Duncan Pflaster

When a 23-year-old movie actor claims that an older director molested him when he was 15, it ruins the director's film career, and he vows revenge. Finding work in theatre, the director begins an all-male adaptation of The Bacchae. When the actor hears the director has been telling people the molestation never happened, he also vows revenge, and attempts to infiltrate the play. An adaptation of The Bacchae based around current events.

Now published by Next Stage Press -- Dina Kummerspeck, a filmmaker in a small country that isn't America, has been taken by the newly-fascist government and tortured for making supposedly seditious films. Now returned home under house arrest with an electric shackle on her ankle, she and her husband Tomas invite over their actor friends for a party, but unbeknownst to them, it's going to be a secret reading of Dina's new screenplay loosely based on her torture.

Now published by Next Stage Press!
A monk who has been banished to a remote monastery on an island off the coast of Italy for the past twenty years finds his world shaken when a sexy young poet with amnesia washes up on his shores during a storm, making him question whether his duty should be to his vocation or to himself. An examination of gay trauma and healing, set in 1968. A poetry-filled homage to the style of Tennessee Williams.

In “The Underpants Godot”, a director named Doug is surreptitiously rehearsing for an avant-garde production of “Waiting for Godot” with the characters played by hot dudes in their underpants instead of old men. A representative from the Samuel Beckett estate crashes their dress rehearsal to investigate. The play is a meta-theatrical piece about the limits of adaptation and interpretation.

Script now published by Next Stage Press - When Paul gets invited to New Mexico for the summer for an artist's retreat with his gay bromantic college buddy Alonso, he discovers that Alonso's sister Blanca is tasking Paul with keeping Alonso on his medication for temporal lobe epilepsy, which he doesn't want to take since he identifies with Van Gogh, who had the same condition. Paul and Blanca begin a clandestine affair as he increasingly offers teases of his body to Alonso as incentive to take his meds. All comes to a head when Blanca's boyfriend Gabriel returns unexpectedly from the army. Tormented painters, sexual obsession, and crossed boundaries combine for a scorching new play.

A sequel to Twelfth Night; due to Malvolio scheming with Sir Andrew and Antonio the pirate, Viola's female clothes have disappeared and Orsino won't admit she's a woman till they're found, Sir Toby suspects Maria of recent infidelity with Sebastian, and Olivia's once again depressed. So Viola and Sebastian switch places once again, this time on purpose. A Queer take on the Happily Ever After ending of the original play.

A modern adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, where the titular character John Blackwood is part of the toxic Incel movement, with a Twitch stream to tell people about it. He's also an aspiring rapper. His 17-year-old niece Alice is just coming into her own as a trans woman, and has a crush on Mikey, the local doctor. John's famous romance novelist sister-in-law Joy has come to visit with her wife Selena, on whom John and Mikey have crushes. No one is really happy.

In Ancient Greece, a young and arrogant Dionysus is tasked by Zeus with rescuing his mother Semele from Tartarus; if he succeeds, he will be elevated to Olympus with the other gods. With his slave Xanthias, he goes on a queer adventure that will humble him greatly.

Set backstage at a production of Twelfth Night, the actor onstage as Toby Belch has gone off-book and begun to improvise in a terrible way. The actors playing Mariah, Fabian, and Orsino are at a loss.

A young female engineer has brought a young man home from a party, but their canoodling is interrupted by two versions of her from the future, due to the time machine she's just perfected

In a coffee shop, a guy in a Batman shirt tells a guy in a Superman shirt that he doesn't want to sleep with him anymore. The other guy thought they were dating, but comes to realize it was only sexual... or was it?

A transgender knight upbraids a priest for slandering him from the pulpit, assisted by his friend, a wise woman of the woods. Written as a radio play, but can be performed more fully.

An examination of Greek Myth, set in the Labyrinth built by Dædalus to house the minotaur, who in this is merely a young man that has had rumors spread about him. Meanwhile, Dædalus and Icarus have been imprisoned in the labyrinth, Dædalus has used his magic to create a young woman for his son (who is more interested in Andrew the "minotaur"), and when Queen Pasiphæ angers the King and is thrown in with them, tensions rise, till Theseus comes in on a mission to kill the minotaur.

