Louise Wigglesworth

It’s 1:30 a. m. and Manhattan has gone dark-- no power, no phone service. The
technological “fail-safes” did not live up to their names. Sounds of distant explosions and gunfire signal violent confrontation in the streets. Inside a dressing room in the city’s oldest theater, Lilly Largo awakens alone from a boozy post-performance nap. Amidst remains of the closing night party for her run in The Cherry Orchard, she thinks her dangerous heart problem has saved her the trouble of ending her life. The thing she intended doing after tonight’s closing. As Lilly waits for the “crossing over” a member of the theater staff who chose not to evacuate the blacked-out building finds her wandering around the dark stage. The woman, Celeste Dusha, had recognized the actor’s self- destructive tendencies in recent days and stayed behind to save Lilly from herself. Years ago Lilly unknowingly had inspired an enormous change in the orphaned immigrant Celeste’s troubled life. Now Celeste believes it’s her obligation to rescue this illustrious artist from a tragic, ugly and untimely end. As the two women hole up in Lilly’s dressing room against the violence outside, they cut a deal for Lilly to abandon her plan if Celeste can prove to her that she has more quality life to live after tonight. Celeste uses Lilly’s passion for acting to distract her from the danger in the street, which Lilly believes is death coming for her. In an entertaining sequence Lilly performs highlights of her theatre life which parallel her personal history, then gives Celeste an acting lesson based on a scene from Chekhov’s The Seagull. Celeste’s clever strategy almost works to change Lilly’s mind until the mob attacks the theater. Lilly makes a run for the entrance to let them in. Celeste seizes her and drags her back into the dressing room, confusing the actress in this moment with her own dead mother. The two hide behind a costume rack as invaders break into the theater. One moves into the dressing room, sees the two women behind the pile of costumes, turns and leaves. In the silence that follows Lilly gives in and admits it’s not her time to die. “Because we both know something really has happened. To them. To us. I must see what the world after tonight will be, and what you and I, together, might still do to save the good in it.”

The reverberations of war, even when waged in another country, are felt not only by the soldiers, not only by the soldier's families, but felt in our back yards across the homeland. This is the message that SEASONAL MIGRATIONS puts in our laps today.
Between 1942 and 1947 many uprooted by war and economic stress sought temporary refuge and employment on America’s farms. The term “migrant worker” came to mean an outsider whose presence was fleeting and not worth much attention. “The Migrant’s House” tells four stories of family units who spend different summers in the same worker’s cottage on a fruit and vegetable farm in southern New Jersey. With little more than their wits they arrive from vastly different worlds: George and Ada from a renowned traveling circus; Ruth and Avi Cohen from the concert halls of Europe; Irene Fugimoto from a Japanese internment camp; Nola, Julien and Robert from a culturally rich southern city. Each of these summer people must find a way to re-kindle hope and move on from their displacement to a real future, often doing this in an atmosphere of bias. The play celebrates the strength and character of the silent, inconspicuous women who love and support their determined men. Three of the stories are dramas seasoned with comedy and lyricism. The comedic fourth piece is a blend of magical realism and satire. All are stories of love, survival, and the ultimate force of the human will.

A WAY INTO THE DREAM
Trick circus rider Ada Cheatam needs to get to the truth about the destruction of The Carmel Family Circus’ illustrious team of show horses before she can accept menagerie keeper George Sutton’s marriage proposal.

TALENT
Violinist and composer Avi Cohen worries over the loss of their musicianship as he and pianist wife Ruth take refuge from the Holocaust on an American farm. Add to that a large dose of survivor guilt over the families that stayed behind. Avi has lost all incentive to compose, or even to live. Like the iodine she pours on his cut hand, Ruth finds a way to burn out the germs and poisons in his soul so that he can pick up his violin once again.

WRAPPED IN SILENCE
Irene Fugimoto, wife of Tak and mother of Roy and Imogen, has not been able to break her silence with the other women working on the farm. She can’t speak of her family’s experiences because they were unspeakable. The boss’s wife Rosa brings her a strange, even awkward homemade birthday gift. Irene feels the first impulse to break that silence, but still cannot. After Rosa leaves Irene recounts the story of their migration as if Rosa were still in the room. In doing so she realizes the awkward gift in her hand and its giver could be a life line.

