I am honored to report that my play “The Last Flight of the Electra” has received its second recognition in a month as a semifinalist in 2024 FutureFest, a new play contest sponsored by Dayton Playhouse of Dayton, Ohio!

Dayton Playhouse is a well-regarded community theatre founded in 1962 that provides outstanding theatrical productions to the Miami Valley area of Ohio and is the only theater in its vicinity to operate on a 12-month schedule.

Alongside its theatrical credentials, Dayton has become well-known for FutureFest, its annual festival of new and unproduced plays that started back in 1991, making it one of the longest-running new play festivals in the United States and a great incubator for new theatrical work.

Not only am I thrilled to be recognized as a semifinalist in such a well-known and well-respected contest, but there were over 470 script submissions entered this year alone, putting my script in the top 2.5% of all submitted scripts and making it one of the more selective contests in which any of my plays have been recognized. (Yes, I bothered to calculate the exact percentage!)

I sincerely wish Dayton Playhouse the best for the remainder of their festival and, again, am thrilled for “Electra’s” double recognition this April!

I am thrilled to report that my drama “The Last Flight of the Electra” was recognized as a finalist in the 2024 New Play Contest sponsored by Valley Players of Napa Valley, California.

The Valley Players had well over 200 submissions to their New Play Contest and my script was recognized among the top 10% of all entries, which is a great honor.

Even more to the point, it’s so encouraging to see groups like The Valley Players providing opportunities for new playwrights and their work! In the post-COVID world, it’s even harder to come by theaters that will recognize new plays, especially smaller theaters, so Valley Players deserves tremendous kudos for promoting opportunities for new playwrights to see their work performed.

Not only that, but my “finalist” badge is none too shabby, as well:

Many thanks to Artistic Director June Alane Raif and Valley Players for this honor!

I’m thrilled to announce the “launch” (if “launch” is indeed the right word) of my newest play, “The Last Flight of the Electra!”

Taking place in late 1968, “The Last Flight of the Electra” concerns the retired magazine executive Aileen Craigmore, who finds her carefully manicured (and well-protected) world turned upside down by an obsessive secretary, who insists that Craigmore is, in fact, Amelia Earhart, the famous aviatrix who went missing while flying over the Pacific Ocean in July of 1937.

A brisk-paced, full-length one-act, “The Last Flight of the Electra” is an exciting, even haunting play about the nature of identity – who we truly are and who we choose to be – and, indeed, the extent to which there is any difference between the two – requiring only a single unit set and a cast of five actors to bring its story to life.

The play is inspired by a real-life historical incident, encapsulated in the below picture:

The woman above is Irene Craigmile Bolam, who was famously (or infamously) “accused” of being Amelia Earhart in a book by Joe Klaas in 1970. Joe Klaas wrote his book inspired by former air force officer Joe Gervais, who became convinced that Irene Bolam – a retired bank executive, living in New Jersey – was actually the living, breathing Amelia Earhart. (Hopefully, most readers know that Amelia Earhart was a world-famous pilot who disappeared while flying over the Pacific in an around-the-world tour way back in July of 1937.) Gervais met Bolam in the early 1960’s at an event sponsored by The Early Flyers’ Club of Long Island (Bolam was a former aviatrix) and became convinced she was Amelia Earhart, secretly repatriated to the United States by the American government following World War II. Bolam subsequently sued the publisher of the book and pursued legal action against Klaas and Gervais, but withdrew the case eventually when a judge asked her to provide her finger prints for comparison with Amelia Earhart’s. This decision – and the fact that Bolam subsequently insisted she be cremated upon her death in 1982 – have kept the extraordinary claims by Klaas and Gervais, if not fully “alive,” at least in a state of labored breathing.

You can check out a synopsis of the play here!