TO PROTECT AT ALL COSTS
a play
Logline:
As a disinformation campaign about extraterrestrials unfolds, a battle for the truth ignites between an fiery, aging female astronomer and a rookie Air Force agent.
Story:
Paula Brode, a brilliant astronomer battling drug addiction, photographs anomalies and intercepts signals she believes are connected to extraterrestrial life. Suspecting her of being a Russian agent, the Air Force dispatches inexperienced OSI (Office of Special Investigations) agent Fine to assess the situation. Under orders to placate her fascination with UFOs while he investigates, Fine, with help from CIA and NSA, fakes a UFO crash site. Brode, realizing he's a disinformation agent confronts Fine. Their battle for the truth leads to an unnerving encounter with a yellow orb floating in and out of the room over their heads, casting doubt on her sanity and fueling her increasing drug use. Drawn to a mysterious facility on Bonanza Peak, Fine digs into its origins and, through tactical maneuvering, secures a place within the enigmatic organization overseeing it. Brode intercepts and deciphers radio signals exchanged between the U.S. military and extraterrestrials. The decoded messages suggest the existence of a classified Space Force, operating beyond Earth's atmosphere. During a lecture aimed at revealing the military's connection to extraterrestrials, she suffers a mental collapse—dismissed by officials as drug-induced—while away on a covert assignment on Bonanza Peak, young Agent Fine comes face-to-face with his fate.
THE TCHAIKOVSKY LETTERS*
a play
Thirty-eight-year-old Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky is driven to become Russia’s first international composer but he is moving into middle-age and gossip around Moscow is that he is a notorious homosexual. He needs a wife. As if by fate, two women come into his life: Nadezdha Von Meck, a fabulously wealthy dowager and Antonina Milyukova, an assertive, unbalanced seamstress. Von Meck befriends Tchaikovsky via elaborately written letters. She eventually offers to pay his all his expenses on one condition - they never meet. Antonina, also sends him over-the-top love letters letting him know that she is a virgin and that she has saved herself for him. Tchaikovsky takes advantage of Antonina’s naiveite and inexperience and marries her. The marriage is a fiasco. Tchaikovsky flees Russia fearing more gossip but Antonina is not as naïve as he thinks and threatens to expose Tchaikovsky. With the patient, nurturing love of Von Meck, he comes to grips with his homosexuality and realizes his true nature.
* Semi-Finalist in Bay Area Playwrights Festival
Playwrights Foundation enthusiastically recommends this play THE TCHAIKOVSKY LETTERS, as a Semi-Finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival 2020. We were moved by the quality of the writing and the relevant and compelling themes that spoke to the mission of our festival. It excelled in a competitive process of 735 plays submitted this year and rose to the top after a six month long process discussing its merits with both national and local Bay Area readers, and we hope it moves swiftly towards production.
My gosh. I literally read hundreds of scripts per year, plus work on my own scripts, so I'm serious when I ask you — how is this not already being produced today in a major theatre? Or, in my opinion, in a film studio? I thoroughly enjoyed reading your work. You've accomplished so much with the way you downplay the set and additional fanfare and keep the focus on these incredible relationships. And you did so many clever things with the blocking without telling us how to produce it... I'm not even sure where to start with my appreciation for this wonderful story. - Southwest Theater and Film Productions.
THE BURNING OF THE WHITE HOUSE
an original musical
Paul Jennings, the 15-year-old house slave to President and Mrs. Madison, discovers his true heroism, strength and purpose, living through one of the most momentous event in the nation’s history -
The Burning of the White House.
Book by Colin Speer Crowley
and Norman L. Berman
Music by Norman L. Berman
Lyrics by Colin Speer Crowley
Click below to listen to our opening number:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny4vuDeu30Q&list=RDny4vuDeu30Q