The List

THE LIST, is the story of a middle-aged accountant dying of cancer, who spends her last months tracking down people that “she cannot leave the earth without seeing one more time"—to the great consternation of her family, friends, and, increasingly, herself.

SYNOPSIS: Dora, a forty-something accountant dying of cancer, is haunted by memories of people that “she cannot leave the earth without seeing one more time.” One by one, she goes through her list of old boyfriends, teachers, and friends who went out of her life abruptly—sometimes inadvertently, sometimes by choice. Along the way, she discovers that reviving old ghosts complicates her existing relationships, not only with family and friends but also with herself.

The play opens with Dora trying to get her husband Jack to save her from a phone conversation with Jana Blue, a college roommate who primarily wants to discuss her affairs with married men. Dora then tracks down her half-senile former nanny and a childhood friend who doesn't remember her. Next Dora and her best friend Judy trek to the Midwest to meet Dora's junior high teacher—who drags out Dora's old papers and photos before hitting on her—and a former piano teacher—who guzzles scotch from her purse and claims she's possessed by aliens. Meanwhile, Jana Blue arrives at Jack's doorstep and falls into Jack's arms.

Act Two opens a few months later with a much frailer Dora calling an old boyfriend. Against Jack's advice, she meets him at a local coffee shop, where he spews out resentments carried against her for years. Dora is soon confined to bed until, one day, she staggers out to the living room where, unnoticed, she discovers Jana Blue and Jack embracing.

In the final scene, an imagined Jana Blue appears at Dora's bedside and complains about her lover's inability to tell his sick wife about their relationship. Dora demands that Jack listen as she phones Phillip, the last name on her list and the love of her life. Although Phillip never answers, Dora still speaks into the receiver about their physical and spiritual love. Dora ends the call and, with Jack’s help, completes her list. She orders Chinese food, insisting that her family and Judy share it at her bedside.

To Be An Eagle!

To Be An Eagle! is an original musical written specifically for a cast of elementary school performers by Juilliard-trained composer Lita Grier of Chicago, lyricist Jim Hughes of Albuquerque, and bookwriter Terra Ziporyn of Severna Park, MD. The musical, which can easily be adapted for a cast between 12 and 30-plus, is based on a traditional African folk tale about a baby eagle who, cut off from any knowledge of who he is, is raised as a chicken, failing miserably in his efforts to peck and preen. This version of the tale involves not one, but five, baby eagles, all different, but all equally confused about who they really are.

SYNOPSIS: The play opens in an African village, where Great Mama Eagle is torn from her husband, Great Papa Eagle, and captured by poachers. Mama dies while in captivity but not before giving birth to five eagle eggs and leaving them her "talking" tama drum. The poachers pawn off these eggs to a chicken farm as "rare Congolese chickens," where the eggs soon hatched are dubbed "baby chicks," despite their surprising appearance and obvious gawkiness. One day Great Papa Eagle, who has been searching the continent for his lost family, appears in the chicken yard, and is captured as a "rare Congolese chicken"--in spite of the fact that he insists he is an eagle who knows how to fly. When Great Papa Eagle discovers one of the baby eagles playing his wife's tama drum, however, he realizes that these so-called chicks must be his children. He teaches them not only how to play the drum like eagles but also how to lift up, fly and soar. Seeing the six birds in the air, the chickens realize at last that they have made a mistake. They're awed by the eagles, but admit that being a chicken has its advantages, too--as long as you're a chicken! Realizing that being true to their own nature is key to fulfilling their own destiny, the eagles and chickens celebrate together in dance.

To Be An Eagle! can be performed in an hour and includes 14 original songs and musical numbers, all written in a range for elementary school voices. Highlights include African drumming, a chicken fashion show, and a barnyard hoedown.

This play can easily be adapted for a cast between 12 and 30-plus by varying the number of villagers/poachers/chickens and/or by doubling parts. Small casts, for example, can eliminate some of the specific voices by doubling or tripling up on speaking parts (for example, having only 2-3 speaking villagers, hens, etc.), and even smaller groups may want the same children to play villagers and chickens. Larger groups can always add extra (non-speaking) animals as singers and dancers. Virtually all parts can be played by either boys or girls.

