I am a husband, father and family man.

 I have been writing plays since the 1980s. Even though I’ve never been produced, I’m still optimistic that sooner or later, I’m gonna get it right. And then I’m gonna hit it out of the park. I’m gonna go to Broadway or beyond. I’m gonna name it and claim it and go for the gusto. For me the sky is the limit. Yeah, I’m that dude. Playwright for life! 

I can still remember when I first got the bug. I volunteered to work at the LA Actor’s Theater in Hollywood, CA in 1982. They presented a multi-racial version of “MacBeth” that  was phenomenal. The lead was a 6’6” black man.  His name was Danny Glover and he was a bad mammy jammer. His Lady MacBeth was a six foot tall blond. The verbal fireworks that they produced was off the charts. She matched him lick for lick. “Out, out, damn spot!” They had incredible chemistry and that show blew my mind. Since I was a volunteer usher, I must have saw it about a dozen times. And just like that I was hooked. Hooked on playwriting.

Although I hung out at the Pubic Theater in NYC for the rest of the 80s, I got married in the 90s and had kids in 2000s. I focused on work and family until 20 tweens when the bug hit me again. That’s when I wrote a new play called “Mean Green.” It was a business play about a missing $10 million bank note and the black mail room supervisor who gets accused of taking it.  “Mean Green” had a few readings around Charlotte but it never took off. 

So, I put it on the shelf and from 2013 to 2016 I wrote and re-wrote a multi-racial melodrama called “The Reckoning.”   It was about the Financial Crash of 2008 and it was the precursor to this play.  I wrote several drafts and had staged readings all over Charlotte. I had them at Spirit Square and the Wadsworth Center in Uptown and the Cast Theater in NODA. They were well attended but I could never get over the hump and I put it away on the shelf.  

Then in 2017 my job made me move to Research Triangle Park, NC. “RTP” is right in the middle of Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Durham,  And it is a hotbed for theater. They must have about 100 different theater companies in the area and they believe in supporting their playwrights. I was lucky enough to connect with a playwright’s group called “Sips and Scripts” there. They allowed me to work with local actors and other playwrights to help me finish another multi-racial melodrama. It’s called “Benefit of the Doubt.”  It’s an updating of that classic American movie, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” Although I had readings of it in Raleigh, Durham and in Charlotte, I couldn’t get it produced. Although I still believe that “Benefit of then Doubt” could be a real hot one, I had to put it back on the shelf as “Black Chip, White Chip” came to the forefront. 

I didn’t plan on that happening. In October of 2022 I was still knee deep in “Benefit” when out of nowhere, “Black Chip” came back clear as a bell. The characters and the situations and their various dramas all seemed to break through so clearly. So, in less than a month I re-wrote “Black Chip” and now it’s popping! At least I think so. I hope you do to. See it for yourself…