Doris Baizley

The Book of Daniel as a contemporary story for young audiences. Daniel is in retreat from the demands of his parents, teachers and coach. Falling asleep with a mix of sports, Bible, and news voices in his head, he finds himself in a stadium-like Babylon with three kids in sweats and shoulder pads (Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego), all of them forced into training to defend a weak leader. Forming a funny, smart and deeply loyal team, they resist and outwit a succession of tyrants taking over Babylon. Interpreting The Feet of Clay and the Handwriting on the Wall are great adventures – until the Fiery Furnace which Daniel alone survives. Facing a solitary trial in the lions’ den, he meets his three friends again and uses the strength, spirit and ideas they give him to survive and rise to power with a force that he comes close to misusing. But the memory of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and their gifts, will stay with him and guide him as he returns to the waking world.

The L.A. version of a Grimm's Tale set in a glass house high over the city. Enchanted by fame in the world of music, a celebrated composer’s daughter is frozen between her reclusive father’s demands and his mistress’s anger. When a young composer appears uninvited to study with his idol, a power struggle between the four of them offers a way out, and becomes a quartet accompanied by distant traffic and coyotes.

Veracruz, 1600. Trouble in a Mexican merchant’s family delays his ship carrying a cargo of precious Oaxacan cochineal (the ingredient to make Europe’s most popular red dye) to Venice where an Italian merchant, in debt to his Jewish moneylender, is waiting. What begins as family comedy with hints of Shakespeare turns on the conflicts of a global trade war, a vicious caste system, and murderous ethnic and religious cleansing into the tragic consequences of present times

1934. In camp with the Chinese Peoples' Army, Agnes Smedley, radical American journalist, interviews the popular general Chu Teh. Trading stories, they discover their lives and rebellious personalities ran parallel through poverty and oppression, leading them to deep beliefs in revolution. Played by two Asian and two non-Asian actors, the play moves through time and place like the square dances Agnes taught the revolutionaries.

1954. A big brash Australian nurse and her polio patients tell the story of Elisabeth Kenny’s lifelong battle to find acceptance by the medical establishment for the treatments she practiced to restore and relieve the muscles and lives of her patients. Real survivors’ stories punctuate the action with accounts of their experiences during and long after the pandemic.

1955. A housekeeping contest sponsored by the Southern California Gas Company pits four housewives against each other in sewing, cooking, ironing and "My Proudest Moment" in evening gown. Dot, an ex Navy WAVE enters the contest with the help of her neighbor Babs an ex-aircraft electrician. As the competition increases, Dot has to choose between the advice of her male Gas Company sponsor or her female best friend, and discovers her strength and dignity at the very last moment.

Paloma and her dog Ginger guide us through twenty-four hours into the stories, dreams and fantasies of five residents at Sarah House, a small California hospice for unhoused men and women facing their last six months of life. The play comes from stories told by its staff and residents and their exploration of the good death inspired by Greek myth, dreamwork and the surprises that can come from a mission of "unrelenting kindness."

Four sisters from a depression era farm enter the Sisters of St Joseph convent in the 1950's, find their own spiritual practices in the protest movements of the 1960's, and continue into the 21st century taking stands against US militarism, environmental destruction and the anti-gay restrictions of their own church. A lively telling as the McDonald sisters' Irish humor and singing has always lightened their way.