Douglas Post

The midnight of the soul as recounted by the residents of a high-rise condominium building. "The show ends on a particularly brilliant note with 'At Night in the Asylum,' Douglas Post's work for the ensemble. It does for an urban high-rise what Edgar Lee Masters did for the town of Spoon River." - Chicago Sun-Times. "A haunting choral reading piece that equates the fears of the inhabitants of a city dwelling with those of a madhouse." - Chicago Reader. "Post's beautifully constructed 'At Night in the Asylum' features the ensemble in a vibrant group portrait of the lost and found souls in an urban sanitarium." - Windy City Times. Published by Dramatic Publishing as a part of the collection Detective Sketches and Other Short Plays.

A transient man sorts through the photographs of his life while attempting to connect with a woman in the park.

A triptych of three interrelated one-act plays that concern five people in their late 20s and early 30s who are looking for love and lust and everything in between. In the first play, Richard, who is seeing Diane, plays host at her apartment to Lou, Diane's former boyfriend. Lou and his friend, Pete, have arrived to collect Lou's things. But when Lou and Pete begin to walk out with paintings, lamps and all of the furniture, Richard realizes that he may have inadvertently let two burglars into the apartment. In the second play, Diane, who is now married with a child on the way, and Jill, who is a free spirit, meet and exchange world views. But eventually we learn that Diane’s new husband could well be having an affair with this other woman. In the final play, Jill breaks up with Pete, and that leads to a complete circle. A killing may have occurred. And a new coupling may be about to take place. "An unqualified success. Ostensibly a comedy of manners on contemporary relationships, 'Belongings and Longings' is really a reverberating, interconnected mind game, one that suggests and probes more than it discloses. Post writes with a shrewd ear for modern banter, a tantalizing affinity for Pinteresque mystery and a sublime dramatic architecture." - Chicago Tribune. "Post has subtitled this work 'a play about love and furniture,' but it is more complicated than that. His willingness, and his ability, to explore the darker corners of that much traveled - but rarely illuminated - territory of romantic love and intimacy makes these vignettes an intense and moving experience." - Chicago Sun-Times. Published by Dramatic Publishing.

Two people with strong opinions about the world and everything that's wrong with it tell the world everything that's wrong with it.

Carter Bartosek, a foreign correspondent stationed in Beirut, returns to his Midwest hometown for the funeral of his best friend, a former congressman who apparently took his own life while high on alcohol and painkillers. Carter discovers that his friend had left the larger political arena in order to run for mayor of this town, which has transformed itself from an industrial community in decline to a high-tech hub, and that his progressive agenda might have alienated certain members of this now affluent municipality. Over the course of five days, Carter kicks through the ashes of his childhood and confronts those people who he considers to be his extended family in search of the truth surrounding this alleged suicide. Was his friend murdered for his politics? And, if so, what does that say about Carter himself and this bucolic place he once called home? “Mysteriously magic ‘Blissfield’ makes a compelling case…A piece that clicks along smoothly with suspense and surprise and finishes with a tremendous kick of irony…It's like a terrific B-movie, with brains - and a conscience.” - Chicago Tribune. “A total success…Douglas Post has a gift for suspense, and he creates a genuine curiosity and, thankfully, a satisfying revelation.” - New City. “Crisp and compelling…Post's play is full of twists and turns involving love affairs and alienated affection, precocious children and greed…It reminded me of Roman Polanski's ‘Chinatown.’” - Windy City Times. “Situational murder…Just when this black-and-white morality play seems cut-and-dried out, it takes a marvelous turn for the gray…We're left with a far more disturbing reaction than a murder mystery elicits.” - Chicago Free Press. “Smart…skillful…it's an edge-of-the-chair mystery that's also a thoughtful, articulate drama.” - Metromix.

