John McMullen

John McMullen

MFA Carnegie Mellon, MA San Franciso State
Member: Dramatists Guild
Past member: Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, American Theatre Critics Association, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle (reviews online, search "eyefromtheaisle")
Taught for a decade, Carnegie Mellon, City College of San Francisco, Los Medanos College
Plays: Blood Tango the Musical,...
MFA Carnegie Mellon, MA San Franciso State
Member: Dramatists Guild
Past member: Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, American Theatre Critics Association, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle (reviews online, search "eyefromtheaisle")
Taught for a decade, Carnegie Mellon, City College of San Francisco, Los Medanos College
Plays: Blood Tango the Musical, Horses, Drinking Buddies, Cheaters
Novel :"The Penis Thief" (read 50 pages at https://www.bloodtangothemusical.com/the-penis-thief.html/ )

Plays

  • Cheaters
    Steve is a writer who lives with his fiancee Kay who is half his age. He regularly accounts the stories of his wild past in the 70's. Between naps, he writes his novel about them, and she reads them. About his marriage, his infidelity, the crazy character of a motorcycle-riding farm boy and a looney ex-con he worked to get released, and the woman for whom he abandoned his wife. Kay feels she missed the...
    Steve is a writer who lives with his fiancee Kay who is half his age. He regularly accounts the stories of his wild past in the 70's. Between naps, he writes his novel about them, and she reads them. About his marriage, his infidelity, the crazy character of a motorcycle-riding farm boy and a looney ex-con he worked to get released, and the woman for whom he abandoned his wife. Kay feels she missed the excitement, and sets out to drum up some of her own. What happens when this worm gets turned? With an ending that makes you wonder what a dream and what really happened.
  • Blood Tango the Musical
    ... is a musical for RIGHT NOW.
    It deals men trying to change, addiction, falling off the wagon, young girls and older men, drugs and drugging women, living forever (lots of research about extending life and finding and defuses the aging gene), students and teachers “trysting (about 15 reports per week), women protecting women, and an ethnic working woman who slays the dragon.
    Here's a...
    ... is a musical for RIGHT NOW.
    It deals men trying to change, addiction, falling off the wagon, young girls and older men, drugs and drugging women, living forever (lots of research about extending life and finding and defuses the aging gene), students and teachers “trysting (about 15 reports per week), women protecting women, and an ethnic working woman who slays the dragon.
    Here's a recap to show how and why it is a "right now" play.
    A man is bitten by a bat, becomes a vampire, and lives 400 years. No supernatural bullshit, no coffins, flying away as a bat, etc. Everything has a scientific explanation.
    He is trying to change to get his humanity back. His thing is virgin blood and drugs. He goes to a clinic to get clean and rehab away from his evil ways. Two young virgins are there. He gets tempted by one of the sisters and falls back into his old habits. He shoots her up with heroin that she gladly takes.
    Like some who slip, he doubles down, and plays the bad guy. He drives the young woman who seduced him to suicide. He connects with her sister and falls in loves. The sister has a major crush on her alcoholic tutor, who is sort of a cultural anthropologist detective and susses him out. The maid is a “wise woman” and knows him for what he is, and that virgin blood is his thing. The sister who has fallen for him comes to her, and she pushes her to make the tutor—with whom the maid is in love—to get the tutor to relieve her virginity so the vampire won’t want her. It breaks the vampires’ heart, but he loves her anyway. He the most alpha of alphas, but he goes to the tutor to propose a triad, a menage a trois, and share her, since he doesn’t think she’ll go with him on her own, and give them life forever--which may carry some weight since the tutor is drinking himself to death. The tutor rejects his proposition harshly, and he starts to goes mad, as so many of us do from unrequited love. He begs her to come with him, and she is on the brink of going, but pulls away. He blames the maid—the witch—and goes after her. He starts to murder everyone who comes to her defense. The sister, still in love with, runs to him to stop the carnage. The distraction gives the witch an opening, and she shoves a broken and poisoned broomstick up his ass, and kills him. The finale reprises everyone's personal loss. The last moment has him rising up like a cobra to the horror of everyone except the sister who loves him and the ghost of the other sister who still is obsessed with him.