A STRANGE NIGHT ALL AROUND
A bully sheriff tries to arrest Robert, the fragile teen-aged son of migrants, for setting fire to a local storage barn. He gets the surprise of his life when this weak youngster rises from a deep sleep and in a voice like thunder lists all the sheriff’s crimes and sins. Nola and Julien, Robert’s parents, seize this opportunity for spiritual blackmail and pressure the sheriff into financing their upward move to a fortune-telling parlor on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

A high school principal shielding harassed students battles a closed community and its board of education to bring to light the dangerous agenda that's allowing the persistence of bully behaviors in their schools.
On the morning principal Steve Roland learns that three seniors are part of a local hate group arrested for an immigrant’s murder, fifteen other students arrive at school wearing shirts asking for tolerance. Superintendent Max Slater is pressured by his Board of Education to get the public to pass the upcoming school budget. He forces Roland to silence any discussion by teachers and students about the violence in their community. Roland offers Lina, Ben and Daron, the instigators of the demonstration, the choice of abandoning their shirts or a week’s suspension. Ben chooses to stay and use his wit to goad Principal Roland’s already troubled conscience. The other two choose the suspension on principle. While out of school, both students come to harm by the hate group. Blame falls on Roland. He struggles with the cloudy issues of free speech, concealment, public agenda and coercion on every level of contemporary society and arrives at a truth about who ultimately bears responsibility for the persistence of hate and bullying.

After years of disciplined struggle to achieve success, up and coming oil painter Abby Bolton wins a prestigious juried art competition only to be blindsided by Loretta Faggle, who needs Abby’s prize painting to change her wretched life.

Playboy Chet’s worse fear is realized when he learns that beautiful Tashi, whom he has been dating along with a number of other women, is carrying his child. Panic-stricken, he tries to wiggle out of what he perceives as a trap, only to discover that there is no trap. Because of a dramatic cultural difference between them it is Tashi who is the winner here. And maybe Chet as well.

A seventy year old woman and a sixteen year old girl, both runaways, meet in a city bus station and discover an improbable common bond. After several unsuccessful attempts on the part of the woman to gain the confidence of the depressed teen she discovers the girl fantasizes about musical theater. The woman is herself a Hollywood has-been, a once bright and promising performer with the savvy to appreciate the wealth of creative talent that drove the industry then. Time and a mental event have dimmed her mind to the everyday but sharpened her appreciation of the healing effect of musical discipline. And this teen needs that healing effect.

Three couples from college age to senior adult find themselves on the same deserted beach to watch a lunar eclipse. Each person is at a crisis point in his/her life and relationship. Harry and Estelle are former academics embarking upon their long awaited retirement life in a new place. Estelle, a poet, suspects she’s losing her sight and Harry already dreads the loss of his privacy in the hyper-social retiree’s world. Matt has just found Leanne, the love of his life, at the same time he’s undergoing testing for an inherited fatal disease and feels pressure to break it off with her. Leanne is a single mother struggling to work and finish her education but does not want to lose Matt. Dwight, college student and aspiring writer, is being guilted into dropping out of school and joining an older brother in the military, while his partner Evan wants him to make his own choices. In the eerie dark they plumb their own depths and intrude upon each other in ways that are poignant, funny and true, and finally see themselves and their future paths clearly in the light of the red moon.

A physicist with a passion for gambling in both his research and at the gaming tables spends precious grant money to play in a huge lottery in the hope of winning larger amounts to fund his research into the origin of all things. On his ancient cabin cruiser anchored off the coast of Atlantic City he awaits the final multi-million dollar drawing. A strange woman emerges from a dense fog bank and boards his boat asking for help with a dead motor and a shorted out radio. In return she offers him a deal he would not have believed possible in a thousand life times.

A former dancer’s way to shield her daughter from impending heartbreak is to reveal her own private past. This brief tale is told in flash forward.

A wheelchair bound street singer and a petty thief are both competing for handouts from visitors to the Atlantic City Boardwalk at peak tourist season. Both are at the end of their ropes, emotionally and spiritually. In a surprising shared moment they discover that their own frayed ropes can become a lifeline for another person.

