A new post about a new play

I have a new play that I've been working on for the past five or six months, though it's been in my head a bit longer than that. I got the idea, or at least the germ of the idea while reading The Brothers Karamazov last summer. There was a chapter in which a wealthy businessman confesses to a crime that someone else was blamed for and no one believes him. That got me thinking. And then I read an oral history of the sixties called Witness to the Revolution and the two just sort of came together. While I was working on this piece last fall with the idea that the crime these guys had committed was a bombing in which innocent people were killed, I read about one of the people who robbed the Brinks truck in Nyack in the early 80's and how she was trying to get out of prison, but not everyone is happy about that.

At any rate all those elements lead me over the last months to what I have now. It's not in finished form right now but it's at least has a beginning and an ending. I have asked for a May 25 reading slot so that gives me plenty of time to get it ready. We'll see. I had originally thought of it as two acts but right now I'm settling in on a long one act . . . it's 37 pages right now so we'll see where it ends up. With the political upheaval that we are living through right now the timing might be right!

The play involves two guys who were involved with a robbery like the Brinks one, and they haven't been found out. One is living off the grid and the other is successful, with a wife and kids and a business. The successful one finds his old friend and tells him he wants to speak on behalf of their imprisoned cohort.

I have been through the ringer with this one. It went from the bombing idea to the armored car theft idea and I'm hoping it's something I'll be happy with when all is said and done. Right now I'm at about medium on the happiness scale, but I plan to get back at it this weekend and see if I can tip the scales in the happier direction!