I’m thrilled to report that my exciting new drama “A Flower of the Field” has been chosen as a finalist in a new play festival sponsored by Tyler Civic Theatre Center in Tyler, TX!

My contemporary drama “Margo Asher Died Here” was previously featured in Tyler Civic Theatre Center’s 2020 new play festival, as well, where it received its first public reading in July, 2020.

Tyler Civic Theatre Center is a great local venue in Tyler, TX that has been serving the community for almost 100 years, starting as Tyler Little Theater in the 1920’s and expanding into Tyler Civic Theatre in the 1950’s, where the theater group opened the nation’s first building to be built specifically for in-the-round presentations.

Tyler Civic Theatre has been hosting its new play festival for 14 years, during which only a handful of plays are chosen as finalists and subsequently read before an audience, after which the “audience favorite” is chosen to be slated into the following year’s production season.

All of the finalists – including my play, “A Flower of the Field” – will be read before a live audience on Saturday, July 9th.

Additionally, Tyler Civic Theatre provided me with some readers’ critiques of the play, which I am pleased to share below.

Very creative piece. Written in a manner easy to visualize. 

The eternal battle between good and evil would be easily recognizable to the audience. 

Timely as it deals with the first “pandemic” in recorded history.

The writing is excellent. The story was highly engaging and not at all what I expected. Very well done piece.

Characters are very well written and archetypes are clearly defined.

Kept my attention and never deviated from the path. Was immediately interested in learning where the story would lead.

Many thanks to Tyler Civic Theatre Center for this honor!

I learned today that my (brand) new drama “A Flower of the Field” is a finalist in a new play competition (“FirstWorks”) sponsored by the group Theatre@First!

Theatre@First is an all-volunteer community theater founded in 2003 and based in Somerville, MA, which draws untapped talent from the surrounding community and presents quality live theater across a number of different local venues.

Check out this great newspaper article about Theatre@First that spotlights their successful navigation of the COVID pandemic and the enthusiasm and the passion for the theatrical arts that they channel and encourage in their local community.

Many thanks to Theatre@First for providing “A Flower of the Field” for its first nod by a theatrical organization!

I’m very happy to announce that I have completed a new full-length, one-act drama entitled “A Flower of the Field”

Briefly, “A Flower of the Field” is a drama set in 1349 Ireland when the Black Death is stalking the land and all signs of hope have been cruelly ripped from the world – all, that is, except in the city of Kilkenny, where, despite the death and destruction, a gentle friar named John Clyn single-handedly takes care of the infected and the dying in his abbey. One night, however, a sinister woman and her traumatized maidservant come calling and violently turn John Clyn’s world upside down,  threatening to destroy the hope and faith he has worked so very hard to build. Haunted by this sinister woman, as well as a mysterious mendicant and a vengeful bishop – and faced with what appears to be pure evil – how can Clyn possibly emerge triumphant… and who and where is the real John Clyn?

In its essence, “A Flower of the Field” is a fast-paced, thoughtful, yet ultimately inspiring story of redemption and faith amid the accusing finger of evil, multilayered with complex characters and an engrossing plot and underpinned by a supernatural overlay.

As with many of my plays, the play has an historical basis – in this case from the “Annals of Ireland” written by John Clyn himself, a Franciscan friar who served as guardian of the Franciscan Abbey of Kilkenny, which is still (mostly) standing to this day – see below.

In his annals, which are otherwise a long series of dates with basic annotations, Clyn occasionally allowed himself a great flourish of writing and wrote very movingly about the Black Death and its path of destruction through Ireland in 1384-1349 – which you can read here.

Taking this story and combining it with some other historical characters of the time period – including the convicted witch Alice Kyteler and the redoubtable Richard Ledrede, Bishop of Ossory – I knitted together a powerful, unique yarn that, I hope, will resonate.