This one-man thriller is set in London during the 1950s and tells the story of Derek Eveleigh, a skilled but down on his luck photographer who receives a mysterious letter asking him to take pictures of an elegant young woman as she walks through Holland Park. The reward is handsome, but there is a catch. The woman must not know she is being photographed. Derek accepts. How could he refuse? But who is this girl? Why does she take a different route each day? And what do an Irish comedian, an American saxophone player and a Russian magician have to do with a sudden bloody incident? In trying to solve the crime, Derek finds his entire world turned inside out. ★★★★ “A superb show that takes you completely by surprise...It’s a thriller that genuinely holds the spectator in its thrall and it is all performed by just one actor, the multi-talented Simon Slater...it left me eager to see more of both Slater and the ingenious writing of Douglas Post.” - The Telegraph. ★★★★ “A real tour de force.” - The Independent. ★★★★ “A gorgeous little thriller.” - Libby Purves: Theatre Cat. ★★★★ “Simon Slater is engaging and energetic from the get-go and at the end it's easy to forget that this play is performed by one actor, not five.” - WhatsOnStage.com. ★★★★ “A hugely pleasurable and entertaining evening at the theatre.” - The Public Reviews. ★★★★ “It's a testament to Douglas Post's super script and Simon Slater's epic, virtuoso performance that this noir thriller is a thoroughly gripping experience.” - West End Wilma. “The involving 'Bloodshot' is a miniature tour-de-force” - The Metro. “Douglas Post's gripping drama is meticulously crafted.” - The Stage. “A gem of a thriller.” - Reviewsgate.

This winner of the 2014 Blue Ink Playwriting Award takes place on the coldest night of the year in the city of Chicago as a group of concerned neighbors gather in the back room of a library to grapple with issues related to crime, gangs and graffiti, and to deal with a recent shooting on their streets that has left a young man dead. As the meeting grows longer and tempers grow shorter, questions arise and accusations fly. Who was the man? Was he a gang member or a former gang member? Is it true that he was recently released from prison? Was he trying to turn his life around? And is it possible that one of the members of this group may have become the very thing they are all fighting against?

This political drama centers on Congressman Dixon McDaniels, a moderate Republican from Texas, who is caught in the crossfire between his liberal wife, an atmospheric scientist studying the effects of global warming, and his conservative chief of staff, an evangelical and a believer in the end times. Over the course of a weekend, Dixon, his wife and his staff grapple with their ideological differences as he attempts to push an energy bill through Congress. And all the while a hurricane gathers force off the Gulf Coast threatening his estate and the surrounding terrain. “Highly recommended…A timely work…It tackles a daunting, divisive issue: the role of faith in American politics…Post communicates the integrity of each character while challenging their positions…This is a play about truth, not certainty – a play that’s as much about doubt as faith.” - Chicago Reader. “Recommended…This lively, accessible play uses a relatively simple conflict between what appears to be a moderate Texas Republican congressman and his wise-cracking, environmentally charged wife…A very cleverly balanced play.” - Chicago Tribune. “Recommended…The crux of Post’s play asks this intriguing, all too rarely asked question: just what should the role of a political leader be – prophet, innovator or devoted shepherd-custodian? You might well leave the theater musing on whether the world, as we know it, will end with a bang or a whimper.” - Chicago Sun-Times. “Douglas Post’s ‘Cynical Weathers’ is a good old-fashioned topical play…A thought-provoking and enjoyable evening of theater…I can honestly recommend it.” - Hyde Park Herald. “Douglas Post’s witty new play takes a provocative look at what can happen when politics and religion meet.” - Lake County Journals. “Among the many likable aspects of this play, the witty dialogue particularly stands out. The dynamic between Dixon, Cat, and their two cynical staffers, Manny and Lee, should entertain any fan of backstage political drama. These are smart characters talking at the top of their intelligence.” - Center Stage Chicago. “This is an ambitious play…‘Cynical Weathers’ may not satisfy all cynics, but damn if it doesn’t give it a good try and give you something to think about along the way…And let me just say it ends perfectly.” - The Real Chicago.

This comic spoof of the hard-boiled detective series centers on a fearless private investigator named Alex Diver and his search for the elusive Lady in Green. In the course of his investigation he stumbles upon a couple of dimwitted hoods named No-Lips Noleski and Goosebreath Moosejaw, encounters a clueless politician called Mayor Buddy Snowjob, gets snubbed by the mayor's receptionist, beaten up by the cops, and clobbered by the morally challenged Reverend Rudy Bankhead. Ultimately Alex comes face to face with the Napoleon of crime, the sinister and strangely slender, Fat Guy. "A manic farce of a spoof...using the hard-boiled genre as a source for a surreal trip and a little lighthearted Brechtian anti-materialism." - Chicago Tribune. "An unabashed goof on every hard-boiled detective story from The Maltese Falcon to Chinatown. That it works is a testament to Post's writing.” - Chicago Reader. "A crowd and critic-pleasing success. The B-movie scenario, straight from Central Scripting, weaves a web of evil around a ton of four-star stereotypes; it yields at least two guffaws a minute. Post hits every chestnut in the gumshoe canon." - Windy City Times. Published by Dramatic Publishing.

