John Bolen

In this comedy, Nona Stark, a monophobic young waitress, meets Dante Nunn, the agoraphobic young painter across the hall, in a dive apartment building in Venice, California and a natural attraction draws them together. In this puzzle-fit of neuroses, love is abloom.

World-wise-and-weary Birdie Fried, a neighbor, tries to counsel Nona that such an affair will never work. She believes the near insanity that makes Dante a genius will doom any relationship to failure.

Dante’s art dealer, the class-conscious, snobbish Armand Fitzhugh, is trying to wrest away Dante’s latest painting. In Dante’s eye, all his works are never perfect hence never completed. Armand, too, fights against Nona and Dante’s relationship, fearing that Nona is a gold-digger and that Dante’s genius could be lost to the world.

Love wins out, as the young couple finds the strength to defend their need for happiness, at least for now, over the world’s need for genius.

The Death of Jubal: Synopsis
This full-length tragicomedy focuses primarily on the line between male assertiveness that serves as a sexual attraction to females and male aggression that poses the threat of physical harm, rape, or any other form of negative consequence towards women. It is in the misconception and the counter reaction to those male attributes that our drama unfolds.
Act 1 takes place present-day on an island south of Charleston, SC being hit by a violent hurricane. Author and aggressive lover, Leland (age 50), and Maggie (50), his partner, have a long-term relationship best defined as one of love/hate. They own a bar with George (60). They are joined by Marla Mae (35), a religious woman desperate for a relationship with curmudgeonly George, in a plan to ride out the hurricane at the bar. Later, they are joined by three young women, Jan, Darlene and extremely distressed Roxie, all in their twenties, on the run from Roxie’s sadistic rapist ex-boyfriend. When arguments between Leland and Maggie lead Maggie to leave for other shelter, Leland begins to drink heavily. As the storm gains in violence, the drunken aggressive flirtations of Leland with Darlene and Jan trigger the unstable Roxie to kill him, and then everyone else at the bar.
Act 2 takes place in 1980’s New York City. Leland (20’s) is just launching his writing career. Unknown to him, Maggie (20) is four months pregnant, yet has not changed her participation in their life fueled by alcohol and cocaine. Leland’s agent, Oscar (60), threatens to drop Leland as a client and then coerces desperate Maggie into giving him fellatio to continue representing the young author. When Leland catches them in the act, a combination of mistrust over the announced pregnancy, anger and regret for the abandonment of his artistic principles that he allows to retain the agent, compel him to promote one last night of drinking and drugs. This results in a miscarriage by Maggie. Separated for two years by their mutual guilt over the baby’s death, Leland has tried to resurrect their son by penning a bestselling classic book of his life never lived. When they again meet, Maggie in anger tries to draw Leland into a suicide pact. But they both abandon the pact, and plan their escape to the island in South Carolina, accepting that, “everything is going to work out as it should. Somehow, it always seems to.”