Randy Bowser

"It's absolutely remarkable...I was overwhelmed." Sara Karloff

"KARLOFF" is a multimedia one-person play about Boris "Frankenstein" Karloff, authorized by the star's only child, Sara Karloff.

The adventure of the star's life is told in a kaleidoscope of fast-paced, time-hopping and often very funny vignettes which celebrate art, life, and the indomitable human spirit.

A single actor is on stage, but invisible characters abound, and Boris interacts with them as he re-lives moments in his life which spontaneously occur to him.

The theme is self realization.

The subject is the art of acting.

The story: Overcoming physical and cultural handicaps, William Pratt eventually becomes an unlikely success in his chosen field of acting, by making the most out of an equally unlikely opportunity when he's cast in the role of a monster.

The central metaphor: The Frankenstein Monster trying to grasp light when he first sees it, representing Boris, and all of us bumbling creatures, trying to reach and understand more than we're capable of comprehending.

"Lots of laughs and quick paced - I enjoyed the play immensely." audience member Roberta Benson

"Entertaining, humorous, and also incredibly moving." audience member Laura Waters

"The perfect mixture of history, humor and imagination." audience member Cynthia Sloane

In the mid-1920's, the son of a white multimillionaire commits the shocking social transgression of marrying his racially mixed sweetheart. Bride and groom end up riveting the nation as the stars of a sensational trial fraught with social, sexual and racial anxiety. The language and spectacle of that scandal reverberate across the decades.

Running since 2010 in Moscow, Russia, at The Stas Namin Centre.

"Dorian" is an unconventional, semi-operatic play set to music. The libretto focuses on themes from Oscar Wilde's classic novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" - society’s obsession with youth, the value of art and friendship, and the relationship between conscience and soul.

In the late 19th Century, an undercurrent of repressed discontent simmers beneath the facade of genteel Victorian society, and Dorian Gray struggles to make sense of this hypocritical world he finds himself in. His bewildered, child-like view of society is like that of young people of every era as he becomes swept into a nightmare of narcissism.

The almost continuous, dramatic musical score takes us on Dorian’s journey from grace to degradation. We experience, along with Dorian, exhilaration, and then horror as he discovers we all must live with a bittersweet awareness of life's brevity, or go mad trying to live outside the bounds of time.
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"Dorian" is represented by Michael Butler, the producer of the original "HAIR" on Broadway.

The first version was workshopped at Los Angeles City College in 1982.

A highly revised version was produced by Pentacle Theatre in Salem, Oregon, in 2008.

The professional premiere of "Dorian" was in 2010 and is currently still in an open-ended run in Moscow, under the direction of Russian impresario, Stas Namin.

Fully produced orchestral tracks are part of the show's rental package. They can be heard on the MP3 montage of music samples, found at the lower right hand of this page. The MP3 features recordings made during performance at Pentacle Theatre.

Piano/Vocal rehearsal scores are also part of the package.

The show's website (copy and paste links, since they aren't live links in NPX listings):

http://www.dorian-the-musical.com/

Video of the entire Pentacle production:

http://rbowser.tripod.com/dorian-2010/dorian-actone.html

A 1 minute teaser of the Moscow production, followed by video highlights of each act:

http://rbowser.tripod.com/dorian-in-russia/index.html

More promo videos of interest to potential "Dorian" directors and producers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuti51AkgZM

Video promo from when the Russian production was in rehearsal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo55iCtkjM4

http://rbowser.wix.com/tom-sawyer-the-musical

"Tom Sawyer" is a faithful but fresh version of Twain's Great American Novel.

A musical, the show is more down-to-earth than the Broadway mold, featuring a collection of infectious songs which are an eclectic blend of traditional elements and contemporary pop.

"Tom Sawyer" is written to be performed by high school or college aged students, so that children are played by young adults, just as the older characters are also played by young adults.

Tom's psychological awakening from childhood into adult maturity is the focus of the story's arc. His yearning to become a man, and master of his own destiny, eventually brings him to Twain's famous climactic scene in the cave, wisely chosen as the traditional locale for the rites of passage and initiation into adulthood.

Created as an affordable alternative to other versions of the book, fully developed backing tracks have been produced of the show's songs and underscoring passages. At the bottom right of this page is a musical montage demo, utilizing backing tracks which are part of the show's rental package. Also at the bottom right, a download is available of a sample piano/vocal rehearsal score for one of the numbers.