Michael Kaplan

Songs by Michael Kaplan & Mark Pietri

It Takes Two celebrates the risky business of falling in love. 19 original songs and bits of spoken word make for a funny and touching 80 minutes. First Crushes, Missed Chances, Heartbreaks, Soulmates, Wedlock, Gridlock...they're all represented in this very original work for 4 performers and a pianist.

Songs by Michael Kaplan and Jeff Mar

A Coming of Middle-Age Musical Comedy. A fussy eater who hates anything gourmet or experimental is mistaken for the guest of honor at a Food & Wine Festival. When he becomes infatuated with the woman running the weekend, he has to try and play the part as best he can, despite the challenges involved.

Meet ARLEN. Painfully shy and a fussy eater who only likes corn dogs, plain cheeseburgers and Eggo waffles with butter. He may be smart as a whip, but no one at his law firm pays him any attention. For twenty years he’s been the resident doormat, who’s never going to make partner, despite the fact he quietly does the best work.

Then there’s JACKIE, whose life has been full of stops and starts as she careens from one career dead-end to another. Going on two decades now. But at last she’s got her chance to really make her mark, coordinating the annual Food & Wine Festival of Paso Robles, California. She just needs to juggle a prima donna chef, the randy old goat who founded the festival, her guest of honor (a best-selling locovore expert), and her boyfriend—a local farmer who wants no part of her big plans.

Rounding out the trio is DANTE. An eccentric artist who makes sculptures out of “found items” (i.e., trash). He’s been chasing overnight success for twenty-five years, and is on the verge of chucking his dream. He lives in a derelict warehouse and still takes money from his dad…the domineering public face of the Food & Wine fest.

These three fortysomethings are all seeking that elusive second act to their lives. Each will have their world shaken, stirred and turned inside out over the course of the weekend. Arlen is sent to the Central Coast by his boss to make a presentation at a dreary Hospitality Law conference, and is promptly whisked away from the airport by Dante who mistakes him for the guest of honor at the Paso Robles Food & Wine Festival. The world’s pickiest eater is suddenly expected to taste every heirloom tomato in the county, but before he can beg off and set the record straight he meets Jackie and becomes wildly infatuated.

Dante builds a new sculpture for the festival’s opening night charitable auction. It’s a cityscape made out of discarded cell phones. Unbeknownst to him, it also includes his father’s misplaced cell phone--full of incriminating photos and texts. In fact, the phone is the missing piece of evidence in an impending, costly divorce between his father and stepmother. When private detectives working for both parties discover the phone’s whereabouts, a wild bidding war takes place for the sculpture. Dante’s artwork winds up selling for just over a million dollars.

Dante suddenly has his big break. Arlen is the accidental guest of honor, with everybody hanging on his every word. Jackie is trying to keep it all together, while thinking about trading up in the boyfriend department. The lies and mistaken identities continue to build, as our three heroes go spinning towards the climactic final night of the festival.

Songs by Michael Kaplan and Mark Pietri

A collection of songs, sketches, and monologues that explore the hilarious, sometimes cringe-worthy moments that take place on the sidelines of soccer fields, behind the closed doors of parent-teacher conferences, and within our own living rooms. Not exactly appropriate for children. But why would you bring them? This is your time. A show that absolutely tells the truth about parenting through music and comedy.

Songs by Michael Kaplan & Sam Steere

Three couples are out to dinner, and the conversation has hit a wall. What will they talk about? They grasp feebly at different topics, until one of them realizes…they can talk about Sarah and Fred. Their friends who just broke up ). With that, the dynamic of the show is established. Jean and Daniel, Monica and Victor, and Carrie and Jerry will tell the story (and assume other parts), and Sarah and Fred will sing the highlights. Along the way, the perspectives will keep clashing, as our guides bring their personal biases and marital experiences to the group storyline. In other words, we have a song cycle punctuated by rather unreliable narrators.

Over the course of two acts, we see Sarah and Fred launch their lives, drift apart, work hard on their marriage, have a catastrophic fight, dabble in infidelity, and find their way back to each other. And we learn a bit more about their friends that they intended to reveal.

So how did Sarah and Fred go off the tracks?

Their friends point to that fateful day when the couple’s life roles became fixed, and Sarah became a stressed working mom (Up To My Eyes). On that particular day, Fred waited nervously for a call from his agent (Waiting For)—did he get a major part in a soap opera? The call, however, came from his young wife, Sarah: she was just offered an incredible job in the Pacific Northwest with a burgeoning tech company. And there it was: Fred became a Stay Home Dad.

Fast-forward to more recent times, and things have flat-lined. Each evening they dance a No Sex Tango, longing for a connection that has disappeared. Yet their friends continue to envy them. The three women visit with Sarah, complaining about their own lives (Going Well/If) and wanting to know all about “Saint Fred.” Sarah can’t bear to burst their bubble, and only sings to herself about Fred’s capacity to disappear on her (Going Well Reprise/Magic Trick). All the husbands, meanwhile, gather in Fred’s kitchen. The boys have their axes to grind—about their marriages, the workplace, the gender wars. Victor, the latest stay home dad, needs a good recipe for a potluck side dish. While Fred rhapsodizes about making Cole Slaw, his three buddies growl about how hard it is for men to navigate the 21st century. Fred admits he’s not altogether happy, still waiting for a next chapter that will sweep him away (Going Well/My Real Life).