Duncan Crawford, a bartender on the island of St. John, is considering abandoning his way of life for greater adventure when Emily Miles, an heiress from Manhattan, wanders into his establishment and begins to recount her sad tale. She tells him how she was left at the altar at the tender age of nineteen by a fiancé who suddenly disappeared, how she has spent the past twenty years searching for this man, and how she now believes that she has found him in the person of Duncan. Duncan denies this, but Emily is certain. To complicate matters, Emily’s husband, Raymond, an investment banker, offers Duncan $10,000 to pretend he is the man Emily is looking for in the hope that she will finally come to some sort of closure over the event. The story continues to twist and turn right up to the ambiguous conclusion - Duncan might be playing along with Raymond or he might actually be the man Emily claims he is. The play was originally presented as a staged reading at the 1994 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and further developed at the 1995 Shelykova Playwrights Conference in Russia. It received its world premiere at Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago in 1996. It has also been recorded as a radio play for L.A. Theatre Works with Harry Hamlin, Martha Lavey and Paul Winfield. “A specialty of playwright Douglas Post: a philosophical mystery...working in territory that Alfred Hitchcock explored...Post weaves in deeper considerations on memory, commitment and the strange ways of the passage of time.” - Chicago Tribune. “Post’s play, unfolding in a swiftly moving succession of scenes without intermission, shines when his sharply drawn characters trade wisecracks and ironies.” - Chicago Sun-Times. “A kind of dramatic Rorschach test, Post’s psychological puzzler forces audiences to fill in some tantalizing blanks.” - Chicago Reader. “The story twists and turns right up to the ambiguous conclusion.” - Copley News Service. “An intimate and engaging 90 minutes.”- Windy City Times. Published by Dramatists Play Service.

This winner of the first annual L. Arnold Weissberger Playwriting Award is a poetic thriller about a would-be poet and part-time librarian named Sara McKeon whose lover of ten weeks, David Ames, is found dead one hot August morning in the city of Chicago. It appears that David, owner and manager of an expensive art-deco restaurant, may have been involved in several illicit activities including kidnapping, rape and murder. Unable to believe that the man she gave her heart to was a killer, and outraged by the fact that the police seem to have closed the book on the case, Sara begins her own investigation of the crime and is led deeper and deeper through the urban labyrinth into the contemporary underworld. As the detective story moves forward in time, scenes from the love affair take us back to the moment when Sara and David first met. Finally the plots converge and Sara finds herself face to face with the person who murdered her beloved. The play was originally presented as a staged reading at the 1989 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and received its world premiere at Second Stage Theatre in New York in 1991. It has now had some 50 productions across the country. It has also received a British tour and has been recorded as a radio play for L.A. Theatre Works with Annette Bening, Ed Begley Jr. and John Mahoney. “Douglas Post’s play is a case of film noir on stage. Hard-bitten but with a tinge of sentiment...the devious U-turns in the plot continue past the ending of this taut new thriller.” - New York Times. “It is thoroughly engrossing, holding you fast for about 100 intermissionless minutes...a genuine cop thriller, with devious plot turns, tough, corner-of-the-mouth, Chandler-and-Hammett-style dialogue, and enough surprises to startle rabbits out of holes let alone hats.” - New York Post. “A winner...a satisfying whodunnit shot through with sardonic humour...psychologically absorbing...richly poetic...a seriously good play.” - Portsmouth News. “A brilliant and remarkable play...compulsively gripping...an undoubted success.” - Bournmouth Daily News. “Its final moments might well go down in theater history as some of the most heartrending of any modern production.” - Bath Echo. Published by Dramatists Play Service.

