C. Robert Jones

This delightful comedy was the winner of the National ScriptWorks Competetion of the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre (SART) and premiered in the historic Owen Theatre in Mars Hill, North Carolina. It introduces three generations of the dynamic Rutledges of Charleston, SC.
Newspaper editor, Edgar, is weighing an offer from the powerful Gannett Media Company to buy the family's 80-year-old newspaper. While he and his mother, Margaret, are the major stockholders, his two ex-wives, Roxana and Adele, also are owners. He invites them all to a weekend gathering at the Rutledge house on Kiawah Island near Charleston to decide and to celebrate the engagement of son, Ned, to new fiancée, Madeleine, whom none of them has met.
When it turns out that Madeleine is French--and nearly as old as Ned's mother, Roxana, things turn topsy-turvy. The merriment is heightened by the unexpected arrival of beautiful femme fatale, Solange, Madeleine's daughter, who makes a play for Edgar who's busy being smitten again with wife number two, Adele.
In the midst of all this, Cupid's arrow catches 75-year-old Margaret totally unaware when Madeleine's ex-husband, Kiki, arrives and falls madly in love with her. It's an intergenerational and saucy excursion into the realm of romance. Everybody in Taking A Chance On Love is in love with somebody else, but not necessarily the "logical" person. The delightful plot meanderings and unexpected twist at the end make this a romantic evening of fun and laughter.

This two-character drama was a winner of Theatre Memphis' national play search and was premiered in Memphis under its original title, Chiaroscuro, In its history, it's had notable productions at the Barter Theatre in Virginia, the Detroit Repertory Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, Tapestry Theatre in Wilmington, NC, Art Station in Atlanta, and at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX. The play tells the story of famous artist, Sara Canfield, a white transplanted Southerner living in New York City, who's been blinded in an accident and can no longer paint. Becoming isolated, she seeks a reader who will come in for two hours a day to read to her.

Enter Raymond Gordon, a street-wise young black ex-con. The friction is immediate, and the interaction of these two fractured lives provides the fabric of the play. As layers are peeled away, the two likeable -- but sometimes difficult -- characters are often surprised by their discoveries which are both serious and comedic, providing a denouement that neither could have predicted.

NOBODY, The Story of Broadway’s Bert Williams
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A one-person musical play about Broadway’s first black mega-star who was also one of the most admired men in show business.
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By the turn of the 20th Century, Bert Williams—actor, singer, dancer, composer, comedian, playwright—was already established as one of the best-known black performers in the United States, and he soon was to conquer England, as well. He first gained fame as half of the popular Williams & Walker comedy team with George Walker as his partner.

After Walker’s death, Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld starred Williams in his famous Ziegfeld Follies from 1910 - 1919, and Williams was the first black performer to have this distinction. Though largely forgotten today, Bert Williams was the first major black recording star. He worked exclusively for Columbia Records from 1906 until his untimely death in 1922. His signature song, “Nobody” (1906), even to this day has not been forgotten. It’s been covered by the likes of Carol Burnett, Red Foley, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Nina Simone, Merle Travis, and Johnny Cash.

In 1916, Williams became the first black actor to star in films. He made two two-reeler silent movies that year, Fish and A Natural Born Gambler. The Biograph Company which produced them felt the public was not yet ready for a black film star. Further, there was great doubt that the South had any cinemas that would take a risk to show the films at all. They were therefore shelved.

The year 2022 marks the centenary of Williams’ death. NOBODY, The Story of Broadway’s Bert Williams includes several of the actor’s comedy routines and chronicles his struggles in an era where black performers were largely invisible in mainstream theatre. He is credited with opening the door for many other black performers, most notably lyricist Noble Sissle and composer Eubie Blake, for their success with Shuffle Along in 1921. He is still regarded as the greatest black mime of all time.

(Note: The play exists in a full-length version and a shorter 1-hour version for touring of schools, etc.)

Set at Christmastime, this is a story of four generations of women in one family who must confront what happens when the traditions of the past collide with the realities of the present. Eighty-year-old Mary, the matriarch, is an anchor in these roiling waters of avarice, social-climbing, and subterfuge. Daughter Gwyn jockeys to get her inheritance early and ultimately plots to take her mother’s place as doyenne of the family. Along the way, Gwyn has helped sabotage her daughter Diana’s marriage and has pushed reluctant granddaughter, Josie, into being a part of the generational debutante scene, something which Josie feels is passé.

