The Screenwriter Dies Of His Own Free Will is a two character play about a dying screenwriter who has one last pitch he must make to the man who is his oldest friend and toughest sell in Hollywood. In telling the story of a man dealing with the indignities of illness as he works on his last project, The Screenwriter Dies Of His Own Free Will plays unabashedly with the metafictional conventions of film storytelling that are lately the vogue in Hollywood.

Willy Shotz is a hugely successful screenwriter. Producers kill for his stylish violence, his gritty sci-fi and his comic dialogue. But Willy has late stage cancer, which has left him with a new appreciation of life and art and a brand new screenplay about Life writ large. He has come to the office of Gabe Weiner, his oldest friend in the world, comrade in arms, nemesis, and sexual competitor, a man with whom he has a richly complicated relationship, to pitch him one last time.

Willy is dealing with weakness, nausea, the side effects of the marijuana he smokes and an overwhelming sense of loss and sadness. Gabe for his part has seen it all, every shameful underhanded tactic ever used to sell him on a screenplay. He is a steely charmer, who dismisses his own flagrant insincerity as merely an occupational hazard. As Willy artfully pitches his screenplay he speaks to the audience, giving us to understand that this is his play. But Gabe sneakily asserts his point of view behind Willy’s back. Still he wonders why he is painting himself in such a bad light. Is Willy putting the words in his mouth? Gabe fights Willy with every word in his impressive arsenal including “intellectual arthouse comedy.” He will stop at nothing. His tough, sardonic indifference brings Willy to his knees. Willy storms out and takes his screenplay with him. When Gabe chases after him, Willy tells hime he can have the screenplay when he is dead.

Later that night Gabe visits Willy in his Bel-Air mansion. Willy has relented and has given the screenplay to Gabe. After reading it, Gabe has concluded that Willy is contemplating suicide. He has also discovered in Willy’s screenplay evidence that Willy had an affair with his wife. A more complex and personal meeting of the minds takes place in Willy’s living room as unfinished business is transacted. When Gabe realizes Willy has already taken an overdose he struggles to save Willy but has to take an overdose himself to get Willy’s cooperation. Metafiction enters the story again as Willy and the character in his screenplay become interchangable and Gabe realizes he is becoming more three dimensional and sympathetic as a character. The scene comes to a comic climax when drugs have rendered both Willy and Gabe imcapable of making a call to 911.

A year later in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Willy has come to visit an old flame that he and Gabe once fought over, but Gabe has come to the cemetery to visit Willy, who is in fact a ghost. From beyond the grave, Willy tries one more time to get Gabe to make his movie. He speaks of Hollywood film culture and uses the theme of the buddy picture to appeal one last time to Gabe, portraying art as a doomed but heroic adventure. As the play ends we hope Willy may have finally gotten his pitch across.