james colgan

james colgan

Jim Colgan started in theatre as an actor in 1994 and has performed many different roles on many different stages in the San Francisco Bay Area and now in his native Kentucky. Since transitioning from being mostly an actor to being mostly a playwright, Jim has written several works for the stage. His sexy farce, The Story of Oh (Revised and Abridged), was premiered in 2010 at the Fringe of Marin in San Rafael,...
Jim Colgan started in theatre as an actor in 1994 and has performed many different roles on many different stages in the San Francisco Bay Area and now in his native Kentucky. Since transitioning from being mostly an actor to being mostly a playwright, Jim has written several works for the stage. His sexy farce, The Story of Oh (Revised and Abridged), was premiered in 2010 at the Fringe of Marin in San Rafael, California, where it garnered the Critic’s Award for Best Play. In addition, Oh Story was one of forty finalists to be included in the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival, and was performed at the Lion’s Theatre in New York in July of 2011. His mystery for the stage, The Zahsman Murders, received its premiere in 2011 by Arclight Theatre in San Jose and is published by Lazy Bee Scripts in London. His play Making It Home has received public readings in California and Florida in 2012 and 2014, respectively, was a finalist in the American Association of Community Theatres New Play Fest in 2013, and a finalist in the What If? Productions 2016 New Play Contest. His ten minute play, Interrogation, was premiered by Lucky Penny Productions in 2015. The full length version of Interrogation was a finalist in the OC-Centric Festival of New Plays in 2016. Jim’s historical drama, The Fuhrer’s Mistress, a two act drama based on the life of Eva Braun, was awarded first prize in the Jewel Box Theatre’s (Oklahoma City) 2016 New Play Festival, was showcased by In the Water Theatre in New York City in their New Play Reading Series in 2016 (http://inthewatertheatre.com/reading-series/), and will be premiered in March of 2017. Also an author of fiction, his short story, “Shelter,” was recently published by the Sewanee Review in its Spring 2016 edition. Jim is also a director and has helmed a number of works including Moon Over Buffalo, Henry V, and The Swan Song of Stephen J. Gould.

Plays

  • Avoidance
    A docu-drama on the current opioid epidemic told from the perspectives of those treating it, those suffering from it and in it, and those who must face its reality.

    (Simple set, mostly chairs, one table. Simple costumes, mostly street clothes. Cast of 14, but some parts easily doubled. Some roles are gender neutral, i.e., Sheriff Tate, and race neutral, i.e., Dr. T, Dr. Stone. Contains profanity...
    A docu-drama on the current opioid epidemic told from the perspectives of those treating it, those suffering from it and in it, and those who must face its reality.

    (Simple set, mostly chairs, one table. Simple costumes, mostly street clothes. Cast of 14, but some parts easily doubled. Some roles are gender neutral, i.e., Sheriff Tate, and race neutral, i.e., Dr. T, Dr. Stone. Contains profanity and adult content. Running time: 2 hrs.)
  • The Mulberry Bush
    Wendy and Paul are madly in love. But Wendy has commitment issues and keeps breaking up with Paul, only to beg forgiveness a couple of weeks later. Which is driving Paul nuts. When they finally call it off "for good," Susan and Patricia, their two best friends, try to push them back together. But will it work? (Note: written for very basic staging with minimal sets. Runs about 70 minutes.)
  • Red Roses at a Funeral
    Allison has just lost her husband, Steven, in a mountain climbing accident. At her husband's memorial service, Allison confronts John who was with her husband when he died, and who she believes is responsible for his death.
    (Note: Only set requirements are three or four folding chairs. There is snow storm effect at the end which can easily be created with lights or a projector.)
  • Be Prepared!
    A new couple decide over drinks one night to take their relationship "to the next level," but find themselves awkwardly lacking certain necessities to carry out their plan.

    (Note: takes place in a bar, so the only set necessary is a small table and two chairs. Adult content.
  • The Story of Oh (Revised and Abridged)
    The Story of Oh (Revised and Abridged) is a face-paced, sexy farce a la Benny Hill but with a very unique dialogue.

    Note: Contains partial and strong adult content.