After a typically morose dinner (Lonely in a Marriage), Fred and Sarah decide to look for a Couples Counselor (Shopping). They eventually find one who encourages them to “hug without judgment.” The long embrace brings back some true feeling (Of That I’m Sure), and things begin to look brighter. Until their 20th anniversary.

Fred has planned a big surprise, and leads Sarah to a jeweler who is going to put a diamond in her wedding ring (With This Ring). It comes out that Fred never actually proposed, which shocks our narrators (Proposal Song). The jeweler suggests that he resize Fred’s ring, and so both he and Sarah go off to their anniversary dinner with naked fingers. They proceed to have a major argument, which goes from Sarah not loving the ring surprise to how Fred always feels like he’s disappointing her to how they’ve ruined the night for each other. Sarah grabs the pricey bottle of wine and stalks out.

Alone at her office, Sarah waits for Fred. Her co-worker, Richard, peeks in. They have had a long-standing flirtation (Pro and Con), and now it catches fire. As they kiss, Fred appears in the doorway, sees what’s happening, and runs off (Naked Fingers).

We jump ahead a week, and the three couples are rotting at a birthday brunch (3 Couples Reprise). Once again, they pick up the thread of the Sarah and Fred story. Sarah slept with her co-worker and then ran home a mess, ready to atone (Never Happened). As she got to the front door, a strange woman came walking out of her house. WHAT?!

We immediately rewind to Fred running away from Sarah’s office. He’s convinced his marriage is over (Hope to Feel That Way). Stumbling through city streets, he passes a trio of women—two of whom recognize him from when their kids played youth sports. Fred is persuaded to come along for a drink, where the three alternately cheer him up and vie to be the one who takes him home (One of the Girls). Fred ends up on his couch with Nicole, and the two of them kiss and face the yearning they each have for something more (Starving For). Nicole leaves with the dawn, and bumps into Sarah coming home.

Sarah and Fred have a wild argument, with the three women and three men taking sides, kibitzing and rooting out loud. But the moment Fred and Sarah part ways, seemingly for good, the six become completely unnerved (Is This Us?).

In the days that pass, Sarah mopes and mourns her marriage (And I Waited) while Fred tries to keep everything running (Paying the Bills). No one expects either one of them to show up at the birthday brunch, and the six friends are shocked when both of them appear.

Sarah and Fred circle each other, notice the three couples watching them, and with a few whispered words bolt for the exit. Our narrators are stunned and betrayed…how can they finish telling the story if their friends won’t let them watch?

Fred takes Sarah to a spot overlooking the city, and then gets down on one knee to present her with the refurbished ring and truly proposes at long last (Another Hundred Years/With This Ring Reprise). But Sarah’s not into this choreographed magical realism. Do-overs and correcting origin stories is the stuff of adolescent minds, not what’s going to help their marriage. The two of them butt heads a few more times but ultimately realize they are along for the rocky ride together. As they sing of the journey ahead (First Light) their friends join in.

Songs by Michael Kaplan and Mark Pietri

DANNY, COME HOME is inspired by local headlines from San Luis Obispo, California. It is the story of a small town that is split in half over a homegrown controversy: who gets to keep a run-away dog? It's also about the way rumors and public opinions spiral out of control, and how people fall in love and reinvent themselves on the internet. Above all, it's a classic musical comedy tale of Boy meets Girl meets Dog. And it is very much a family musical.

ACT ONE

It’s July 4th in a small California city. Families gather in the park, eager for the fireworks show. One by one, different characters emerge from the crowd. Helen hopes for a new chapter of her life. Larry is under a dark cloud of divorce, wondering how he’s supposed to move on. The Mayor is trying to get the show off the ground despite being way over budget, while Dr. Glenna Stark from Animal Services is warning people to keep their dogs on leashes during the fireworks displays. Last to show up is Nick, a cantankerous rancher, who leaves his dog, Danny, in the back of his truck and goes off on a holiday bender. When the fireworks explode, Danny gets spooked and runs away.

Back home, Larry and Helen both surf the net, checking out the same dating site. Larry spots Helen’s profile and reaches out to her—but she doesn’t respond. She has a different idea.

Nick finally gets around to looking for his dog. He calls Animal Services, but can’t provide much useful information: Danny was never tagged or chipped. As it turns out, Danny is on site. When Helen arrives, she decides to adopt him.

Larry hosts a morning talk show at his floundering radio station. Larry believes in what he does, even if no one seems to be calling in. At a moment of desperation, he finally gets a caller: Nick, complaining about Animal Services. Larry takes him to task, telling him to go down to the pound in person, and find his dog.