Though she is the voice of calm amid these machinations, even Mary is blindsided when long-time housekeeper, Ivy, drops a bombshell which throws the truth about everybody’s role in the family into question. Have all their lives been ‟façades”? Despite the serious themes, there are many laugh-out-loud moments, particularly as Josie tries out her stand-up comedy routines and as we watch ten-year-old Tasha negotiating the pitfalls of her first ‟puppy-love” crush.

Although there’s a sense of poetic justice in the dénouement, almost nothing in the play is what it seems to be, leaving one to ponder more thoughtfully about the potential façades in all our lives.

C’est la vie! is a full-length theatre piece comprised of a group of four interlinking short pays with interwoven characters. It was specifically designed for a cast of three actors–a woman and a man “of a certain age” and a man in his twenties. Each actor works singly with the other two, and all three actors appear in the final play. Each actor, then, appears in three of the four plays. The intent is to offer three actors three very different characters in the course of an evening. While the four locales are described in extensive detail, for ease in production they may be as skeletal or simple as a designer chooses—even to being defined by light and a few props. The one intermission occurs after Teacher. Running time: approximately: 1:30. The four plays are:

Ups and Downs
This broad comedy takes place at two in the morning in a high-rise hotel in New York City. Tony DeMarco and Rhonda Varrick meet in an elevator. He is a cocky pizza delivery guy in his twenties. He’s just been stiffed in a sixty-dollar delivery. She is a worldly-wise, older woman of easy virtue. When the elevator becomes stuck, an unlikely relationship is forced on two complete strangers. His Humphrey Bogart-like actions are considerably tempered by his claustrophobia, while her practicality in the face of the unexpected strikes a winning scenario that ultimately changes them both.

Teacher
Dr. Ted Noland and his prize playwriting student, Charlie Barrett, are at loggerheads. The term is ending and Charlie’s one-act play is not ready. He needs the credit and a passing grade to graduate. Charlie’s personal life is falling apart, and he’ll settle for an “adequate” script just to graduate. Ted refuses to let Charlie compromise on his standards. The struggles of teacher and student and Ted’s insight into clarifying the roles of each offers valuable life lessons for both.

Makeover
Imagine that you are André Telfair, the famous artist/aesthetician of Makeovers by André, and into your salon comes mousey Caitlin Allgood wanting the complete “works”–a new image–as she is preparing for a book tour to promote her new book, How To Make A Man Happy. The only hitch: Caitlin is a nun. In this humorous and warm comedy, it’s hard to tell just who is getting the makeover.

Coming Out In Atlanta
Lenny Levinson is the Toast of Atlanta in his gig at The Moonlight Club where he is featured in a dandy drag impersonation of the young Liza Minnelli. Lenny teaches in a middle school and has never come out to his very traditional Jewish parents, Rosa and Sol. They learn about their gay son when they attend a performance. The inevitable confrontation takes place in Lenny’s dressing room. The comedic touch throughout leads to a satisfying and upbeat ending

What does a Tony Award-winning playwright do to recapture his Broadway success when his six subsequent plays have hardly been dazzling? Now, on the eve of rehearsals of his latest play, Calvin Love is faced with the defection of his director, a script that's not ready, and a family life that's falling apart. His son, David, with whom he has a strained relationship, is nearly ready to graduate from UNC in Chapel Hill (where Cal also teaches) and is heading to graduate school three thousand miles away. His wife, Myra, has said she'll see Cal through the play's opening and will then follow through with divorce plans, to take a job in Washington, DC.

When Cal's long-time producer, Justin Blair, brings in a hot-shot young director, Rex Christopherson, to take over the show, Cal is incensed. He needs a seasoned director with a proven track record, and he sends Rex packing. The success of this new play has become Cal's obsession because he feels it's his last chance to win back the respect of the two people he loves most--his wife and son, and to prove that his first major success was not a fluke.

It seems that all of the characters in this story have secrets which the intensity of the situation forces them to confront ... and ultimately reveal. The discoveries are often painful because they are based on misperceptions and misunderstandings. They do, however, open the door for rapprochement and enlightenment

The perfect wedding. That’s what Jody Sinclair and Spencer Ryland are planning as the final week before their big day begins. They’ve got the whole thing organized “to a T.” All the parties, receptions, and arrivals of the principal participants are scheduled with the precision of a rocket launch, and then, like toppling dominoes, things begin to go awry. And this includes relationships.

