Wayne Rawley

On a summer night in 1999, 30 year old Doug Sample has decided his experiment with life on the planet earth has, for all intents and purposes, failed. Standing in the middle of the Super Slurp Gas N' Get where he works, he knows he has achieved nothing, accomplished nothing, and currently has nothing to show for his life except wasted opportunity and his graveyard shift. Doug has made plans to kill himself with a gun and because of his flair for the dramatic, he is planning to pull the trigger in full view of the Mini-Mart’s ever present security cameras. But first he has to get through this, his last shift. Doug seems pretty sure of his path, but before the night is over, he will be visited by his past, his present, a couple of possible futures and some of the most annoying customers that have ever walked through the double doors. Speaking into the cameras, his living suicide note, Doug counts down the hours and struggles with some of life’s most challenging questions like, “Why should I go on?”, “What does it all mean?”, and perhaps most importantly, “Will I remember to change the cherry syrup in the Super Slurp Machine?” Doug wants to die, but he’s got a long way to go until 6am and a lot of mopping to do before the end.

"They say it's a feeling. In the air, they say. A big scene, a simple phrase, that's what they say. But to me, it's not a feeling, a scene or a phrase- to me it's just a place - a snow covered burg that glistens for sure, but then again, everything looks good covered with new fallen snow. And here, the snow is always new. And the fallen? We're here too. My name is Nick. Nick Holiday, and I'm no saint. But if you can pay me half up front, 11 days out of 12 I can probably find what you are looking for. Unless of course, what you're looking for is comfort. Or joy. Then you are on your own, because me? I work in Christmastown. Sure, around here every night is the night before, but underneath all those twinkling lights, at least two things are always stirring - stiff drinks and trouble…. I was hoping I might get this particular Christmas evening off, just me and my regrets, staring out my little second story window watching the shoppers rush home with their treasures… When, above all the bustle, I hear-"

"Are you Nick Holiday?"

"I turned around and there she was. A drop dead gorgeous elf."

So begins the biggest case of Detective Nick Holiday's career - and the one that almost ends it, and him - and maybe even Christmas itself. Imagine if Christmas, and everything that goes with it, was a city - a bustling burg full of the rich and the poor, high hopes and deep desperation, bright lights… and a dark, dark secret. It's "Sam Spade" meets "Kris Kringle", literally, in a fun, fast-paced, heartfelt, and holly-jolly holiday mystery-thriller.

Winner of the "Best New Holiday Romp" Footlight Award 2014 by Misha Berson of the Seattle Times, Christmastown: A Holiday Noir is an ensemble driven, action-packed, parody of film noir and the holiday season. It's a play for everyone who loves Christmas and for anyone who maybe doesn't quite so much.

Christmastown: A Holiday Noir runs 80 minutes and is not suggested for children under 8 or who may not think frank discussions about the existence of Santa Claus are very funny.

Christmastown was initially designed for an ensemble of 4 actors to play all the parts. Individual productions can expand this cast if they wish. These roles can be played by actors of any race or ethnicity. Productions that are able should always endeavor to cast an Actor of Color in the FEMALE 1 (HOLLY WONDERLAND) track.

The year is 1958. In a gothic mansion on a remote island off the coast of Southern California, a scrappy B-Movie crew is trying to finish their latest Drive-In schlock masterpiece. Desdemona Sunset, once a queen of the silent screen is now a shrewish and demanding diva whose once shining star is falling fast. She is making life miserable for the beleaguered film crew, who are just trying to make the best "haunted house on a deserted island alien invasion atomic satellite radiation mutation monster picture" they can make. But production grinds to a halt when Diva Desdemona is murdered, in the middle of a take with the cameras rolling, and it seems that everyone has the perfect alibi. Each other. Of course, Desdemona Sunset's final shot was no accident and suddenly the film's "police consultant", Detective Benjamin Booke is working the case of his career. If he survives the night. Because when the radio is destroyed and the crew can't get word to the mainland, they realize they are trapped in a gothic mansion with a killer, who just might do anything to get away with murder. Everyone is a suspect in this big cast mystery comedy that blends an Agatha Christie style who-done-it with a Roger Corman sci-fi creature feature that gives a whole new meaning to the terms, "Shoot!", "Cut!" and "Action!"