I’ve always been obsessed with graveyards, but not in any morbid way. When I was growing up in New Hampshire, a state that offers youth very little in the way of entertainment options, I used to hang out in one. It was like our version of the mall. My small group of friends would sit around hundred-year-old graves, dream of a future where we’d leave New Hampshire, and talk about what we would eventually do for work. I would imagine what it’d be like to work in a cemetery. I had no idea if somebody could actually work there. I never knew anybody who did, but I thought, somebody digs the graves... somebody sets the stones... somebody organizes the funerals. There’s a lot of stuff that goes on in a place like that. We just never see any of it. Later in life I would have a succession of corporate 9-to-5 office jobs and they were all essentially the same with a boss and a bunch of schlubs passing time, getting through the workday. Now I think back on life I imagine working in a cemetery might not be altogether different than any other job in the world…

| Full length comedy |

A group of people work at a cemetery in the fictional Ashworth, New Hampshire... some wishing they were elsewhere, others perfectly happy to be miserable where they are. Ronnie used to be married to Bobby, who is unhappily married to Ricky. Mike plays drums in a wedding band on the weekend and can't stop talking about how incredible the song "Pour Some Sugar on Me" is. Johnny shows up at the cemetery surreptitiously recording a podcast called "AshTown." They all work together digging holes and passing the time. When the WalMart of cemeteries opens across the street everybody begins to worry about losing their jobs. So they plan to put on a play to raise money to buy the cemetery themselves. The only problem is nobody goes to plays anymore...

I wrote this play because, despite the fact I haven't lived there for many years, I have watched my hometown change as politics have become more polarized and the opioid epidemic has created a stranglehold on it.

| Full length play |

What it means to be a human being in this particular place and in this particular time... While being hounded by the local alt-right/anti-government activists, a Mexican-American meter-maid (ahem... Parking Attendant) narrates the daily lives of the residents of Keene, NH, a small town in the southwest corner of the state. She introduces us to the Korean owner of the only Chinese restaurant in town, the local attorney and tennis coach with a dark past, and the musician who needs to be seen for who they truly are and not the daughter their mother insists they will always be. "Welcome to Keene, NH" is a three-act play telling the fictional story of the encroachment of guns, heroin, and the alt-right on a real American small town.

Monologues from Welcome to Keene, NH have been published by Smith & Kraus in the forthcoming "WE/US; Monologues for Gender Minority Characters" as well as "Best Monologues for Women 2019." Another monologue was filmed and named Editor's Choice in Button Poetry's 2021 video contest.

My older sister and I never had a final moment when our father died many years ago. I never had a chance to reconcile with him, and because my sister and I lived so far apart, we never had an opportunity to support each other in the moment of loss.

| 10 minute play |

Siblings visit their dying, estranged father with resentment and forgiveness on their minds.

I remember that feeling of family I had amongst my closest friends in high school. They felt closer to me than my biological family. When I thought about the powerful photo exhibit "Raised by Wolves" by Jim Goldberg, I connected deeply with the runaway teenagers he depicted and this play was the result.

| Full-length play with songs |

The sanctuary 5 runaways build in a secluded alley of the city is disrupted when one of their parents arrives, hoping to bring them back home. Inspired by the photo exhibit "Raised by Wolves" by photographer Jim Goldberg, DANCE AND CRAWL AND SING AND FALL presents a group of teenagers who decide to take on the challenges of the streets when life in the suburbs becomes too much to face.

Lyrics by Brian James Polak | Music Composed by Joey Del Ponte (see link to demos below)

When I heard the stories coming out of Abu Ghraib during the war in Iraq, I wondered what it would take for soldiers who righteously signed up to fight in a war they believed in to say enough is enough and simply leave. I started to imagine what my breaking point might be. As I was writing this piece, the story of Bowe Bergdahl came out and put a face on the narrative. This play is not about him at all, but what written in the time his actions were taken.

This play is part of a four-part series following a young teenager from the precipice of high school graduation, to joining the military, fighting in Iraq, and eventually going AWOL after experiencing atrocities he could not condone.

| Full-length play |

After witnessing an event they cannot shake, two soldiers go AWOL during the height of the War in Iraq. With help from a soldier still fighting and a local Iraqi mother, they attempt to escape the country and start a new life elsewhere, but the complications of war push them into a corner, forcing them to make the most difficult decision.

I lived in Los Angeles for about ten years and passed through Skid Row many times. This area of the city is a visceral reminder of society's failure to support the neediest among us. In this play I wanted to spend a few minutes exploring the juxtaposition of the privileged and disadvantaged.

| 10 minute play |

A women living in the suburbs steals her abusive husband's fancy car, drives to LA's Skid Row, and accidentally strikes a homeless man.

| One act play |

Three Polish siblings manage the canteen at Auschwitz where guards come to relax when not at work in the camp. The environment is tense and fraught and made even more so when an escaped prisoner seeks the help of these three workers.

As I was setting out to write a new play I was balancing two separate ideas, unsure which one to explore. The first was about the cycles of abuse... how people who grow up to become abusers were often abused themselves. The second idea was the idea of "time travel parties" where gatherings were held at places like MIT and CalTech, where scientists test the possibility of time travel. I ended up bringing these two ideas together and this play was the outcome.

| Full-length play about time travel and breaking the cycles of abuse |

If you could go back and change your life, would you? - - -

A fledgling scientific genius and his little sister grow tired of being teased and neglected by their overprotective mother and deadbeat uncle. When the boy witnesses what he thinks is his uncle’s nefarious deed, he decides to devote himself to creating a miraculous invention that will save he and his sister from their miserable life.

Published by Next Stage Press.

| Solo one-act |

An Indian tour guide recounts a series of jobs with an American business traveler that prompted him to seek a new line of work.