Synopsis of Works

Straight Plays (Full Length)

RACCOON

A Two Act Play

Cast: 3m/3f

A quirky play about a boy who suffers a traumatic event in his childhood and adjusts to its effects by training himself to be blind to small animals.

CHANGING THE PASSWORD

A Two Act Play

Cast: 3m, 2f; One Primary Set

David Parton has written a one act play entitled Changing the Password about a man who has lost hope, and has forgotten about the need for compromise in relationships. In response to his wife’s violent reaction to his play, David writes a second act which gives the wife in the play (and vicariously, his wife) a chance to defend herself. Sometimes we are in Changing the Password by Bill Barnett, other times in Changing the Password by David Parton, and other times in both, as we search for the proper balance between (1) not obsessing over the path not taken, and yet, (2) not abandoning all your dreams.

THE SHOMER

A Two-Act Play

Cast: 3m, 2f; 1 set only

Shomer (def.) Guardian, protector of the faith, defender of the soul. Jewish custom dictates that a body may not be left unattended from the time of death to the time burial.

Join Molly Mandel in the basement of Weinstein's Funeral Home as she is determined to spend the night with the casket of her daughter. By serving as the Shomer (the guardian), Molly hopes to protect her daughter, in death, more successfully than she had in life. Surprises follow as the unexpected and surreal events of the night, including a visit from a fallen angel who cannot contain her sense of humor, help Molly to face the dawn with new strength and understanding.

BILLY, BRITTANY and THE DORKY ZEN

A Two-Act Play

Cast: 3m, 4f

Billy is a middle-aged advertising executive-turned-playwright. Brittany is a nymphlike, sometimes naive, 19-year-old who works part time for Billy. The Dorky Zen is the left half of The Dorky Zenfield Show, which left half is about to be produced by a local theater group. This is a black comedy which explores those internal and external sirens which seduce a young woman in search of herself at the end of the twentieth century.

THE TUNNEL TRILOGY

3 One Act Plays

Cast: 1m, 1f; 1 set only

TUNNEL PHOBIA - A newly married couple learns a great deal about each other when they become stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel.

TUNNEL OF LOVE - An overworked lawyer, believing that everyone has forgotten his birthday, reluctantly allows a “tunnel bunny” to ride with him through the Holland Tunnel.

FOR EVERY TUNNEL THERE IS A TIME - Morty and Vivian each obsess over a forthcoming trip through a tunnel of sorts but the nature of the trip for each differs as much as life and death.

THE SIGHS OF THE BEHOLDER

A Two-Act Play

Cast: 4m, 3f; One Set

Perception is king in the new world; a tough pill to swallow for those who believe that the game of life comes complete with certain entitlements; and even tougher medicine for those who have justified years of selfish actions on their own good intentions. This philosophical reality intrudes upon one fateful evening in the lives of Solly Zeiger, 60, and Morty Elman, 57, whose wives have just left them for a two-week cruise. “Morty and Solly’s excellent adventure” begins well ahead of schedule and, as is often the case, not quite as planned.

MY LOVELY COZENAGE

A Two-Act Play
Cast: 3m, 2f

This is a love story that spans fifteen years of the relationship between two people who could never marry, but who shared more of each other’s lives than most married couples. It is about Millicent Wentworth Drucker, who manages the safe deposit department of First State Bank with an iron hand, except when she appropriates some of the deposits for use as collateral for her own investments, the profits of which are often doled out in Robin Hood-like fashion. It is about Sidney Rosen, a commercial banker who, by a combination of unpopular decisions and perhaps his ethnic heritage, is exiled to languish in the safe deposit area until, after fifteen years, he finds that he is a candidate for the presidency of the bank. Their friendship and love remains the one constant throughout the ordinary changes of age and the extraordinary changes in the banking environment. It is about the accommodations of their lives to the hands they had been dealt, and about how one who, by her death, was able to make the other’s dreams a reality.

KEEP THE TWO DOLLARS

A Two-Act Comedy

Cast: 4m, 3f; One set only

©1997 Bill Barnett
All Rights Reserved

When Allan Sossman, age 41, convinces Susan, age 38, his British bride of two years, to come to the US to live, she quickly learns that the UK and the US are indeed two countries divided by a common language. Susan’s life is further complicated when (i) Arlene, Allen’s mother suspects that her daughter-in-law is not quite as Jewish (or fertile) as she was reputed to be, (ii) Allan and his father Milton suspect that they are being followed by a mystery man, (iii) Allan periodically suspects that he is having a heart attack, (iv) Milton suspects that his retirement has reduced him from a someone into a no one (v) Arlene suspects that Milton’s bruised ego has driven Milton into an affair…with a man, yet, and (vi) Susan suspects Arlene when Arlene insists that Susan dispose of a bracelet which was lost and for which the insurance company paid the senior Sossmans $5,000.

