JB Miller

Two interlinked monologues, comprising of:

"Chained to a Lunatic" : Sixtysomething Booth Rigby is a theatre critic/playwright/producer who is stuck in the 70s, objectifying and bedding women at the same time as he’s appalled by his own libido — until he finds the source of his own derangement and literally takes matters into his own hands.

"Melody of a Lost Soul" : Mrs. Francolini is head mistress at St. Gertrude’s School for Girls, who has been forced to resign over a sex scandal. With the fortitude of a couple of drinks, she addresses her precious “Gerts” girls one last time, to explain what has happened: a hasty marriage to a punk guitarist/heroin addict, followed by an ill-advised affair with the notorious theatre critic/playwright/producer Booth Rigby. In fact, if she hadn’t left her iPhone unattended on her desk, no one would have known anything about it. But she did. And now everyone does.

A sixtysomething antiquarian bookseller on Cecil Court in London takes in a twentysomething petty thief to help him in the shop. When a mysterious seller comes in and offers what might be a priceless Led Zeppelin manuscript, it causes a rift in the two men’s relationship.

Lina is the daughter of a famous deceased male artist who abused her as a teenager, posing her naked for his most famous (and notorious) painting called Mona Lina. Now living as a 60-something recluse in the New York former bank building her father used as his studio, the ghost of her childhood as her only companion, she is approached by a young curator from the Tate Gallery in London for her help in putting together a retrospective of her father’s work. This is a loaded and difficult request, complicated by the Tate’s insistence on including the very painting that Lina feels caused the destruction of her childhood.

Accused of being a “crisis actor,” the father of a six-year-old girl killed in a school massacre begins to wonder if it actually happened.

Single father Haden approaches local couple Mim and Roy with a difficult message: their son has tried to kiss his own son after school, and it’s ruined the boys’ friendship. Haden wants to defuse the situation, but ends up being individually seduced by the couple and becoming a pawn in the their psyschosexual relationship. That may turn out to be what he wants. But where does that leave the boys?

APPROPRIATION, “an uncomfortable comedy,” is a one-set/four character play about cultural appropriation, specifically a light-skinned African-American woman (Jamelle) about to receive the National Black Conference Award for her work as a community organizer -- until she is unmasked by a white reporter (Rocco) as a white woman who’s darkened her skin to “pass” as black. This brings the irate, dark-skinned Angela out of the audience to protest the play, which is clearly written by a white person who has no right to tell the story. There ensues a squabble about colour-blind casting and cultural appropriation, until the exasperated playwright (Jon) comes on stage to try to salvage his play. This only leads to further recriminations in which the same scenario is played out with a (fake) Jewish American (played by Rocco) and an obviously counterfeit Korean-American (played by Jamelle) who insist on the right to be whatever ethnicity they choose. The play ends badly for the unfortunate playwright, who has alienated his own cast.

In a Parisian apartment, a middle-aged French couple (Robert and Celine) are about become engaged when there’s a knock on the door. Enter a coarse, slightly drunk young man who disrupts the romantic evening, eventually revealing himself to be the younger Robert (Bobo). This initially turns off Celine, until another knock on the door brings in the young Lina, who turns out to be the younger Celine, which initially turns on Robert. There ensues a drunken confab, in which the older couple are forced to confront their younger selves, which alters the equation of their current betrothment.

A boulevard comedy in the style of Florian Zeller or Yasmina Reza.

Oh those pesky middle classes with their blasted midlife crises, baffled by the loss of their bohemian dreams, bewildered by new gender issues, scared of their own precocious teens. What's the answer? Well, certainly not incest, right? For the Chase family, their private lives are about to get very complicated when a drunken holiday in Bermuda goes terribly wrong, bringing out the latent loucheness of two teenagers, and the tortured self-involvement of their utterly clueless parents. But first, mum and dad have to get a couple of things off their chests…

A slight updating of Private Lives, as if Noel Coward had written a version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf while recovering from a hangover.

Primo and Condo Carson, identical brothers born minutes apart, are about to turn 40, but haven’t spoken to each other in years. The ghosts of their past include shared wives, shared drugs, and shared experiences fronting Jemeneye, the biggest rock n’ roll band in the world. Six years after it all imploded in bitter acrimony, Condo is suing Primo for use of the band’s name, just as Primo is set to tour and record again -- without his brother’s involvement. At an arbitration meeting they express their mutual distrust and recall their last meeting, which included a stolen Clapton guitar and a loaded handgun. Even after all the crap they’d been through, one of them still wanted to restart the band. But one of them was about to get shot.

The play is written to be performed by a single actor who plays all the roles, including the two brothers, a professional arbitrator, a doctor, and a couple of patients in a group therapy session at the Priory.

I was JFK is the story of how Kennedy's assassination affected Marilyn Monroe, Lenny Bruce and JFK-impersonator Vaughn Meader, whose comedy album sold seven and a half million copies and won the Grammy in 1963. His career was struck down the moment Lee Harvey stuck his Carcano carbine rifle out the Texas Book Depository window and pulled the trigger. Three actors play 15 roles, ranging from RFK, Hugh Hefner and Jackie Kennedy, to Oswald and JFK himself. Set ostensibly in a basement nightclub (with a jazz duo scoring the action), the play expands to take in the full breadth of this tumultuous "Mad Men" moment in history, marking the crossroads of the Rat Pack, the Beatles, Playboy, TV chat shows, Hollywood, the birth of stand-up comedy and the sudden death of the most powerful man in the world.

A new take on the notorious British spy, in which three actors play Kim Philby, sometimes all at the same time.

Two failed British antique dealers inherit the world's oldest person and try to monetize her, misremembering the more respectful attention accorded Harry Patch, i.e. the Last Tommy. When questions surface regarding the woman’s true provenance (and age), the dealers turn on each other, until the tables are turned on them by the old biddy -- who may, in fact, actually be the oldest person in the world.

A famous American movie star, in London to promote his latest big-action movie, is confronted over his pervasive sexual harassment. Told mostly in flashback, we see the complicity of his long-suffering female personal assistant who needs his endorsement to kickstart her own producing career. But is it worth it if it means allowing him to get away with indefensible behaviour?

In 1887, Queen Victoria brings two servants from India to serve in her household. One of them captures her imagination, introducing her to the exotica of the Far East, and becoming her closest companion – much to the chagrin of the royal household, especially her former most intimate confidante, her personal physician Dr. James Reid. He attempts to have this "Munshimania" banished from the court — but will it lead to his own exile first?

A young couple leaves London for Somerset to escape the stresses of the city. When white playwright Immy buys a shipping container to work in, she thinks she can hear banging on the walls — even though there’s no one there. Her Pakistani partner Raj can’t hear it, nor can the London couple who come to visit them for the weekend — until, all too clearly, they all can, encountering the ghosts of an unspeakable calamity. What can they do to correct this tragedy? And is it true, as Auden said, that “poetry makes nothing happen”?

At a small US college, a traditionally progressive, middle-aged white professor with a popular class called “the Culture Box,” crashes into the present when two students, one African-American, the other trans, confront him on his outdated world view. It’s a culture clash if there ever was one.