Barney Fiore, Spence’s best man, arrives fresh from Marine service in Afghanistan and Germany, never having met Jody. Almost simultaneously, Larissa Bond, Jody’s maid of honor, arrives from London, never having met Spence. Before anyone can count to ten, Jody and Spence are thrown into significant time with the other’s wedding attendant, and, well, Cupid starts working overtime.

In the middle of this, arriving with great fanfare from Hollywood, is Jody’s famous actress grandmother, Rachel (aka as Lylah Carrington), who’s celebrating 35 years on the soap opera Always and Forever. Seems Rachel and Jody’s grandfather Hunter, the Episcopalian priest performing the ceremony, also are caught up in the atmosphere of romance, affecting their long years of estrangement.

When Jody trips and ruins her wedding dress—and Larissa discovers the suitcase containing her dress is lost forever, the panic is solved by Rachel’s costume designer for her show, the talented Drake Sampson. Just so happens he becomes the guest of Jody’s brother, Tad, a gay middle school teacher. Both are currently free and unattached, so . . .

As the plot twists and turns, one wonders how or if ANY of these possible relationships will overcome the hurdles—and indeed there is a surprising twist at the end. This face-paced, breezy comedy swirls around eight delightful and infinitely likeable characters (five men; three women). And if there is a close-up look at the roles of the sexes—sometimes reversed, it’s all in fun--often wise—and is the perfect tonic in providing an evening of delightful entertainment.

Synopsis

Is there nobody left in Washington, DC who’ll stand up and say, “NO!”?

KAY YERBY doesn’t think so. She’s the wife of Dan Yerby, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and she’s fed up! When are the people ever going to be more important than politics—or politicians? Kay quietly takes matters into her own hands when she observes her husband pushing the Judiciary Committee to confirm Judge Garrett Ridley, a nominee for the Supreme Court. Even though the confirmation process is stopped cold when Judge Ridley is accused by prominent doctor, Regina Lazarus, of sexual assault when they were in college, Kay senses he’ll be confirmed anyway. She strongly feels the judge is unfit for the Supreme Court. If she can persuade three senators to switch their votes, Ridley’s confirmation will fail. This is crucial because his confirmation would tilt the court’s five-to-four majority to the conservatives—who might, in time, repeal many of the hard-won causes of previous generations.

How to accomplish this?

Kay invites to tea two Senate wives: Mariana Neal whose husband, Jack, is Senator from Montana and Shirley Tanaka whose husband, Wyatt Templeton, is Senator from New York. Both senators have decided NOT to run for re-election and may be more easily “persuadable.” The third vote she hopes to change is that of her husband, Chairman of the committee, whose job it is to assure confirmation Judge Ridley.
The action of the play, then, deals with how the three couples “negotiate” an improbable scenario. All six are asked to step up to the plate to evaluate their own lives, their marriages, and ultimately their integrity. The unexpected twist at the end provides a pathway forward that changes all six in ways they could not have imagined. Maybe . . . just maybe . . . there are a few individuals out there who’ll step up to the plate when the country needs it.

The Chagall of the title is artist Marc Chagall, and the two-character play revolves around his reluctance to accept the commission to paint the murals for New York’s Metropolitan Opera House for its grand opening in 1966. Taking on the job to persuade him is former actress Eleanor Robson, famous for being Shaw's muse for his Major Barbara. By the time of the play (set in 1964), Eleanor has been married for many years to New York’s famous entrepreneur, August Belmont. She has gained additional fame by founding the Metropolitan Opera Guild, remaining one of the Opera’s stalwart supporters.

At first, Chagall’s ambivalence about the commission seems “lightweight,” but then as Eleanor gently tries to advance her cause, the layers peel back to reveal Chagall’s real story which includes misunderstandings about his artistic style, delineates a great personal loss affecting his relationship with the United States, and finally sheds light on his narrow escape from the Nazis during WWII—a persecution because of his Jewish heritage. Despite the serious issues, the two characters find immediate rapport when they meet, enjoying playful repartee, the beginnings of a strong friendship—and even making a few discoveries which ultimately change both their lives.