SMALL HUMILIATIONS AND THE DOOMSDAY DIALOGS

A Two-Act Play

Cast: 7m, 4f

This is a unique, actors’ play about motivations for risk-taking and the mercurial nature of power structures, all set in a day of auditions for an off-Broadway equity showcase.

SOMETIMES A CIGAR IS JUST A CIGAR

A Two-Act Play
Cast: 3m, 3f

Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. However, that’s hard to believe when your clergyman has been arrested for soliciting a prostitute, your only daughter is philosophically opposed to giving birth which may or may not matter anyway since her significant other may be sterile, which wouldn’t be so bad except that his frozen sperm from his last marriage is controlled by his vengeful ex-wife who has sent his mother with disastrous news which she has difficulty delivering because of her lack of a relationship with her son. Join Stanley and Rhoda Sobel, would-be grandparents, as they search for immortality and good corned beef or acceptable substitutes therefor.

FAST TRACK

A Two-Act Play

Cast: 2m, 2f; 1 set only

This is about the conflict between the young Turks and the old Fogies, the new and the old, ethics and expedition, morality and greed. It is about the attempts of a female senior associate attorney hoping to make partner in her law firm by playing both sides against the middle, the lengths to which a misogynist partner will go to prevent her from doing so, and the extent to which the strategic, long-term business plan of a sophisticated law firm is contingent upon the whims of whoever happens to be sleeping with the managing partner at the time. This show suggests that the practice of law and the politics and operations of a law firm are often highly farcical in nature -- which they are.

CALL ME SYBIL

A Two-Act Play

Cast: 2m, 2f; 1 set only

A black comedy about white witchcraft. Well, actually, it’s more about a woman who may have learned how to turn her husband into a newt. In truth, it’s really about why he comes to believe that she has the power to do it...or why she would want to. It’s about transformations and sacrifices, and women’s liberation and relationships, and hostility and violence, and other by-products of love.

AN EIGHT-LETTER WORD OF FAITH

A Two-Act Play|

Cast: 3m, 2f; 1 set only

Theatre of the absurd meets naturalism in the context of the search for some small meaning in the cosmic chaos as a middle-aged secular humanist finds his home invaded by his wife’s Rabbi, a beautiful born-again Christian lady, Other Lamont Duquesne (master of the mystic, oracle of the occult, and caterer to the stars), and by what appears to be a small meteoroid, the presence of which allows those who are exposed to it to justify anything they damn well feel like justifying.

LOOSE CONNECTIONS

A Two-Act Comedy

Cast: 2m, 2f; 1 set only

When Warren P. Morgan, age 30, has to make a decision, he asks his shrink. When Warren P. Morgan has to decide whether to marry Stephanie Seiler, he asks his shrink to come to dinner. When Stephanie Seiler, ago 27, gets nervous, she hiccups. When Stephanie Seiler hiccups, her T.V. goes on. Hearing that Warren P. Morgan’s shrink is coming to dinner makes Stephanie Seiler’s T.V. go on a lot. But the shrink cancels. Instead, Warren P. Morgan’s “boyhood friend” shows up for a surprise visit...Really!

BIG BANG 6

A Play in Two Acts

Cast: 6m, 3f

In an attempt to convince the voting public that accidental nuclear warfare is an impossibility, the President invites a representative group of citizens to tour an ICBM launch control module in Wyoming. The heterogeneous group includes a Valley girl and her ex-actress mother from Encino, California; a chicken farmer and his wife from Colchester, Connecticut; a pacifist newspaper publisher from Waterloo, Iowa; and a highly excitable window dresser from Allentown, Pennsylvania. The apparent occurrence of a nuclear attack by a foreign power during the tour and resultant chaos does not quite create the sense of security which the President intended.

MYRA SAYS SHE'S SORRY

A Play in Two Acts

Cast: 4m, 4f; 1 primary set

This is the story of two sisters, a feminist and a traditional homemaker, whose basic values are challenged and redefined when they inherit an adult boutique. Through the demands of ownership of this morally questionable enterprise, the sisters are forced to reevaluate their lives and confront some lifelong challenges, including the on-going conflict between the first amendment and protective censorship.

THIS WAY TO THE EGRESS

A Dramatic Comedy in Two Acts

Cast: 4m, 5f; 1 set only

When P.T. Barnum wanted to move the crowds out of his sideshows and make room for the incoming group, he put up a sign which read, “This Way to the Egress.” The Egress was the exit. In a sensitive and often hilarious manner, this play raises the question as to whether organized programs for the elderly, and indeed, the approach to old age by the elderly themselves, are no more than a variation on Barnum’s theme. All characters, except for one, are between 60 and 70 years of age. When a small town decides to form an amateur theatre group for senior citizens, invitations to an organizational meeting are sent to all the local religious institutions. The various representatives each have different motives for attending the meeting. Some are even interested in the theatre program. This is an entertaining story about older people, told by older people, but with meaning and appeal to general audiences.

