1977 1975-1976 1974-1975 1973-1974 1972-1973 1971-1972 1970-1971 1969-1970 1968-1969 1967-1968 1966-1967 1965-1966 1964-1965 1963-1964 |
