If you’ve only got time to experience one piece of writing by me, make it this one. At the onset of the pandemic, when every theater in town closed their doors, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park commissioned ten local writers to create a monologue on the theme oh hope. My Gandy, who had just become a widow after fifty years is the most hopeful person I know and so I crafted this monologue around a story she’s told me anytime I needed a reminder that hardships are temporary.
This is Fifty-Eight Cents, directed by Bridget Leak and performed by Jordan Trovillion
Here are (in no specific order) 10 projects I want to gush about.
1. Have Monster, Will Travel
Recording Episode 4 of Have Monster, Will Travel
Our first Audio Drama Podcast! It’s called Have Monster, Will Travel
An orphaned monster and his human embark on a search to discover where he came from in this family-friendly comedy about best friends doing kind things for strangers.
Produced by me and Bridget and starring all of our best friends.
Here’s Episode 1:
You can find the full series in all your favorite places:
Podchaser Apple Podcasts Stitcher Spotify
2. Children of the Corn Maze
T-shirts make for great sound dampening!
Children of the Corn Maze was an interactive audio drama that I wrote for Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park in 2020. I’m a gigantic scaredy-cat, but it was still fun crafting a story that shuffled Lovecraftian-goodness with 70s Slasher-nonsense.
Here’s the blurb…
Journey down a dark wooded path in this self-referential comic horror that throws it back to the '90s. Four friends reunite at a Halloween haunted farm afterhours for a night of revelry and reminiscing. But strange encounters lead the four to suspect that something may have come with more sinister plans. Filled with tricks and treats and a few scares, Children of the Corn Maze takes you back to that final Halloween before adults started asking, “Aren’t you a little old for this?”
3. You Will Live Under the Sea
Filming Setup for You Will Live Under the Sea
Finding Nemo meets Predator in this Retro-futurism Hellscape Comedy.
Our second Digital Theater Production, You Will Live Under the Sea, involved a ton of projection, a mini set of the interior of a submersible and a fish tank full of live fish. Directed by Bridget and starring Jordan Trovillion (and me…) this show asked questions about what we can really expect of the future.
You Will Live Under the Sea was awarded the Linda Bowen All-Access Pick of the Fringe Award!
Here’s a video showing a more sprawling look at our setup!
And here’s a pair of links to both our filmed production and the slapdash live encore we did. Or, if you just want a taste, here’s a trailer.
4. Killjoy, Ohio
Poster for Killjoy, Ohio at the 2020 CincyFringe
“Backstage” at the Trey Tatum Murder Closet for the Performing Arts
The “Rehearsal Room” from Killjoy, Ohio
When lockdown started in March of 2020, we knew our original plans for CincyFringe weren’t going to make it to a stage in front of a live audience. Our first digital production was created over Zoom in separate households and featured set pieces and props we already had lying around the house. I converted my creepy, oddly-lit office closet into the “Trey Tatum Murder Closet for the Performing Arts” and Killjoy, Ohio was born.
During a late night break-in that goes awry, two strangers discover a hidden connection to each other and the mysterious town that has taken more from them than either fully realize.
Killjoy, Ohio: a sleek "what-dunnit" about small towns, Bermuda triangles and the lengths people will go to recover lost things.
Starring Jordan and me, directed by Bridget. It premiered at the 2020 CincyFringe (Linda Bowen All-Access Pick of the Fringe) and was featured at the Saskatoon Fringe Festival in Saskatchewan, Canada. Here’s the trailer from the show and (Shh… don’t tell anyone) a sneaky little link to view the whole show - and a separate link if you’d like to view a version with Audio Descriptions.
5. ZOINKS!
Jordan Trovillion as “Nolan Blackwell” and me as “Casper” from 2019’s ZOINKS!
A fucked-up Nancy Drew? A Scooby-Doo episode about the opioid epidemic? A love letter to teen detectives and their dogs? Yes, yes, and yes. Starring Jordan and I and featuring the audience as ensemble (I have an audience member chase me around the stage while swinging a real-life shovel at my head…) ZOINKS! is a smart, funny who-dunnit with a lot of heart and loud bark.
It’s just a little, fuzzy archival copy - but if you’ve got a hankering, here’s ZOINKS!
Casper and Nolan search for clues.
The Gravedigger takes a swing (boy did he ever!) at Casper.
6. JALZ
The quintessential Summer Blockbuster, told by the man who lived it, from the Alzheimer's wing of his nursing home.
Growing up on an island, watching JAWS every summer was a staple of childhood. It’s a story that deeply resonates with me. But it’s a story that also sounds like complete bullshit if you weren’t on that boat.
I knew I wanted to talk about the movie. I also wanted to talk about that special relationship that belongs to children and their grandparents - a relationship that teeters between admiration and hero worship. And I wanted to talk about family legacy and how we take care of loved ones in their final days. Those things totally gel, right?
… Oh, and we totally build the Orca out of stuff you’d find in a nursing home.
Here’s the blurb.
Dylan grew up hearing the story from her grandfather: the summer of the attacks, his adventure at sea, that final, deadly confrontation. But his memory is failing, and his tales don't match the town's memory of their alcoholic Chief of Police who disappeared one summer to hunt "sea monsters."
Family legacy takes on new life as Dylan recreates her grandfather's tales in a final attempt to jolt his memory in this deep-sea thriller where the only thing scarier than a monster is losing your mind.
Featuring *Daniel Britt, Hannah Sheppard and Jordan Trovillion.
*member of AEA
Jordan Trovillion swimming in deep waters.
Hannah Sheppard sinking a barrel in the shark.
7. Alabama Monster
The Poster from our Canadian Fringe Festival Tour.
If you’re into moody performances and maps, you would have totally dug this one
My first (and probably only) solo show, I spent two summers performing this show before packing it up, probably for good. Maybe the most personal thing I’ve ever written, this show took a toll on me, and while it has some of the writing I’m most proud of (I described the island I grew up on as, among other things, a “fur-matted, hook-fanged Neverland” - how fun is that?) I doubt I’ll ever dust off the truly gigantic map of my hometown Bridget and I made.
David Lyman, theatre critic for the Cincinnati Enquirer put this show on his “best of” list for Cincinnati theater in 2018 - I’m really proud of that.
It was originally titled of Monster Descent but Paul Strickland wisely give it a new title and poster aesthetic before we took it to Canada. He also helped me write the taglines. We ended up not using the one I liked the best, but I’ll tell you what it was. I mean, come on, you’ve scrolled this far, are we really keeping secrets anymore?
Alabama Monster
If Spielberg had Hemingway’s Drinking Problem
8. Slut Shaming: a time-travel rape adventure
The Laurens sniffing out clues with the aid of highly-trained poon hounds
A Scene from Slut Shaming at CincyFringe
