Wanted Man finally wanted

After a performance of my play, Wanted Man – wherein a woman comes up with a surprising way to meet somebody after she witnesses a bank robbery – the lead actress mentioned to me that she felt like the story was from another time, noting the absence of cell phones in the story.

 

A perceptive comment – because Wanted Man is indeed a remnant of a previous era. It was adapted from an unsold screenplay that I wrote in the mid 1990s. 


The screenplay had one standout scene that drove most of the action that follows. I just had to figure out how to compress the whole two-hour story into that one scene. Despite this being more of an exercise in salvaging an old idea than a serious playwriting effort, it took me four drafts just to get everything set up right so it all pays off somewhat logically (for a romantic comedy, anyway). 


When I finished, before I set it aside and went on to other things, I decided I might as well enter it into at least one play festival, just to see what happened.


Based on some videos I watched of their previous short play festival, the Brewster Theater Company seemed like they might be open to a screwball story like mine. Still, it was an unexpected surprise a few months later when I found out Wanted Man was one of the plays selected to be performed. 



On Saturday, September 13, I flew to New York to attend the second of the weekend’s performances. The theater company couldn’t have been more welcoming and complimentary and eager to meet me. Wanted Man didn’t get all the laughs I was hoping for, but it was received well enough that I had a good time joining the other two playwrights in attendance for an informal Q&A session afterward.


When I started playwriting, one of my goals was to get a comedy staged in another part of the country where I could travel to see it performed. 

 

So that happened. And now I want to do it again.

 

October 2025

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