THE VICTIM

A Convalescence in Two Acts

Cast: 2m, 3f; 1 set only

Harrison Somers, age 50, returns home from the hospital after suffering a coronary. In spite of his illness, he has retained his sharp sense of humor and zest for life. However, he is subjected to the varying influences of: (a) his wife, Eleanor, who may want to extend the quantity of his life even if it means a sacrifice in the quality, (b) his business partner, Howard Dorn, who is sure Harrison will recover more quickly if he only preserves his sexual prowess, and (c) Florence Futzbinder, a shopping bag lady with more than an average amount of common sense, who is hired to take care of Harrison.

It is a play about the humor that can often be found in a crisis situation, and about the greater crises which may occur when self-interest dictates action that leaves no room for humor.

LIVING MAY BE HAZARDOUES TO YOUR HEALTH

A Comedy in Two Acts

Cast: 1m lead, 1f lead; 4 strong supporting roles: 2m, 2f

3 minor roles: 2m, 1f; 1 primary set

Milton Fuller is an average, 43-year-old, overworked pharmacist with an average, but affectionate wife; an average, but caring, teenaged daughter; and an average, but precocious, 11-year-old son. He spends an average amount of time thinking about sex and death until: (a) he loses all interest in sex; and (b) he is refused life insurance, his lawyer suggests that he make a will, the motor vehicle department asks him to donate his organs, and he receives a full-color brochure for an above-ground mausoleum, as a result of all of which, he begins to spend a more-than-average amount of time thinking about his own death. His preoccupations become further complicated when he is arrested, like an average criminal, for violating a Sunday closing law, and when he witnesses an average armed robbery of a gas station. Join Milton Fuller in his search for perspective and a renewed libido, as his average life becomes an average mess.

I NEVER LIKED FISHING

A Two-Act Play

Cast: 2m, 3f; 1 set only

Harry Coleman, age 53, has a small problem. Once in a while, when he has spent an evening entirely alone, he blames himself for things that happened during that evening even though, intellectually, he knows that he was not responsible. On this particular Wednesday evening, Harry is very busy blaming himself for a hit-and-run accident which occurred the prior Monday evening. Harry’s friends and neighbors are more than willing to overlook Harry’s little problem in light of Harry’s unique ability to help them solve their big ones. This play treats guilt and its effect on the lives of four individuals in a manner somewhat more light-hearted than the subject normally receives.

They Also Serve

A Two-Act Play

Cast: 3m, 3f; 1 primary set

When J. Walmantz, Esquire, a middle-aged attorney and dreamer, liberal in thought but conservative in deed, is asked to travel on short notice to his native eastern European country as an espionage agent, he is given one last chance to reach for the stars. Already an emasculated victim of the transitional stage of women’s liberation and the sexual revolution (of which his next-door neighbors are among the leaders), Walmantz’s initial shock, then vacillation, then redefinition of self-image, and finally his clandestine preparation for the trip, set off a humorous and semi-farcical chain of events, the consequences of which some may consider neither humorous nor farcical, but only reflective of the society in which we live.

The More Things Change

A Two-Act Play

Cast: lots of people

This takes place sometimes in 1875, sometimes 1975, and sometimes in 1875 and 1975 simultaneously. It deals with a dramatic period in the lives of two communal living groups which both inhabit the same premises and which both face similar challenges to their beliefs. The Shakers and the “hippies” provide an exciting forum for a unique presentation of a universal theme.

Leo Slotkin, Wanted Alive

A Dramatic Comedy in Two Acts

Cast: 5m, 4f; 1 set only

Alan Morin, a tired accountant, has planned to spend his Friday evening collapsed in front of the T.V. His plans are abruptly changed (as a result of a mistake in a dinner party invitation) by the arrival of his wife’s “interesting friends.” His evening is made even more “interesting” when he is confronted by a panic-stricken and possibly suicidal Leo Slotkin, the subject of a suspected embezzlement in an audit being conducted by Morin. Morin and his wife and her friends, who include a less-than-devoted psychologist and his slightly feminist wife, a liberated beautiful couple, and a recent divorcée and her life insurance salesman blind date, in their joint and separate attempts to deal with the “Slotkin” problem, make the evening, to say the least, memorable.

