...Work in progress Agent: Buddy Thomas

>>> Reading of 'All Hallowed' at the Sharon Playhouse

My father was buried on Halloween. My nephew, at the age of nine, was determined to go trick-or-treating that night. The convergence of my father’s burial, Halloween and my nephew’s need to go trick-or-treating offered the raw material for All Hallowed. There are elements of invention and heightened reality.

The play takes place on Halloween day and night following the burial of a husband and father of three grown children. The three adult children grapple with their ambivalence about their father’s death and each other as well as several other questions. Why is their mother thinking her husband died suddenly when he had been sick for a year and a half? Why is she angry with the one son who was with her when he died? Will she, as two of her children hope, marry her husband’s best friend who is hosting the reception following the burial? What secrets did the World War II hero divulge just before he died? Who will be the new head of the family? And above all, will the family dynamics prevent the youngest member of the family, Justin, from trick-or-treating?

There have been two staged readings of All Hallowed – one at the University at Albany - SUNY - in the Recital Hall at The Theatre Department under the auspices of The Writers Institute - executive director William Kennedy - and at Tri-Arts at Sharon Playhouse in Sharon Connecticut.