I am pleased to announce that I have recently finished a new play – “Shadows of Men.”

I have been working on this play for the past 7 months or so. I have long meant to write a play about this particular incident in history because it touches a theme deep in my intellectual heart. The play itself is a story about the dignity of the individual and the survival of human friendship and loyalty across the abstractions of man-made ideologies.

In terms of plot, “Shadows of Men” is a two-hour historical drama about the search by novelist John Dos Passos for his dear friend, José Robles, who mysteriously disappeared during the struggles and turmoil of the Spanish Civil War. This obsessive search ends up isolating Dos Passos from many of his literary colleagues – especially the blustery Ernest Hemingway – who believe that Dos Passos’s focus on friendship is rather pedestrian when the survival of “democracy” is at stake. As Dos Passos investigates his friend’s fate, however, he gradually begins to understand the madness swirling around him, exposing a murky, cold, often heartless world where human beings are subservient to the abstractions for which they fight.

You can read a synopsis of the play here and a sample !