An urban professional attempts to outrun the upscale shifts in his community. "Douglas Post's 'Escape From Groovytown' is a mildly sci-fi, deliciously nasty putdown of yuppie chic." - Chicago Tribune. "My favorite sketch is Post's 'Groovytown,' a modern Twilight Zone piece about a yuppie who tries to escape the gentrification of his neighborhood and himself." - Chicago Reader. "A funny, paranoid attempt to escape Philip Glass, mimosas, dry-cleaned shirts with medium starch, the expression 'lovely,' and other big-shoulders young-moneyed pretensions." - New City. Published by Dramatic Publishing as a part of the collection Detective Sketches and Other Short Plays.

A pop opera based on the medieval morality play in which Everyman, an allegorical character, discovers that he is dying, attempts to bargain and argue his way free, falls to despair, and finally comes to terms with his own mortality. Along the way, he encounters the personifications of Fellowship, Kindred, Worldly Goods, Strength, Beauty, Five Wits, Discretion and Good Deeds. Through interaction with each of character, he comes to learn their true value when faced with the great equalizer, Death. "Douglas Post's musical version of 'Everyman' retains the work's clear-cut symbolism while also giving it a bold, contemporary kick that quickens the human spirit. He, thankfully, transcends the original work's heavy-handed nature through wit, candor and conversational warmth. The cast's versatile voices balance and enhance styles that join gospel, calypso, rap, choral music and ballads in an earthy yet sublime universality. Dark strains of Kander and Ebb-style show tunes seep through soaring passages of 'Les Miserable'-type proportions. Complex, dissonant duets and trios add to the potent musical eclecticism." - Chicago Sun-Times. "As moving an entertainment as you'll see this year. Post's music and lyrics are inventive, memorable and highly versatile. An underground hit." - Chicago Illini. "Tops on the best buy list. Don't miss it. Douglas Post's musical update of the fifteenth century morality play is a finger-snapping, fast-paced, and thought-provoking gem." - The Lincoln Parker.

A woman who is almost homeless confronts a well-to-do man on a subway train. Published by Dramatic Publishing as a part of the collection Detective Sketches and Other Short Plays.

This is a comedy about life in a high-rise condominium building where a professional student from the University of Chicago is moonlighting as a janitor, a stressed-out apartment manager is at odds with the residents and on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and a motley assortment of other staff members struggle with survival in the face of urban pandemonium and the fact that one of them may be breaking into the units and stealing women's underwear. It was first performed as a radio play with L.A. Theatre Works where it featured Fran Adams, Ed Begley Jr., Samantha Bennett, Dan Butler, Arye Gross, Michael Luckerman, Charlie Robinson, Tom Virtue and Fred Willard. Subsequently, it received a second radio production with Chicago Theatres On The Air where it featured Rengin Altay, Edward Asner, Jane Blass, Kyle Colerider Krugh, Sam Macy, Mike Nussbaum, Morocco Omari, David Pasquesi and Steve Pickering.

This musical retelling of the passion play is made up of twelve songs rendered by the disciple Peter and others connected with events in Jerusalem some two thousand years ago. The characters include Martha, Caiaphas, the Blind Man, Pilate's Wife, Iscariot, Andrew, Magdalene, Barabbas and Mary. One by one, each of these people come forward to recall the teacher, healer, son who they knew. A portrait of Jesus is composed, though the man himself never appears. Finally, it is Peter who recounts the words his master said to him before leaving this earthly plain, "I will be with you always."

John Gilchrist, a professional blackjack player, arrives in the dying industrial community of Indimich, Indiana looking for a man who robbed him of 30,000 dollars worth of winnings. A man with three bullet wounds in his chest. A man he believes to be the building manager of a local mission, Lee Birdsong. But John is not certain and so hires Chloe Jones, a peep show girl with a sordid past, to seduce Lee and confirm his scars. In the process, Chloe finds that she has to reveal herself to Lee in ways she had never anticipated. Girl in a Box is the story of three people in search of themselves. It takes place within the shifting Plexiglass walls of a funhouse that comes to represent the barriers we create and the barriers we try to break through. And it asks whether or not it is possible to find salvation inside another person.