An older woman has had a stroke and has gone to live with her son and his wife in Boca Raton. She's forgotten most of the last 30 years, including that she's now a lesbian and in a committed relationship with a woman, who is desperately trying to find and rescue her.

A gay couple discover over a brunch that a local homophobic reverend has just been outed after being caught with a man. One of the couple used to attend that church and knows a bit more about the subject than he's previously said.

A gay guy and his straight girlfriend try to determine the orientation of a hot man in a bar, through social cues.

A new sequel to A Misdummer Night's Dream. It's Hallowe'en, three months after Midsummer. When Titania and Oberon need to pay their 7-yearly tithe to hell, they need to find a human soul to sacrifice. Puck's been ensorcelled by a witch so that he can't sleep, and there's a new Autumn fairy, Pumpkinseed, who is in love with that merry wanderer of the night. Meanwhile, Helena is pregnant, Demetrius thinks she's cheating, Lysander is exploring his feminine side, and Hermia is unsatisfied. Bottom has become a huge famous rich ass. Everyone goes into the forest, but will they all come back out?

At a party, a gay man, straightish man, and straight woman converse with hopeful sexual undertones while revealing their subtext to the audience.

William Shakespeare, in the middle of writing a play, is approached by his costume mistress Abigail, who has a request- she'd like to have an abortion, and would like the acting company to move to the country to make it easier than in the city. A ten-minute play in verse.

Backstage at a circus in the 1930s, a young male Italian trapeze artist proposes to a nubile female trapeze artist who works in the circus, but is it only for her to be his beard and hide his relationship with his "brother" in their family act?

A plucky girl reporter Ace McAllister goes to visit billionaire playgirl Clarissa Zandt to interview her about a robbery, when they are attacked by supervillain The Spanglish Fly! Will superhero The Russet Rascal come to their aid? Will Ace McAllister fall in love with The Russet Rascal? Will Clarissa's female butler get anything for secretary's day?

Jeff and Jason live in Boston. Their parents are dead, and Jeff has been taking care of his teenage brother and making sure he gets through high school, by taking a job as a stripper in a gay bar; he also, unbeknownst to his brother, will let men have sex with him for money, though he’s straight. When his friend Mikey pimps him out to Bruce, a wealthy gay man for a weekend of sexual humiliation in Disney World for more money than the boys have seen in years, Jeff is initially on board, until Bruce insists that Jason come along as a witness. Meanwhile, Jason himself is actually gay (though of course closeted to his homophobic brother) and has a secret boyfriend, Chad, a quarterback on the high school football team. Jason is very impressed by Bruce, as the debonair and fabulous out gay man he’d like to be.

A married couple on vacation in the middle east encounter a Genie who the wife met there while she was in the military.

A political handler brings in the Speaker of the House, who is secretly a robot, for a tune-up after he has been glitching in press conferences. Written as a radio drama, but can be performed live as well.

Two gay men meet at the birthday party of a young straight men they both have a crush on, at a bar. They soon come to realize that though the straightie is charming, he's also sort of a naive idiot.

Three young soldiers in the 40s are shipping off to war tomorrow; in a dance bar, they try to find a little love, drinking and talking with a high school sweetheart, a prostitute, and a male best friend.

Two young women are riding the subway, and realize they are the prettiest ones on the train. ...or are they?

In 2011, the day after Bin Laden is killed, a computer engineer named Alberto reveals to a actress/waitress who he meets in a bar that he's been in hiding in Boca Raton since getting a call the night before 9/11 telling him not to go into work at the towers the next day; the two begin an affair complicated by the presence of ALBA, the artificial intelligence which Alberto took from his company and which may soon be becoming sentient. Meanwhile, back in New York, Alejandro, a playwright, is working on his first screenplay, a science fiction piece about The Singularity, and having trouble dealing with executive meddling.

4 monologues published in 2020 Smith & Kraus collections

In the afterlife, the ghosts of Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt, and Mercutio observe the events after their deaths and ponder their legacy. 10 minutes, seriocomic, iambic pentameter

White House Press Secretary Angelica delivers edicts from an unseen president that grow slowly more deranged with every tweet he sends out. Meanwhile the Press corps are concerned for their lives. A dystopian vision of a possible future, written from the depths of 2018.
5 main characters, but with a participating ensemble of additional press members.