    (The only set piece required is a single chair set center stage at the very end. The rest of the play takes place on a bare stage.)
  • Interrogation
    Two policeman are dispatched to question an elderly man about a missing young woman, and get more than they can handle. And just where is the girl?
  • Making It Home
    If you only had a few days left to live, who would you want to be there to see you over and why?
    Danny O’Brien is from a small town in Eastern Kentucky, but for the last forty years, he has lived in San Francisco where he has had a successful career as a lawyer. He has learned about fine wines and food, the Ballet, the wonders of the ocean, and the magnificence of European cities. He is educated,...
    If you only had a few days left to live, who would you want to be there to see you over and why?
    Danny O’Brien is from a small town in Eastern Kentucky, but for the last forty years, he has lived in San Francisco where he has had a successful career as a lawyer. He has learned about fine wines and food, the Ballet, the wonders of the ocean, and the magnificence of European cities. He is educated, sophisticated, and a notorious ladies’ man. But, as the old saying goes, you can take a boy out of the country, but you can’t take the “country” out of the boy. At heart, Danny is still a country boy.
    And the Big City, despite its allure, has been wearing on him. When a series of tragedies visit him, he decides to shuck it all and return to Kentucky. He outwardly longs for quiet, the country life, family, and home. In truth, he’s simply running away.
    When he gets back to Kentucky, he finds his younger brother, Tommy Joe, a rough man that Danny hardly knows, dying of cancer. His brother, bitter, unhappy, and afraid, lashes out at Danny. Danny endeavors to re-connect with Tommy Joe in some way, using their mutual love of baseball as a bridge.
    Danny’s illusion of “home” is further eroded when he confronts the reality of his seriously dysfunctional family, the center of which is “Mama,” Lila O’Brien. Lila is in her mid-seventies, hardbitten, disapproving, and mean. She is quick to use her vicious tongue to quash the slightest disagreement. As Danny remarks early in the play, “Well, you know how Mama is. She’s either right or she’s pissed off.” Lila is not overjoyed at her son’s return, and quickly takes him to task for his most recent failing, his divorce from a much younger woman. She makes it clear that she wants no part of Tommy Joe’s illness, and refuses to visit him. She leaves Danny with the scornful question: “Boy, what kind of ‘home’ are y’all expectin’ to find around here?”
    Danny also encounters Tommy Joe’s nurse, Amy Randolph, whose cloying sweetness covers an iron hand and a ferocity that surprises and intimidates both Danny and Tommy Joe.
    As Tommy Joe’s health deteriorates, Danny comforts him by reading a short story about a young man badly wounded in the war who is trying to make it home. The story serves as an accompaniment to the final scene where Tommy Joe talks of death and life and exacts a painful promise from Danny before “making it home.”
  • The Fuhrer's Mistress
    THE FUHRER’S MISTRESS
    Synopsis
    When Eva Braun met Adolf Hitler in 1929, she was seventeen; he was in his forties. She was a teenager, fresh out of school, preoccupied with music and movies; he was a rising star in German politics, quickly becoming the face and voice of the Nazi Party. When they were introduced, Eva had no idea who he was. But she fell madly in love with him at first sight. She...
    THE FUHRER’S MISTRESS
    Synopsis
    When Eva Braun met Adolf Hitler in 1929, she was seventeen; he was in his forties. She was a teenager, fresh out of school, preoccupied with music and movies; he was a rising star in German politics, quickly becoming the face and voice of the Nazi Party. When they were introduced, Eva had no idea who he was. But she fell madly in love with him at first sight. She once wrote to him, “From our first meeting, I swore to follow you anywhere – even unto death.” Within a year, they were lovers. They remained lovers for fifteen years.
    Hitler saw to it that Eva was well cared for. He bought her a home in Munich and put all the deeds in her name. He made sure that she had all the jewelry and fine clothes that she desired. Eventually, he moved her permanently into her own rooms in the Berghof, Hitler’s opulent mansion and headquarters in Bavaria.
    But he kept her secret. He isolated her from her friends, family, everyone and anyone. She was banned from official dinners and receptions, and sent to her room whenever heads of state came to call. Only the members of his “inner sanctum,” Goring, Bormann, Himmler, Hoffman, Speer, and Goebbels, and their wives, knew about her. Most of them despised her, thinking her just a helpless, silly girl, unworthy to stand at Hitler’s side. And, since they weren’t married, Magda Goebbels labeled her “the Fuhrer’s whore.” Albert Speer seems to have been her only friend.
    After war broke out in 1939, Hitler spent more and more time in Berlin, leaving Eva alone in the Berghof for months at a time. This grated on her, and made her depressed and lonely.
    Eventually, when the tide of war turned against Germany, and the Allies were encircling Berlin, Eva left the Berghof and went to spend her final weeks with Hitler. Soon, they were forced to take refuge in the Bunker underneath the headquarters of the Third Reich. When it finally became clear that all was lost, Hitler married Eva in a hurried, joyless ceremony in the Bunker. Shortly after that, they committed suicide together.
    The Fuhrer’s Mistress tracks the life of Eva Braun from her early days in the Berghof in 1938 through her final days in the Bunker and eventual death in 1945.