RUNNING TIME

Approximately 50 minutes.

SET DESIGN

This show can be done with minimal (suggestive, with a few plants or papier mache rocks) or more elaborate sets (such as a wooden fence or a backdrop of a barnyard or chicken house), as desired. There are three separate settings: the African village, the poachers campsite, and the chicken yard.

PROP LIST

tama drums (2)

other African drums (optional)

snare drums and sticks (2-4)

Mancala game

pots, pans, sticks (items suggesting daily chores of African Villagers)

bows and arrows

wooden rifles (for poachers)
ropes
chain for Papa Eagle (optional—rope can be used as well)
large woven basket or cardboard box
5 eagle “eggs” (can be made from papier mache)
bird cage
bucket
picture books
feather boas

About the Writers

TERRA ZIPORYN

Bookwriter

Terra Ziporyn is a playwright, fiction writer, and the award-winning author of numerous health and science books including The Harvard Guide to Women’s Health and Alternative Medicine for Dummies. Currently a member of the Theatre Building of Chicago’s Writers Workshop, she graduated from Yale University, where she studied playwriting with Ted Tally, and then completed a Ph.D. in the history of science at the University of Chicago. Terra has participated in both the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and the Old Chatham Writers Conference and has won numerous awards and fellowships for both fiction and science writing, including short story awards from Writer’s Digest Magazine and the Chicago Literary Review, a AAAS Mass Media Science Writing Fellowship, and an Artist Development Grant from the Vermont Council on the Arts.  Her plays include Wally’s Playhouse, authored with Jim Hughes and Will Graveman (produced and presented at Theatre Building Chicago) and The Teacup (produced at Yale University).  

LITA GRIER

Composer

A native New Yorker, Lita Grier is an award-winning, Juilliard-trained composer, who has returned to composition after an interlude of more than 30 years.  Her music is featured on several Cedille recordings, and includes Renascence for Flute and Orchestra with the Czech National Symphony, which has been described as “[a] new classic in the standard flute repertory,” “Songs from Spoon River,” commissioned by the Ravinia Festival for their Centennial celebration and performed in 2004. The Ravinia Festival recently commissioned Ms. Grier to compose a second song set, based on the same American classic “Spoon River Anthology,” for its 2006 season. Additionally, Ms. Grier is president of InterContinental Media Inc, presently airing a nationally distributed radio series with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, hosted by Jeremy Irons. She has written five works for musical theater, all of which have been produced locally. Three of these have been in collaboration with Susan DiLallo, 2002 winner of the Richard Rogers Prize in musical theater and 2002 Ed Kleban Award, given to the “most promising librettist in American Musical Theatre.” 

JIM HUGHES

Lyricist

Playwright and lyricist Jim Hughes’ latest success was the Chicago premiere of his new musical FAITH (co-authored with composer Gerald Rizzer), which premiered at The Theatre Building, Chicago in February 2004 as part of the Monday Night Musicals – a concert reading series. Previous musicals include book & lyrics for FIRE! CODES?, ...AND NOW MIGUEL, THE IRISH PRINCESS, CRAZY LADY, GOLD FEVER, as well as the lyrics for the musical NEVER AGAIN, co-authored with fellow workshop members Terra Ziporyn (book) and Will Graveman (composer). Mr. Hughes is a long-time member of the Musical Theatre Writers’ Workshop.

Never Again

Never Again, a new dramatic musical, is the story of Holocaust refugee Oscar and his 18-year-old son Ned, who gets hooked up with some neo-Nazis. When Oscar is invited to a 40-year reunion of refugees, he is forced to confront his relationship with his son and with the past that he’s denied for 40 years. The play takes place in a small college town, upstate New York.