A homeless woman on Christmas night is approached by a Vampire and his assistant, he is looking for blood, and is also Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol, who did NOT die.

Two British people attempt to enjoy their tea while telling each other shocking things. One-minute play.

A young American man of Middle-Eastern descent is under a lot of stress, with his wife and new child, his religious dogmatic father, and an unfulfilling job as a security guard. When he starts to explore the gay bar a few blocks from his job, things take an unexpected turn. An American tragedy Inspired by the Orlando shooting.

A young woman takes her father to renew his driver's license, and a conversation about marginalized people leads him to confess some secret stories from his high school life.

A young gay man named Corey goes rapid-fire through 2 years and sexual encounters with his first 5 boyfriends, learning to express what HE likes in the process

A director has cast his younger girlfriend in a verse play that she's not quite getting. Knowing she's floundering in the role, she's called in a verse coach... who happens to be the director's ex-girlfriend. A ten-minute play loosely inspired by Private Lives.

A famous black actress, after being impregnated and dumped by her houseboy for the director of her new film, tweets out her rage; the next morning she's being accused of racism and labeled as problematic online. Her multitude of friends, family, lovers, managers, staff, and hangers-on all attempt to help her with her media balancing act. A humorous skewering of Political Correctness, Cancel Culture, and Social Media. An homage to The Cherry Orchard with a very progressive modern twist.

An actor is preparing to go on as Medea, when his Director comes in with the bad news that the students they're about to perform for are picketing because a man is taking a role away from a female performer.

The lives of suburban married couple Mariah and Steven are thrown into chaos when Irma, Mariah's best friend from high school, presumed dead, shows up out of nowhere. Her new badass style clashes with their settled existence, but is perfectly in line with Steven's douchebag gym friend Lenny. An intended antidote to testosterone-heavy Mamet/Rapp/LaBute style plays: working in the form, but letting the female characters have the agency and interest.

Revisit Moliere-style couplets in this ribald and farcical comedy set in 17th-century imagined France. An astonishingly ugly young maid finds herself the romantic object of an unctuous count, to the chagrin of the desperate noblewoman who sees the count as her last hope for a respectable marriage. Mistaken identities, masquerade balls and margarine-related puns abound.

A spin on the Romeo and Juliet story, re-setting it in a community for the elderly in Florida, with most of the main characters over 70 years old, with the main characters POC. Partly in verse.

A play written in the style of Anton Chekov, set on a Starship in the year 3047. A diplomatic mission brings a professor and his lovely alien wife and faithful doctor aboard the Starship Astrov, where unspoken love and misunderstandings abound between the ship's crew and the guests. As times adapt, will the future change us, or will humanity stay the same at heart?

An epic character piece in the vein of "La Ronde", Tips of the Icebergs is about a community-- Tod, a young painter who has taken a job with a mafioso named Goldberg; the stress from that is making him have trouble in bed with his girlfriend Claudia, who works at a diner with Olive, a dilettante artist who can't quite settle down to what type of art she wants to make.. Olive's brother Jig, a transman, is hosting a series of book clubs at his house, which is attended by Vinny, a closeted mafioso who is having a clandestine affair with Umar, a Pakistani diner waiter (at a different diner), who meets Tod with Goldberg at the diner where they chill after their first gig... and so on, over the course of two weeks. It's intended to show how humans can treat others poorly, but are unable to ignore people once they consider them friends, or at least as other humans.

Scott, a director, has invited his actress friend Rebecca to be in a short play about a prostitute. When the playwright shows up and announces the actor playing opposite her quit the show and he's taking over the part, awkwardness ensues.

On Christmas Eve, two old friends, a trans man and a trans woman, run into each other at a bar when they're getting a little time away from their families. Ronny is a soldier, and he's conflicted about returning to the military.

Three bright college students in the far future are tired of the overdone entertainments of their day, and grope their way through rediscovering Theatre

An alternative view of the Nativity story, following two gay shepherds who see a vision of an angel and follow a star in the sky to Bethlehem, leading them to question what they know about the world.

A woman goes to her high school reunion but is worried about going in, till her co-alumnus working the door finds out she's a famous author and assures her she should come in... but she may not be who she says she is.

