In SAM'S RABBLE, Sam Adams and Captain Daniel Shays celebrate victory after the American Revolution, but soon they’re trying to destroy each other, both sure they’re saving their new democracy – the true story, not the one glorifying Shays Rebellion on the t-shirt that Timothy McVeigh wore the day he bombed Oklahoma two centuries later.

The story starts as settlers moving West have circled their wagons outside a ramshackle tavern, a Native American tied by the neck to a wheel. After the tavern owner’s widow tries to get the drunk guarding the captive to free him, she gathers us around her campfire for the story of Shays Rebellion in 1787 that triggered calls for an American aristocracy to control mob-o-cracy.

With news that the 12 other nations are planning to merge their armies and crush the rebellion before it spreads across borders, Sam sends out the army of Massachusetts to shoot or hang his friends and terrified the 13 newly independent nation states into uniting under one Constitution that didn’t dare mention people’s rights that Sam and Dan – had to be tacked on to the end later.

When Shays lands in a dungeon, Sam has already said he would hang even his own son - with his own hands - if he took up arms against the people’s elected government. Will hang his friend or give all insurrectionists amnesty if they show remorse for choosing violence over the vote?

Time: 1781-1787 (Prologue and Epilogue in 1795).
Cast: Nine. 6 men, 3 women. (10 if Native American can be one actor not a settler playing several roles)

Unit Set: Settlers on their way West show their story, outside a ramshackle tavern, taking bits of costume from their covered wagon and a few props or painted backdrops (or projections) to indicate locations. (Story theater/Poor Theater structure)
Length: About 2 hours. 124 pages of script (pages 5-130, including some visuals or links, stage directions) See page 131 for Scene page #s (working scripts can have a TOC!)
~~~
Status: Unproduced, un-optioned, unpublished. Just finished umpteenth revision in Sept 2023.

Development: Written and revised based on table reads and courses led by playwrights (Rogelio Martinez at Primary Stages ESPA, Michele Lowe and Austin Pendleton at Dramatists Guild Institute, Winter Miller at Playwrights Center (online); also after a dramaturgical script analysis of an early draft by Gwyn MacDonald. Awaiting new script analysis by playwright/director Octavio Solis and probably more revisions/enhancements. Main questions now are about clarity of the story arc balanced with development of full characters, need to turn yet more exposition into action or trash it, smoothness of storytelling transitions, pacing, etc. (Not worried about a cast of 9 even if that means the play can only well-funded or community and university theaters where actors work for love and/or learning.)

Contest: An early draft was one of two winners in the “Stageplay” category of the Moondance International Film Festival’s Stage Play category (2017)

Economic crisis in rural TN. February 2009. Aging African American WWII veteran, Mac emboldened by Obama's first inauguration, lands in a battle to the death with the retired Irish American sheriff Jeb who almost killed him in the voting rights struggle in the 60s... but the sheriff's granddaughter, Luanne, interrupts them when she arrives hell-bent on getting to the first meeting of the Tea Party to "Take our country back" Cast 4, One set (field near porch of a ramshackle farmhouse). One act/30 minute version of my 7 character full length play "Brew."

Short Play video with actor Jr Carter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwGZScfg_7g&t=29s

An aging former African-American WWII veteran and leader of a voting rights struggle when in 1959 he mobilized thousands to register to vote despite knowing that they would be evicted from any rental or sharecropper cabins, barred from local doctors, stores and gas stations so they had bot get to Memphis 50 miles away. McFerren sheltered about 300 families in army tents. He hopes the audience will understand the struggle for first class citizenship has not ended.Stories told by McFerren to the writer.

Reading at Crossways Theatre, NYC March 2 2020 by actor JR Carter March 2 2020, 7:30 PM,
http://resumes.actorsaccess.com/jrcarter and https://www.imdb.me/JRCarter

Connie Winston on stage directions - www.ConnieWinston.com

Unpublished 10-15 minute political drama/comedy.

We are backstage, maybe at a bar in the theater. We see the back of a woman, Kitty, in a long velvet gown, leaning over a podium. Giving an unseen audience in front of her a very raunchy talk. Backstage, closer to us, a businessman, Lee, watches. At the end of a talk, Lee brings Kitty back to meet us and introduces us as members of a group that finances political campaigns in return for specific types of laws. We realize they are going to sign a contract to set Kitty up as the executive director of a club that will help stop news reports of politicians involved in sexual harassment lawsuits – a sensuous haven where elected government representatives and industry leaders can find safe sex, hidden from news reporters.

But Kitty has her own plan... and gradually we watch the signing ceremony morph into an unexpected crime scene.

Short one-act (10 pps), simple set; cast (2(: sensuous young woman and businessman.