Synopsis:

ACT ONE. Ned, an 18-year-old boy--a lost soul who can’t figure out whether to go to college, work, or what to do with his life--is asked to join a neo-Nazi group. His dad Oscar has been pressuring him to “get a life,” and now, excited with a prospect and a sense of meaning, he stops by his Oscar’s office to tell him the news. Oscar works for the College development office reselling buildings and dorms under new names and is about to resell the Beauregard Football Stadium, bought under that name in perpetuity in the 1920s, to the March family for 20 million dollars in total disregard of the earlier contract. Oscar is an Oswego refugee who came over at the age of 5 with his parents and brother from Europe in 1945, and whose mother committed suicide while still in the internment camp.  He married in his twenties, had Ned, and after his first wife died, remarried Didi, a brassy but big-hearted travel agent. Hearing his son’s idea about the neo-Nazis, however, disorients Oscar, forcing him to question his long silence about his own past. When Oscar receives an invitation to an Oswego Reunion and Memorial Service for his mother,  he decides to give up the Caribbean Cruise his wife has just won and instead take Ned to the reunion so that he can understand why he shouldn’t join the neo-Nazi group. While at the reunion, Oscar and Ned meet some former refugees, including Frank, a handyman who was once a doctor, and Zelda, a caterer who had been brought to Oswego as a girl. Ned, however, is much more interested in Claire, the 18-year-old granddaughter of Greta, a former nightclub singer who now works as a docent at a local Holocaust museum.  Claire likes Ned too, until Eric, one of Ned’s neo-Nazi friends, shows up.

ACT TWO. Didi is preparing for her Caribbean trip when she gets a call from Betty, the college PR agent, asking her to help locate the original stadium contract. A lawsuit that has been filed on the behalf of the Beauregard family, who are furious that their stadium is being renamed, and Betty needs the contract, which turns out to be in Oscar’s locked safe. Realizing that Oscar could lose his job, Didi decides to forego her trip and travels up to Oswego with Betty to get the safe key and to get Oscar home. Meanwhile, Ned realizes that he will have to choose between Claire and his neo-Nazi friends, who plan, with Ned’s help, to disrupt the Memorial Service. Ned hears more—the most moving—stories from Oswego by Zelda and Frank. Ned remains untouched by the stories, but is obviously moved when Oscar finally opens up and recalls how his mother escaped from the internment camp one night and was found dead on the banks of a nearby river, leaving his father to raise him and his baby brother alone. He decides to go to the Memorial Service, where he discovers a note from his grandmother, as well as her Jewish marriage contract, both kept by Oscar all these years. After a horrifying glimpse of Oscar’s concentration camp tattoo, Ned realizes that Eric has been lying to him and confronts his father about his own problems with the truth. Chastened, Oscar vows to call the March family to tell them to put their 20 million dollars to better use. He may lose his job, but he will not lose his self-respect or his respect for the past. This decision helps reconcile him to Ned, and to Didi, who by now has arrived with Betty. When Eric and his gang try breaking in, Ned punches Eric in the face, removing Claire’s remaining doubts about his character and intentions. She persuades him to “move on” by coming to work at her grandmother’s holocaust museum and working on his college applications for the next year.

Leaping & Living

A New One-Act Musical with Music and Lyrics by Janet Preus and Dieter Frank And Book by Terra Ziporyn

Leaping & Living is new one-act musical. While it targets verbal and emotional abuse, it is more about how a group of women recognize their own abusive relationships, come to terms with them, and make decisions about how to move forward with their lives.

It is not about “male-bashing,” and it is not depressing. It is, rather, full of what is joyful about self-discovery, and what is funny about seeing everyday situations in a new light. Sometimes it is painful, but the characters learn it is also worthwhile and ultimately satisfying to take control their own lives. It is, above all, a celebration of life’s possibilities.  

SYNOPSIS: The play weaves both representational and presentational elements together, with scenes, prose poems, songs, and direct address, in part with the help of the Emcee, a male character, transcending the chronology and space of the other characters’ lives. This convention is set in the opening prologue. In the first scene Kathy’s latest worthless lover has just stood her up—again—leaving Kathy in her usual vulnerable position—no money, and precious little self-esteem. (I NEED A SAVIOR) Stevie, her tomboy girlfriend, stops by to fix Kathy’s leaky toilet, and cheers her up with a lesson on what men really want. (GET HIM A BACKHOE)

Kathy and daughter, Marigold; Lily and daughter, Annie; Paloma, Stevie, and Tess forge new friendships, and strengthen existing ones, at the Early Riser Cafe, run by the irrepressible Paloma. She has finally realized her dream of running her own restaurant. (THE EARLY RISER CAFE) after a painful separation from her philandering and controlling husband, Diego.