When Sophocles’ Antigone was first performed in 441 B.C. three male actors portrayed all eight characters with a chorus made up of elders from the community. This musical, composed of thirty songs and completely sung-through, is a retelling of that story written to be performed by three women who play all of the roles, and four men who play instruments and also act as members of the chorus. The action starts after brothers Polynices and Eteocles have battled to the death for the crown of Thebes. Their uncle, the newly-crowned King Creon, proclaims that Eteocles is to be buried with full honors, while the corpse of Polynices is to be left on the battlefield to rot. Outraged, Polynices’ sister Antigone defies Creon’s mandate, and risks her life to properly honor her brother’s corpse. Antigone soon confesses to the deed and is sentenced to death by slow suffocation, despite the protests of Creon’s own son Haemon, who is deeply in love with her. Ultimately, tragic fate brings fit punishment to Creon himself, decimating his family, and leaving the audience to ask, should we follow God’s law or Man’s law? “'God and Country' commands with fiery reign...A sensational new musical now receiving a powerhouse world premiere at Victory Gardens Theater in a production that will have you on the edge of your seat for 90 uninterrupted minutes...It’s driven forward with thunderous momentum by a highly sophisticated and soul-stirring rock score that avoids every cliché and a trio of performances of such vocal and dramatic force that they could easily be transferred to the great stone arenas where the plays of Sophocles were first performed. 'God and Country' may be brand new, but it already feels like a classic.” - Chicago Sun-Times. “Douglas Post makes a stimulating mix of ancient Greek tragedy and modern rock music...A deeply committed, audacious adaptation of one of the Western world’s most enduring stories.” - Copley News. “Douglas Post has forged a rock, rap, blues, pop and hip-hop score...I’d relish hearing these songs again.” - Chicago Free Press. "A serious, substantial new work of musical theater.” - WFMT. “A swift and relentless 90 minutes.” - Windy City Times.

Chesapeake Bay. 1991. The Cold War is at an end and Derk Elicker, an arms dealer, is celebrating the day with his old friend and confidant, Patrick McClean, an agent for the CIA. Derk intends to write his memoirs. Patrick and his people are concerned. They want him to stop. Derk refuses. A violent struggle ensues and Patrick is killed. Then the trouble really starts. Joe Daley, a writer for hire, arrives on Derk’s estate to help him with his literary efforts and instead becomes sexually involved with Derk’s wife, Katheryn. Does Derk know? If so, what does he intend to do? And are elements of the CIA still lurking in the shadows? In this political thriller, nothing is certain and everything can change with the flick of a knife or the flash of a gun. As the bloodshed mounts and the bodies fall, two men with covert pasts find themselves skinned to the core and facing their naked selves. And only one will live to tell the tale.

This winner of the first Cunningham Commission Award for Youth Theatre is an inspiring new musical for American children’s theatre about the magic of storytelling. One winter’s day, Hans, an unruly farm boy who has lost his way in the woods, stumbles across a golden key. It unlocks an enchanted chest that holds the imprisoned Gerhardt the Great and his troupe of traveling players. To show their thanks, the players perform three tales for Hans: “The Golden Goose,” “The Three Huntsmen” and “The Four Skillful Brothers.” Their theatrical antics are underscored by a collection of songs that range in style from ballads to blues to rock. Finally, the players depart, leaving Hans with some valuable lessons about generosity, loyalty, and hard work. “A new musical from DePaul’s Chicago Playworks enchants theatergoers.” – Time Out Chicago. “An A+ for kids and an A for parents.” – Chicago Parent. “There’s nothing grim about ‘Grimm’ and the DePaul play’s lessons are positively positive.” – The Catholic New World. Published by Dramatic Publishing.

Atro City is in the midst of a wave of violence like none it’s ever seen as the Buzzsaws, the Blades and the Golden Hammers all fight for the same turf. Are they taking their marching orders from Big Fist and his crew of rogues and cutthroats? Or is the Gang Fist being controlled by some outside force? As MacAllister Sheen, AKA Mister Machine, and his daughter Wendy, AKA Widget, try to solve the mystery while taking on the thieves, thugs and killers, they find themselves at odds. Will Wendy’s adolescent ways lead them into even deeper disaster? Will Mac ever accept the fact that his girl is growing up and that he himself is a fractured human being? And what will Mister Machine and Widget do when they come face to face with the Master of Disorganized Crime…Theo Shebang?

