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The Days of Wakefield's Bar, 3 related cowboy one-acts, 13 in the cast. Produced in 1962 by the American Playwright's Forum off off Broadway/ directed by Ara Wells/ Sheridan Square Playhouse. Also produced by Cecil Reddick at the Evergreen Stage and moved to the Cellar Theater in LA (1972) for a one year run (weekends).
The Garbage Hustler CAST OF 12, equity workshop production 1964 at Curtain Call Theater in the San Fernando Valley and was moved to the Las Palmas Theater in Hollywood for a 6 weeks equity run. The story involves a man with 7 daughters who mistakenly thinks his oldest daughter is pregnant by his illegitimate son. Unable to face this, he tries to hang himself but the limb breaks. He then visits the woman across the alley whose jealous boyfriend comes gunning for him. All the while he's trying to rise money to take his 7 daughters to the circus.
Of all the Savage plays my father and I worked the hardest on this one.
Not Around Gordie, cast of 12, produced at The Santa Monica Playhouse, in Alaska and other places. Set in a Santa Monica gas station in 1960, it centers around Gordie an idealistic 19 year old who is inspired by John Kennedy. His father leaves him and his older brother Floyd in charge of the gas station over a weekend and their personal problems with women get in the way of them doing their jobs. An old friend, just out of the Navy, makes a play for Floyd's wife. A young girl looking for Occidental College, who never lubed her car, has it die in front of the station. Gordie, confused, inspired by Jerry Lewis, in love with his brother's wife is driven to a suicide attempt but is saved by Floyd. The father comes home and finds that both his sons have decided to leave home. The play has been selected to be included in Reader's Theater's 2008 series and will be read at Shoreline Center (Seattle) on April 28, 2008 directed by Willy Clark. It is the 4th Savage play at Reader's Theater which provides the playwright a stipend of $100.
Bear McCready, cast of 1O, had a successful Equity Workshop production at the Evergreen Stage in Hollywood in 1969 with Ceil Reddick at Bear, an overweight sailor who has been refused by the navy until he loses weight. He hangs out in his garage with navy buddies and Clean Gene, a 60's peace activist. Bear is driving his wife and mother-in-law crazy. In an old dresser from his wife's grandmother he finds several thousand dollars in $100 bills taped to the back of the drawers in the depression. He buys a motorcycle. Clean Gene seduces Bear's sister-in-law whose soldier husband returns from Vietnam unexpectedly and catches his wife in the arms of a peacenick. The other characters include an African American guy, Gray, an alcoholic weight lifter and a little guy named Pee Wee.
The Bereavement of Babs Bursette (cast of 5) was done at The Awarehouse Theater on Sepulveda Blvd. It had a cast of 12 for the production but the cast has been cut down in subsequent rewrites. The story is about an ex-rodeo rider who marries a woman with 5 children who are cared for by her mother. She wants Abilene to make some money so they can buy their own place and take the children back. She wants him to seduce a rich eastern girl and get her to want to marry him so her father will pay him $10,000.00 not to. Against his better judgment Abilene trys, and the rich eastern girl get a piece of his heart. The play is set in the kitchen of a ranch for rich kids in the off season.
Beadwork is on the Agenda (cast of 13) is but dynamiting in New York City in 1970 when some activitists from the revolution of the 60's went "from protest to resistance." A Native American, Eddie Two Crow, visiting New York City happens to walk into a place that imports Indian Beadwork from Hong Kong for sale at trading posts in America. A young radical white kid, who is storing some friend's dynamite, uses it to blowup the beads and the Indian is wrongly blamed. There are major roles for a Puerto Rican and an African American woman and a Chinese man. The play was read at UCLA and given a rehearsed readng /public showcasing at Beth Amsbury's Seattle Public Theater as part of their Something New For Change series in 1990 and was directed by Adam Lebow.
Above the Timberline (cast of 4) is a cowboy musical set on a fire lookout. A newly married shy cowboy brings his worldly bride to the lookout where she freaks out. Another cowboy, Irish York, comes with supplies and isn't much help with the martial strife. Irish tells his friend: "Every mule's different, but women are all the same." Only the arrival of a bear keeps the wife from escaping from her situation. All the songs are set to folk tunes. The musical trouped in LA in 1970 having 30 performances in 20 different locations.