An office Christmas party goes hilariously wrong for a grumpy employee, when he receives an unexpected gift from his secret santa.

Clark tries to win back his ex-lover Layla by offering her tickets to see Eric Clapton (her parents named her after one of his songs), and hoping they'll reconnect at the concert, but when she shows up with her new boyfriend, expecting both tickets, things go awry.

Dr. Rodgers is brought in to interview Cody, an android, to determine his humanity. But the questions she poses to him are not necessarily leading where she thinks they are. Around 15 minutes.

In Ancient Greece, A woman, spurned in love, finds a deserted island and sets herself up as The Empress Salacia, decreeing that there shall be no love allowed in her domain, only sex. She gathers some sybaritic acolytes, and all is frolicsome mindless fun until Salacia's ex-lover Agis comes to the island in disguise, to attempt to win her back.
"But don't let the overinflated language, stylized acting, and copious nudity fool you; playwright Duncan Pflaster has more in mind than mere silliness or titillation. Underneath the high jinks there is ample evidence of a canny dramatist intent on exploring the complex relationship between love and sex without sacrificing laughs or a genuinely touching payoff." - Backstage review of the original production

A gay mashup of Chekhov's "The Bear" with characters from the Netflix documentary series "Tiger King". Set after the show, Dillon, grieving the loss of his incarcerated husband Joe Exotic, is preparing to sell off a tiger cub for money to make ends meet, when a handsome old friend of his husband's arrives, needing money and with an IOU from Joe.

Two gay men watch their daughter open her Christmas Presents and discuss when and if they should tell her that Santa isn't real.

When a young man starts dating a guy 10 years older, his mother tries to be accepting, until she discovers she has more than one reason to be wary of her son's new boyfriend.

"It's uncommon these days for a gay-themed play to tackle the issues surrounding AIDS — both because it's a heavy, potentially unpopular subject and because it might seem irrelevant in an age of seemingly magical drug therapies that have extended many AIDS patients' lives. That's why it's such a pleasure to watch a play like The Wastes of Time that not only tackles the thorny subject but does it in a way that is relevant, insightful, and emotionally moving, without depending on nostalgia or maudlin gimmicks."
- Jerry Portwood, Backstage review (Critic's Pick, 2006 MITF production)

Regina has brought Wade home for the first time; rather than having sex, she'd just like to sleep. Meanwhile, her ex, Gary, shows up to try to win her back with a rose, and her parents, to pitch his case for her taking him back. Regina humors him, doesn't want to make a scene. Great comic roles.

1 minute play.
A Dude has just shown his girlfriend one of his favorite movies, "Revenge of the Nerds", and she finds it problematic.

A 10-minute play in which a high school health teacher is confronted by her conservative principal about the new sex-positive posters she wants to put up in her class.

30 minute dramatic piece - In two separate but interlocking and overlapping scenes, two teenage girls reckon with one of them taking a suitcase and running away to chase her dreams of being a rock star; a middle-aged woman meets up with her old friend who disappeared and became a rock star.
Commissioned and originally produced by MTWorks, as part of "RE:Works, The Fabulous 80s", Inspired by Cyndi Lauper's hit "Time After Time".

Two college friends meet on the street on New Year's Day; one has come from a drunken party, the other is now sober and heading home from his overnight job.

1 minute play.
At a wedding, two friends are watching their possibly gay friend who just got married to a woman, questioning his motives. Bill, the officiant, had a sort of bromance with him.

A teacher is accosted by the mother of one of her students, demanding to know why they have been showing a frightening video as part of the YouTube curriculum, but there is more to it, with kids being goaded into doing strange acts. Inspired by the real-life Momo Challenge

Gay Romantic Science Fiction about a man who creates a personalized universe for his male office crush.

Adrian and Javier are a gay couple who don't believe in marriage- but everyone assumes they're married. When they realize they've never actually opened up their "open relationship", they decide to each go out and get laid, with hilarious and erotic results. The play is an entertaining send-up of modern Gay life and relationships that tackles drug use, Dan Savage, racism, showtunes, porn, Grindr, public sex, and much much more...

Content Warning: Ribald Sex Comedy, Extremely Homosexual Situations, and a Naked Busby Berkeley-style Dance Number.

After being expelled from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve ask Lilith to come visit them, as they're worried about their new baby Cain, who seems to be demonic?

