| Intro | 60's | 70's | 80's-Now |
|
The Mules of Auburn/Lynching at the Forks (two tales of the California Gold rush that go together). They were written for The Hungry Mule Players, a troupe I formed in Colfax, California in the early '70s. Colfax was my wife's hometown and we chose to raise our children there living ten years on an acre out from town they called The Hungry Mule Ranch. It was a semi-farm with chickens, goats, and a pony. Four male actors stayed in the troupe for ten years and others came and went doing plays and skits in the spirit of the traveling troupe's of the gold rush era. The motto of Hungry Mule was "Better Than Good Theater."
The Mules of Auburn (cast of 9) is bout the Rattlesnake Dick gang, some inept outlaws who lived in a cave and botched an attempt to rob the Wells Fargo.
Lynching at the Forks (cast of 6) is the true story of the lynching of Mexican woman in Downieville in 1851. She stabbed a miner who sexually assaulted her on the 4th of July when he was drunk. The stabbing came the next day when he came to apologize. The play was performed in Downieville where there is a historical marker recalling the event.
The Legend of Bodie Rose (a lady of the night) a 7 character musical set in 1881 in the town of Bodie, now a California state park. Bodie had mines, a 20 stamp mill for crushing rock, a railroad, engineers, miners, and red light district, bars and churches and two cemeteries. A prostitute to the rich, Rosa Mae, died of pneumonia while she was nursing miners. Her dying wish was to be buried in the good cemetery. Many people died in gunfights until a compromise was reached. She was buried just outside the fence of the good cemetery. The play was first done by The Hungry Mule Players and taken to LA. A group in LA ran the show at a dinner theater. The tunes used are all folk tunes.
500 Ponies and Both my Wives (1975) is the story of the Modoc Indian War of 1871. It has a cast of 20, 10 of them Native Americans. There are 38 scenes. The play has had successful readings at The Group Theater in Seattle, directed by Phyllis Brisson, a Sioux in 1982. It also had a reading at C. Bernard Jackson's Inner City Cultural Center in LA and at Reader's Theater in Seattle in 2005. It received honorable mention in the CBS/Dramatists Guild National Playwriting Contest by the East West Players in Los Angeles.