The reverberations of war, even when waged in another country, are felt not only by the soldiers, not only by the soldier's families, but felt in our back yards across the homeland. This is the message that SEASONAL MIGRATIONS puts in our laps today.
Between 1942 and 1947 many uprooted by war and economic stress sought temporary refuge and employment on America’s farms. The term “migrant worker” came to mean an outsider whose presence was fleeting and not worth much attention. “The Migrant’s House” tells four stories of family units who spend different summers in the same worker’s cottage on a fruit and vegetable farm in southern New Jersey. With little more than their wits they arrive from vastly different worlds: George and Ada from a renowned traveling circus; Ruth and Avi Cohen from the concert halls of Europe; Irene Fugimoto from a Japanese internment camp; Nola, Julien and Robert from a culturally rich southern city. Each of these summer people must find a way to re-kindle hope and move on from their displacement to a real future, often doing this in an atmosphere of bias. The play celebrates the strength and character of the silent, inconspicuous women who love and support their determined men. Three of the stories are dramas seasoned with comedy and lyricism. The comedic fourth piece is a blend of magical realism and satire. All are stories of love, survival, and the ultimate force of the human will.

A WAY INTO THE DREAM
Trick circus rider Ada Cheatam needs to get to the truth about the destruction of The Carmel Family Circus’ illustrious team of show horses before she can accept menagerie keeper George Sutton’s marriage proposal.

TALENT
Violinist and composer Avi Cohen worries over the loss of their musicianship as he and pianist wife Ruth take refuge from the Holocaust on an American farm. Add to that a large dose of survivor guilt over the families that stayed behind. Avi has lost all incentive to compose, or even to live. Like the iodine she pours on his cut hand, Ruth finds a way to burn out the germs and poisons in his soul so that he can pick up his violin once again.

WRAPPED IN SILENCE
Irene Fugimoto, wife of Tak and mother of Roy and Imogen, has not been able to break her silence with the other women working on the farm. She can’t speak of her family’s experiences because they were unspeakable. The boss’s wife Rosa brings her a strange, even awkward homemade birthday gift. Irene feels the first impulse to break that silence, but still cannot. After Rosa leaves Irene recounts the story of their migration as if Rosa were still in the room. In doing so she realizes the awkward gift in her hand and its giver could be a life line.

A STRANGE NIGHT ALL AROUND
A bully sheriff tries to arrest Robert, the fragile teen-aged son of migrants, for setting fire to a local storage barn. He gets the surprise of his life when this weak youngster rises from a deep sleep and in a voice like thunder lists all the sheriff’s crimes and sins. Nola and Julien, Robert’s parents, seize this opportunity for spiritual blackmail and pressure the sheriff into financing their upward move to a fortune-telling parlor on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

Beautiful Island pits the tininess of man against the awesome power of the natural world, raising the question of whether human actions are being judged by larger forces.
It is opening day on the beaches of a beautiful barrier island in a coming summer.
Recent college grad Grace Faber is the last in a 72 year line of male Faber real estate moguls who developed Beautiful Island from scrub pine to sought-after summer paradise. Back home for one last care-free summer of life-guarding on its beaches, she lands in the center of a struggle among her father Randy, his Beautiful Island Development business partners Viv and Tommy, and her artist mother Kara. All have their own take on Randy’s decision to level miles of family-owned dunes once designated as a wild-life preserve, to build a “stronger than the storm” community which will bring thousands the joy and healing of island life.
Randy’s business partner Viv Blissky coerces Grace to swim a famous around-the-island marathon as the heavily sponsored brand face to market the new community. A new member of her beach patrol, Chad Delamere, offers to help Grace train. He reveals a weird and wonderful sense of shared being with the sea that he claims he’s had since age fourteen. He keeps a journal of his conversations with the sea and sometimes even speaks in its voice in times of distress. He explains that the terrifying visions troubling Grace since she’s been back home are part of her personal mission. At first Grace considers Chad’s sea identity a beautiful delusion. Then she grows to love him and to view him as her safety.
Over the course of the summer frightening water accidents happen to Beautiful Island Development members and their families in spite of expertise in their sports. Randy suspects a pattern of vengeance by an ocean angered at their planned changes to the island. He fears that Grace is the next victim.
The dark changes in her father’s behavior and personality drive Grace to uncover Viv and Tommy’s bullying of him over his belief that he was complicit in four deaths in the first water accident. Grace’s forced involvement in the ocean marathon and in their sales campaign has been the price of their silence.
Her love for her father is far stronger than any dread of Viv and Tommy’s anger or of the public humiliation she’ll endure when she withdraws from the race because “it’s all corruption begetting corruption.” In this decision she finds her strength and the purpose of her life. She shares the terrible warnings being sent to the islanders through her night visions, and announces that as the one who carries the Faber name into the future, she will decide what happens to the dunes. She’ll work with her father, seeking healthier ways to move the island into its future and to lead it away from the dire outcome of its present course.
And then the storm comes.