...Work in progress Agent: Buddy Thomas

 

The play began when I was in college. It had four characters and its first title was Gentle Catapults. It won an award at a New York State theater festival which, at the time, was encouraging.

Over the years the number of characters has grown to seven and the title changed. Under the title Family Planning the play was performed in Florida with Cameron Mitchell and Ronnie Graham and directed by Charles Nelson Reilly. Cameron Mitchell was determined to turn the play into a movie but sadly his health did not give him the life span to fulfill that dream.

Currently, the story has the title Visiting Day.

The play centers around visiting day at the Gaylordsville Accommodation for Retired Guests. On this particular visitng day one resident wants to paint the porch. He enlists the aid of his two closest friends at the accommodation and two children from the neighborhood. As secrets and events weave and escalate, the painting of the porch emerges as an epic redemptive act that challenges the notion of family as well as questioning the practice of turning the stages of life into psychological and physical ghettos.

The theme that prompted this play in college was the notion that the family you choose often trumps one's blood family. I also remember at the time that I felt the very old and the very young should somehow be together. A healthy society needs the integration of these two phases of human existence. In the early version of the play I just stated both these themes in the text. Now, neither theme is stated but both are hopefully suggested as the story of a man who wants to paint the porch with his adopted family unfolds.

This play is also a screenplay.