This psychological thriller centers on Thomas Devereaux, a successful architect and local contractor, and his lovely wife, Joan, who have recently moved into their dream house in the suburban town of Green Meadows, Illinois. They are soon visited by their new neighbors, Carolyn and Jeff Symons, and a friendship develops between the two couples. But underneath the cool, middle American exterior, something is truly rotten. A previous sexual relationship between Joan and a teenage lawn-boy is revealed, as is the fact that Thomas learned of the infidelity and may have murdered his wife’s lover. To make matters worse, an affair develops between Joan and Jeff. One summer evening, following the Symons’ departure after a friendly game of cards, Thomas lets Joan know that he is aware of this new deception, and his violent nature takes hold. He makes two demands of his wife: one, she must stop seeing Jeff. Two, she must kill him. What follows is a diabolical plot that continues to thicken through the final showdown between a murderer and an aggrieved widow. Steppenwolf Theatre Company and WMAQ-TV first produced this thriller as a one-act teleplay in 1986. It was nominated for six Emmy Awards including one for Individual Achievement in Writing. The full-length version of the play received its world premiere at The Nuffield Theatre in Southampton, England in 1992. The American premiere took place at Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago in 1995. Since then, the play has had over eighty productions around the world. "A thoroughly satisfying thriller on all points." - WMAQ-TV. "A wonderful evening of sleuth and murder." - Near North News. "It spins a web of deception, sex, murder and mind games as two suburban couples discover their darker sides." - Chicago Tribune. "A screaming hit...a tautly constructed plot...the people are the action." - Portsmouth News. "This tale of lust and death in the 'ideal' home is certain to become a classic." - Southampton Daily Echo. Published by Dramatists Play Service.

A pop opera based on the story by Henry van Dyke, which tells the tale of Artaban the Magi, who sold off all of his worldly possessions so that he might have three precious jewels to present to the child born in Bethlehem. Due to his kindness, his generosity, and his great heart, Artaban looses first his sapphire and then his ruby to other in needs, and arrives at the nativity too late. He spends the rest of his life searching for his Lord, and finally comes to Jerusalem, some thirty-three years later, with a single pearl in his hand.

This winner of the 1995 Midwestern Playwrights Festival Award is a thriller that centers on Nicholas Barnes, a successful Los Angeles tax attorney, who suddenly looses his assets, his condo, his career, his lover and the life he thought he had. He finds himself out on the streets, homeless and hunted by the law. After a failed attempt at suicide and some time in a transient hotel, he undertakes an investigation with his cousin, a woman who has been through a similar set of misfortunes, to determine why these actions have been taken against him and what sort of a familial link exists behind these crimes. “Douglas Post is one of those rare scribes who is both a serious playwright capable of exploring important themes and an unabashed lover of the thriller genre with a weakness for the ripping yarn. It’s a savvy niche. 'Personal Effects' is a play that revels in a good plot twist even as it explores such themes as communal guilt, the limits of revenge and the possibilities of forgiveness.” - Chicago Tribune. “A terrific play…a beautifully crafted noir thriller…a surprisingly tense plot that deals with powerful themes such as revenge and forgiveness with enchanting use of symbolism and the connection of spiritualism and the eternal urge to return to the land, to one’s roots.” - Chicago Critic. “A taut, suspenseful production that leaves you guessing to the bitter, fantastic end.” - Chicago Arts & Entertainment. “Filled with edge-of-your-seat suspense and spine-tingling surprises.” - Wicker Park Voice. “Edgy and interesting…flawless and imaginative…if you are a lover of drama and theater this production is worth the visit.” - Oak Park Journal.

This is black comedy about Johnny De Facto, a rock star with a distant past and a fading present, who, at his farewell concert, is fired upon by a crazed fan named Leo Sobocinski. Johnny falls into a coma, but comes out of it within a few weeks to find that his condition has become front page news and his career, as a result, has been recharged. Leo is sentenced to a mental institution for the criminally insane where he records a song titled "Kill Johnny One Note Dead." His tune is released across the airways and skyrockets to the top of the charts. And Johnny, who is out on the road now with his "Resurrection" tour, finds himself the target of a new breed of thrill-seeker - Fans wishing to destroy him for the sake of their own notoriety.

An estranged couple comes together for a bad cup of coffee only to recall everything that broke them apart.