Helen brings Danny home, where he happily settles in. With Danny as her new emotional sounding board, Helen decides to keep her lucky streak going and respond to Larry’s video message.

Nick shows up at Animal Services and learns that too much time has passed: they’ve adopted out his dog. He’s furious with Glenna, who won’t divulge any information about where Danny’s ended up.

Larry meets Helen at a local coffee house. They clearly hit it off, but Helen is interrupted by a text from her neighbor: Danny is barking nonstop. She abruptly pulls out of the date so she can go home and take care of her new dog. Larry follows her outside, trying to get her to stay.

The Mayor assures a business associate that their new development is still on track; Nick has agreed to sell his ranch…but first he wants his dog back. The Mayor insists it will all be taken care of.

Larry brings Nick on his show as a special guest. The heart-tugging tale of a man deprived of his dog by “big government” gets Larry up in arms, and soon he has more callers than he can handle. It’s absolutely exhilarating: everyone really cares about Danny the Dog. This is the big moment Larry has been waiting for. He gets everyone to march on a local park to hold a spontaneous demonstration, and that’s where he sees Helen again. Time freezes as they lock eyes…then Danny comes bounding in, dancing around the two of them. Larry recognizes Danny instantly and hustles the two of them offstage as the demonstration starts.

ACT TWO

The town has taken to social media to stoke the rumor mill, inflame one another, and argue over who should keep Danny. The calm amidst the storm is Helen’s apartment, where she happily sits with Larry and Danny. Larry is quietly wondering how he can avoid the collision course between his ambition and his feelings for Helen. Helen discovers Larry’s been invited to speak at another vigil for Danny. She insists that he go and tell everyone how he’s changed his mind.

Nick pays Glenna Stark a visit, and tries to make a no-strings-attached donation to Animal Services. She is much too suspicious of his motives, and as they continue to argue a spark of attraction briefly appears.

Larry attends the vigil for Danny, but gets trapped between opposing camps—unable to decide who he agrees with more. In a bit of a panic, Larry announces he’s going to have a very special guest on his radio show and everyone needs to listen in.

Larry brings Helen on the air as his special anonymous guest, trying to turn the tide of public sentiment in her favor. When Nick shows up at the studio, Larry tries to facilitate a civil argument between the two of them but ends up spilling Helen’s identity and failing to back her up. She sees him as a shallow opportunist and storms out of the studio—only to find a crowd outside waiting for her. Her cover blown, she makes a run for it.

Helen and Danny lay low at the Happy Tails Motel, both suffering from cabin fever. When Helen heads off to buy dog food, Larry arrives. He’s figured out where to find her and wants to surprise her with flowers. Glenna shows up as well, and gets the Clerk to open Helen’s room. Danny immediately runs away.

Danny returns to Nick’s ranch. Nick is delighted to see him. Larry arrives and tries to take Danny back to Helen. Nick catches him and holds him at gun point.

The Mayor shows up and tries to mediate the stand-off. Larry makes an impassioned speech about how Helen needs this dog and he needs to bring him back to her…just in time for Helen to hear it herself. She’s arrived with Glenna, and she’s touched by this heartfelt stand. The Mayor immediately sells Larry out, taking the dog leash and handing it to Nick. Done deal! Nick has his dog back, and the ranch can be sold. Larry is crestfallen.

Glenna reminds everyone that Helen still has legal claim to Danny. But she mainly came to thank Nick for the flowers he sent. She convinces Nick to give Danny to Helen. He does, but Helen can’t ignore the fact that Danny ran all the way home to Nick’s ranch. She tells Nick to keep his dog, she’s sure he’s a good owner after all.

Nick’s neighbor steps forward to shoot down that sentiment. She says the man is a lousy owner, he won’t keep Danny away from her dog. To prove the point she whistles, and a handful of pups bound onstage. She’s anxious to find homes for all of them. Helen and Larry decide to adopt a pair, and the Mayor scoops up another. Nick fires his rifle to silence the celebration and remind everyone to microchip their dogs.

Sea Spray is a charming beach town, perfect for romantic getaways and cliff-side proposals. While tourists walk around with stars in their eyes, the locals take their lumps and watch their relationships fray and fizzle. Karl is a self-professed good guy who bought the little village dream for his wife, only to have her run off with the town aromatherapist. Now he's stuck with a quaint souvenir shop he never wanted, and the vengeful impulse to run it into the ground. As the local merchants scheme to drive Karl away, his bitter emporium becomes a safe haven for the romantically scarred men of Sea Spray.

"...Clever and funny, laced with jokes. A quirky adult comedy that will stand on its own in any community" - The Tribune

"[Love Town] unmasks the truth that lies beyond artificial social niceties, revealing an authenticity behind the brightly painted facade that little towns display to the world." - New Times of the Central Coast

This play is published by Concord Theatricals (formerly Samuel French), and a monologue appeared in The Best Men's Stage Monologues and Scenes (2011).