David Bareford

In the fall of 1939, a fledging television studio brings in a Hollywood team to stage a live version of a popular Western cinema serial, but when its director becomes violently ill just before air time, an unlucky assistant producer is suddenly placed in charge to pull together the performance with less than two hours' notice. To do so, she must overcome temperamental actors, technical challenges, a nosy Variety reporter who wants to expose the Hollywood actors as frauds, and boyfriend who has suddenly chosen now as the time to try to rekindle their romance.

Set in Yacolt, Washington, in the first days of September 1902, the play follows Essie Garner, daughter of one of the first homesteaders in the area. After losing her fiancé in a tragic fire, she's come back home to care for her ailing father. But along comes Jamie Walsh, a land buyer for Weyerhaeuser company with a scheme to force the Garners to sell their well-timbered homestead to him for a pittance. Essie takes up a scheme to get Jamie to wed her and therefore keep the land in the family...but when their town and their homestead is threatened by a forest fire of epic proportions, more than simply trees will be burnt away in the process.

Author Robert Louis Stevenson’s health is failing and his work on his latest novel has stalled. Because his finances are in near-ruin, Stevenson agrees to write a "Gothic shilling-shocker" for his publisher despite an impossibly short deadline. When he is visited by a mysterious and sinister figure in the theatre of his imagination, Stevenson becomes increasingly obsessed by the notion of evil that can live under a veneer of respectability. Though his wife Fanny and his lifelong friends try to support him, he gives himself over to his shadow self, spiraling downward into temptation, selfishness, and addiction before finding his way back to reconciliation and emerging with the manuscript Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.

FULL-LENGTH: It is Halloween at a group home for senior citizens in the rural town of La Center, Washington. Donald Quintero, an aging resident with dementia, is put in an improvised suit of armor for a Halloween party, and decides that he is a knight of old, viewing the world around him as a land of castles, giants, fair ladies, and evil sorcerers. At first, his antics are harmless--even therapeutic for the other residents--and the staff indulge Don’s fantasy, much to the dismay of his practical-minded son, Sam.
Then, Don’s delusions of knightly valor begin causing inadvertent harm, including wheelchair jousts against giants (a vending machine) and battles against infidels (cardboard Thanksgiving pilgrim decorations). When he convinces another resident that she is his paramour Dulcinea and she forsakes her real identity and no longer recognizes her husband of sixty years, the staff realizes Don has gone too far, and they choose to employ validation therapy to get through to Don, addressing him from inside the fantasy. When increasingly difficult “knightly challenges” cannot conquer the knight, Sam poses as the Knight of Mirrors to bring his father back to crushing reality. We are left wondering if the remaining fragments of the identity of Donald Quintero are truly better than the fantasy of Don Quixote.

Set in the 1930s, Matthew "Moose" Flanagan is a boy of twelve whose father has taken a job as a guard at Alcatraz Prison and moved his family to the tiny island in San Francisco Bay. Moose must negotiate life with of other guards' children on the island, and figure out a way to help his autistic sister get into the school she needs to...perhaps with the aid of the prison's most famous prisoner. Adapted from the Newbery Honor Book and New York Times bestseller by Gennifer Choldenko, this adaptation is the official version approved by the author.

In the land of Astoria, it is tradition for a princess to be rescued from a fire-breathing dragon by a handsome prince, who then rides off to safety...and their wedding ceremony. This custom has been practiced so frequently that there's only one dragon left...but Princess Andromeda would rather fight the beast herself rather than risk her life waiting for some dumb ol' prince she might not like anyway. And what if the dragon has other ideas about the whole tradition?

Brisk and witty repartee, mistaken identities, sword fights, and good pirate fun are the hallmarks of this action-packed nautical spoof. When the governor's daughter is kidnapped by pirates, Captain Barnacle goes in search of the famed Treasure Chest to pay her ransom. With the pirates also joining in on the hunt for gold, mayhem ensues as everyone discovers that the treasure is nothing like anyone had expected.

When her irascible grandfather is the victim of a violent break-in, Jeannie rushes to him to offer her help but finds that his wisdom--although hidden in sarcastic barbs--might be just what she's needed to heal herself.

When Robert Loxley kills a sheriff's man to save a friend, he must go on the run to save his life. When Marian goes into the woods to find him and prove his innocence, she convinces him that there are larger issues than his own skin that trouble the realm. Robin and his men fight to take down the evil Guy of Gisborne and save the day.

What happens when our notions of the past are shattered by the realities of the present? Blinders follows Gil Weaver, a locally famous police officer forced to retire because of injury, who now struggles to find his identity off the force. When an unknown assailant brutally assaults his youngest daughter, Gil launches a personal crusade to find the perpetrator: partly to see justice done and partly to prove his own self-worth as a police offer. After the clues run out and the official case is about to be closed, Gil conducts a drug-enhanced interrogation of his daughter and finds out much more than he expected--uncovering an equally vicious crime committed years ago in his own house by none other than the current police chief.

In a futuristic world of bio-jacks and implanted cyberware, a social worker is mistakenly wired with the IX-47, the neural enhancement that can make anyone the ultimate assassin. Can she save her friend from the threats of his gangster boss, or will the chip in her head control her after all?

When a brutal killer stalks the streets of Renaissance Florence, a Catholic priest and his ne'er-do-well swashbuckling brother must track down the murderer.