Three scenes follow depicting the abuse with which Paloma, Tess, and Lily lived. One might wonder why they stay with their husbands – a question addressed in CONCRETE SHOES.

The prose poems “Lies”, delivered by the Emcee, “The Room” and “The Crazies” delivered by the three women as a speaking chorus, provide glimpses beyond the perfectly normal-looking veneer, and into the dark world of abuse.

The husbands - Clark (Lily), Diego (Paloma), and Ted (Tess) - provide some comic relief with the satirical soft-shoe, IT FEELS SO GOOD WHEN YOU FEEL SO BAD.

When Lily decides to leave Clark, and dust off her art school paint box, she also transforms herself from a rather plain housewife into a strikingly handsome woman, and is promptly swept off her feet by a new man. In THE NEW MOON she admits it’s too soon, but she’s in love with love. On a rare evening out with old friends, she’s confronted with the altered dynamic among the three-some. Everyone is uncomfortable. (DINNER WITH FRIENDS)

Annie, a stellar student, but 16 going on 25; and Marigold, the quintessential alternative teen, have been assigned a school project together and are surprised to discover they have much in common – never mind their mothers’ budding friendship at the Early Riser, where Kathy is finally gainfully employed as a waitress, and Lily is painting a mural. Annie’s lack of compassion for her mother belies her deep sense of justice for Marigold’s plight in YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT SHE’S BEEN THROUGH.

Bolstered by her friends at the cafe, Kathy has found the strength to face her chronic situational depression head on, packs up the last traces of her long-gone boyfriend, and musters some real attitude in AT LEAST I’M RID OF YOU.

Lily’s new love has since crashed and burned, but, of course, she’s not the first one to fall for the wrong guy, or just end up with the short end of the stick. Her friends share similar stories in BETTER LOOKIN’ THAN YOU.

Although Lily is doing ok, she feels estranged from Annie, who seems to be handling the pain of her parent’s separation, and her father’s abuse by distancing herself from the people who love her most. (I LOVE YOU, ANNIE)

At the beginning of the play, Kathy sang “the future looks better, but it’s hardly bright.” Things are a step up from that for our group of protagonists; they’re stronger, more at peace with themselves, and far less isolated than they were. Paloma takes the lead with her cheery ESTOY AQUI.

There is reason to hope for more good things. The characters again step out of the world of the play, address the audience, and take their bows. (AND WE BELIEVE)

About the Writers

JANET PREUS

Lyricist/Composer

Janet Preus Director of Theater at the Fergus Falls Community College in Minnesota and has produced one CD, entitled "Hersongs." In addition to popular music, Janet writes musicals and light opera. Her touching song, "I Love You, Annie," from Leaping & Living, won First Place in the Pop category of the Great American Song Contest 2000.

TERRA ZIPORYN

Bookwriter

Terra Ziporyn is a playwright, fiction writer, and the award-winning author of numerous health and science books including The Harvard Guide to Women’s Health and Alternative Medicine for Dummies. Currently a member of the Theatre Building of Chicago’s Writers Workshop, she graduated from Yale University, where she studied playwriting with Ted Tally, and then completed a Ph.D. in the history of science at the University of Chicago. Terra has participated in both the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and the Old Chatham Writers Conference and has won numerous awards and fellowships for both fiction and science writing, including short story awards from Writer’s Digest Magazine and the Chicago Literary Review, a AAAS Mass Media Science Writing Fellowship, and an Artist Development Grant from the Vermont Council on the Arts.  Her plays include Wally’s Playhouse, authored with Jim Hughes and Will Graveman (produced and presented at Theatre Building Chicago) and The Teacup (produced at Yale University).  

PLAY HISTORY:

Leaping & Living  was developed at the Theatre Building Chicago's Musical Theatre Workshop, a group devoted to creating new musical theatre and which has nurtured works that have gone on to presentation in Chicago, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Seattle, as well as international arenas.