A young woman is paralyzed by her Executive Dysfunction and can't leave the couch. A mysterious noise is annoying her and her roommate. Is it the heating pipes, or the Questing Beast from Arthurian Mythology?

At intermission of a play, a man tries to talk his way out of paying for the wine, as it's only a *suggested* donation, though it seems he may never be pleased.

A knight comes to rescue a princess from a dragon, only to discover she's not that keen on being rescued. In iambic pentameter, and with room for an awesome sword-fight.

Vlad is new to being a vampire, and has fallen in love with the young man he's supposed to be draining- only one more bite to go and Ricky won't be alive anymore. Vlad gets advice from Harper, head of the Vampire Clan, but will it be enough to keep Ricky from harm's way?

Bill and his partner Charlie, both bearish men, have brought home a young twink named Patrick for a threesome. While Charlie and Patrick are undressing and making out, Bill nervously talks about it for several pages, too timid to join in.

A Moliere pastiche in rhyming couplets, the play is about Butterface, ugly ladies-maid to the beautiful but heartless Lady Margerina in imaginary 17th Century France. When both are courted by Count Oleo, one for her money and one for her virginity, a masked ball thrown by Countess Parquet (so that the charming Viscount Toastpoint may meet the lady he loves from afar) reveals everyone's secrets.

When Romaine and Jeff meet some fun and crazy folks who run a late-nite coffee house, they never suspect that they're actually vampires. Rather than being devoured, Romaine's cunning captures the imagination of Elvis, the leader of the group - will they be the victims of the political schemes of the undead, or will Romaine become their Vampire Queen?

A zen exploration of the gap between truth and convenient fictions that employs the known facts about General Tomoyuki Yamashita and his legendary gold to illuminate the tangled love lives of four disaffected New Yorkers- Calvin Kanayama, a Japanese-American man with a passion for Star Trek, his girlfriend Debbie Goldberg, a Jewish woman who loves to taunt her family by dating the goyim, her roommate Sean O'Connell, a homo who's trying not to date straight men anymore, and his fag hag Tara Eaton, a WASP model who's sporadically studying astrology and Buddhism.

When good King Kartoffelpuffen gives up his kingdom to his oldest son Tater and marries off his other children for peace (and for political gain), Prince Trevor, his youngest son, trades places with his manservant Grumbelino in order to escape his fate and find his true love, Toby the stable boy.
Meanwhile, will Princess Lana find love with King Soignée of the Blind Sybarites, or will she continue pining for Geoffrey, her lost love?
Will Grumbelino make friends with his new wife Queen Bluebella of Chryselephantinople and her harem of eunuchs, or will he foolishly poke his nose into the Forbidden Ballroom?
Can anyone keep King Tater from starting a new war and destroying all their Kingdoms?
Are the rumored Elephants of Style more than just a fable?
Find out in Prince Trevor Amongst the Elephants!
(Partly written in Shakespearean Style and for a cast of 12)

The two managers of Theatre Utopia lay out to their commissioned playwright what they would like from their future work.

A man and a woman sit on a bench at an amusement park, as their respective partners and their children ride on a spinning swing ride. They discuss their anxieties about being parental figures. She gets a little dark and probing with her questions, till he becomes uneasy.

The Princess Dandelion dresses as a boy in order to escape her rapist and would-be husband, along the way falling in love with another princess, and traveling through her society, meeting nuns, soldiers, and clowns, and all the time her pregnancy continues, the impending birth complicating everything. Written entirely in iambic pentameter and full of Shakespearean tropes and double entendres. To be played by 8 or more women, with doubling.
On the Killjoys list of plays with representation of transgender characters: http://joshuabastiancole.weebly.com/blog/the-killjoys
Available at Indie Theatre Now: https://www.indietheaternow.com/Play/the-tragedy-of-dandelion

Vlad, a gay vampire, is falling in lover with Ricky, the young man he's been draining of blood; he wants to turn Ricky into a vampire as well, against the advice of his Vampire Clan Leader. But when the vampire Hunter Schwartzfeld shows up, all bets are off.

Two gay men, boyfriends, are visiting Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and discover the ghost of an old black-and-white film actress who is annoyed at being disinterred for a more trendy corpse.