A political drama about a woman whose brother is brutally murdered and who, because of her affiliation with certain human rights groups in the Gaza Strip, becomes the target of an investigation by the FBI, the local police, and the media. “An involving, plot-driven thriller.” - Chicago Tribune. “A cautionary tale about what might happen in a society where the fear of terrorism could lead to an intrusion on individual rights.” - Chicago Sun-Times. “A worthy and timely play…Post has written a powerful piece of resistance to political pressure that gets us debating governmental witch hunts.” - Theater in Chicago. “A scary exercise in prosecutorial abuse…a crisp 100 minute script…Post’s political thriller depicts a government-triggered and media fueled feeding frenzy.” - Chicago Free Press. “A spellbinding thriller…McCabe takes the challenging work with its multitude of unrelated incidents and spins them into a taut, nerve shattering web.” - Theatreworld Internet Magazine

Two New York bargeman attempt to unload a boat filled with trash on a third world power. Published by Dramatic Publishing as a part of the collection Detective Sketches and Other Short Plays.

Five convicts chart their criminal activities amidst life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A farce and a send-up of British spy stories about button-down bureaucrats operating in the grey areas of a grey society. Fred Laffingstock is an ineffectual middle-aged man who works for the BSS, also known as the British Secret Service, also known as the Big Saucy Sausage. Someone is spying on the spies and Fred must ferret out the culprit from a motley crew of colleagues – the ambitious Bosty Cockfoster, the very posh Stig Ripley Stripley, the extremely crude Culter McCreedy, and the shy fly-on-the-wall woman who secretly loves Fred named Droopy Muffincups. In the course of his assignment, Fred must contend with his overbearing and brainless mother, with whom he still lives, while confiding in his closest friend and ally who happens to be the family dog. Finally Fred collides with the truth in a twisted ending that not even a master spy could have seen coming.

Over a series of summer days and nights on the back deck of a crumbling house in the city of Chicago, seven intimate strangers attempt to connect their hearts, minds and bodies. Each is in love with the wrong person. And each is unwilling or unable to comprehend the passions of the other. They hope, hate, lust, lie, drink, sing, recite poetry, rage at the moon, and search for meaning in their solitude. These desperate and comic souls consist of a journalist, a teacher, a transient con-artist, a deaf painter, an heiress, a stockbroker, and a seventeen-year-old girl of cynical outlook who stands at distance and charts their lives. “A reverberating look at North Side yuppies confronting failure in their lives and loves. The play cuts to the heart of the Me Generation’s growing uncertainty, breezily traipsing from the go-go stock market and gentrification to the pained romantic isolation of a deaf character…A resonant treasure…A moving tale…Post has come into his own as one this city’s most promising playwrights.” - Chicago Tribune. “A delicate romantic comedy…A Chekhovian merry-go-round of mismatched passions…Post has genuine insight into the way otherwise perceptive people can sabotage their own hearts.” - Chicago Sun-Times. “A serious play propelled by the angst of unhappy people…The characters are vivid and caught in a moment of transition that generates dramatic tension…Post is one of Chicago’s brightest playwrights.” - Chicago Reader.

The daughter of a Chicago alderman recounts her rise to power and the people she ran over along the way.

A musical adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's book. In the words of the Chicago Sun-Times critic, this show is “One of the wisest and most delightful productions to grace a Chicago stage this season…Douglas Post has crafted a poetic, deeply intelligent, and hilariously funny script with lyrics to match. He has also composed a magical and eclectic score that runs the gamut from haunting English ballads and rippling reggae to tongue-in-cheek punk and lilting Latin congas.” Produced at over 250 theaters across the world, this musical tells the story of the friendship of the good-hearted Water Rat, the shy and curious Mole, and the sensible Badger. What tests that friendship are the antics of Mr. Toad, a wily and impulsive animal given to sudden crazes such as stealing motors cars and driving them recklessly around the countryside. Their task is to save Toad from himself and then rescue the magnificent Toad Hall from the devious weasels, ferrets and stoats. “Douglas Post’s music and lyrics will go a long way toward reconciling us to rodents…the music ranges from sweetly melodic to snappy…the title theme is lovely.” - The New York Times. “A charming original score by Douglas Post whose songs warm the heart while neatly prodding the intellect.” - Chicago Tribune. “A song-dream for audiences of any age…Post is not afraid to blend overt, raffish comedy with quiet reflection, even a sense of spirituality.” - Chicago Reader. Published by Dramatic Publishing.