A few words about my new play

Coming up is "Confess Your Bubble" at the Brick Theater's Democracy Festival, their annual themed summer festival. This is a single character piece, performed by Steve Burns, who has quite the weird life, not in small parts because he's a terrific actor (see his performances at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, and also his work in my plays Glee Club, That Old Soft Shoe and Brandywine Distillery Fire). It's directed by Kyle Ancowitz, my perennial partner in mayhem.

Confess Your Bubble is a companion piece, in many ways, to That Old Soft Shoe. That play was a part of the Brick Theater's Too Soon Festival in 2010, and it is, sadly, more relevant today than it was even then. That play featured Burns as Senator Corpuscle, from the Pacific Northwest, who has come to check in on the progress of government agents at an undisclosed location. Their "patient" is a man who refuses to speak and was extraordinarily renditioned.  That play was not about Corpuscle - it was really about the characters portrayed by the exceptional cast - David DelGrosso, Laura Desmond. Joe Yeargain, Maya Ferrara and Carter Jackson.

Corpuscle was a crowd-pleaser and terrorizer, and he returns here. I enjoy writing the character, and I think Burns enjoys playing him. But more than that, I like to write overtly political work, and these are without a doubt political satire and very much of the moment.

Confess Your Bubble, though, is not a screed against the right by a liberal Northeasterner. I take great pride in the fact that Corpuscle is a damnable danger for all, or at least that's what I aspire for him.

So I certainly hope you'll take the time to check out the show. More to come, of course, when dates are firmed up and press releases become available and etc, etc.

In the meantime, here's a little bit of text from the current draft:

Let’s begin. Did I say my name? I’m Carl Corpuscle. I am a United States Senator from the great state of Washington State, which unlike Washington DC is a state and not some third world protectorate. We do not grow anything of value there, but we do have Spokane and Seattle. The names of those cities start with an “S.” We once had all sorts of theater and culture and art in Seattle, but now all we have is Dan Savage, Microsoft and rain.

I was not born in Washington State, so I do not bear the special mark. I was born in Indiana, or Idaho. Probably Idaho. My mother did not tell me much and her records – by which I mean her memories - were destroyed, as was ordered in her will. I did not know my father, which I’m told explains a lot. I would assume that means it explains why I am not constantly worried about male approval. I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about male disapproval. Hence, the tie. See? Red. The color of the lips of a man who is about to kiss my white ass.