COZENAGE MEANS FRAUD

A Two-Act Play

This is a love story that spans fifteen years of the relationship between two people who could never marry, but who shared more of each other’s lives than most married couples. It is about Millicent Wentworth Drucker, a “strict” Protestant who manages the safe deposit department of First State Bank with an iron hand, except when she appropriates some of the deposits for use as collateral for her own investments, the profits of which are often doled out in Robin Hood like fashion. It is about Sidney Rosen, aa African American, Jewish commercial banker who, by a combination of unpopular decisions and perhaps his ethnic heritage, is exiled to languish in the safe deposit area until, after fifteen years, he finds that he is a candidate for the presidency of the bank. Their friendship and love remains the one constant throughout the ordinary changes of age and the extraordinary changes in the banking environment. It is about the accommodation of their lives to the hands they had been dealt, and about how they each were able to make the other’s dream a reality.

IRA AND THE FAMILY JEWELS

Ira Samuelson led a fairly uneventful and irreligious life until he reached fifty-eight years of age when his genitalia fell off. Since Ira was able to catch and preserve these “family jewels”, he learned that there was a chance, however negligible, of reattaching them. However, much to Ira’s combination of dismay and guilt, he also discovered that the jewels had curative powers for certain women’s’ illnesses.

His unsuccessful search for conventional and non-conventional medical help leads Ira to conclude that his tepid regard for religion may have caused his situation and he sets out to discover a faith he might truly embrace in hope of recovering the jewels.

Along the way, Ira reaffirms his theories that organized religion may be the worst thing ever to happen to mankind and that his lifelong fear of death is probably baseless since there is no good reason to fear something about which you know absolutely nothing.

Straight Plays (One-Act)

Woody and the Heeb

A Short Play

Cast 2m, 1 set only

Woody Woodman, III and Herbert Meyers meet at their 45th college reunion, collegially fill each other in on the last forty years, and less collegially rehash those events which originally destroyed their relationship.

Tunnel of Love

A Short Play

Cast: 1m, 1f; minimal set

Alex Coleman, a pleasant-looking fellow, age 39, has gotten stuck in traffic at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. He is befriended by an attractive woman in her late thirties, dressed in early Frederick’s of Hollywood. She proposes, for a fee to be negotiated, to “entertain” Alex in the otherwise tedious ride through the tunnel. The moral? You can’t always tell a Tunnel Bunny by her tail.

Tunnel Phobia

A Short Play

Cast: 1m, 1f, minimal set

A newly married couple learns a great deal about each other when they become stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel.

For Every Tunnel There Is A Time

A Short Play

Cast: 1m,1f and minimal set

Morty and Vivian each obsess over a forthcoming trip through a tunnel of sorts but the nature of the trip for each differs as much as life and death.

The Dorky Zenfield Show

A One-Act Play

Cast: 3m, 5f; 1 set only

Today’s show promises to be something really special. Stay tuned as Weird Mary Hartford tells us how her parents brutally killed all her pets and ruined her life; as Mary’s sister denies it all; as our psychological counselor explains it all; and share the exciting, traumatic conclusion. Now, let’s get on with the program that relives someone else’s misery in hopes that, by comparison, our lives may seem just a little brighter. Ladies and Gentlemen - It’s The Dorky Zenfield Show! Helloooo Dorky! Maury and Oprah, eat your hearts out.

The Meymetsa Mineral

A One-Act Play

Cast: 6m, 1f

The discovery of the Meymetsa Mineral could revolutionize non-invasive, diagnostic, medical techniques if shared with the world. All that we would need for that to happen is for: 1) New England Drug Research Co. (NEDRCo) to totally change its management philosophy; 2) NEDRCo to promise Chief Leon of Meymetsa (the sole location of the wondrous mineral) an honorary degree from Quinton College; 3) NEDRCo to promise Quinton College a new field house; and 4) the fund raisers at Quinton to promise NEDRCo that it won’t rain on graduation, since accepting praise in bad weather is contrary to the religious philosophy of Chief Leon; and 5) Chief Irving, Rainmaker Extraordinaire, to save the day. Political correctness meets entrepreneurial avarice in a satire among caricatures.

The Adversaries

A One-Act Play

Cast: 2m, 2f; 1 set only

The Dickmans are getting a divorce--as soon as they decide how to divide their property and progeny. What is normally a difficult task is made even more difficult when Ellen Dickman’s lawyer becomes ill and is replaced by Jeff Kingman. Jeff’s marriage to Sarah Kingman isn’t in such hot shape either, which wouldn’t matter much except that Sarah Kingman is the lawyer for Barry Dickman. This play asks the question: What do you call 10,000 divorce lawyers at the bottom of Lake Michigan? Answer: A good start.

To Avoid A Charging Rhinoceros

A One-Act Play

Cast: 1m, 1f; 1 set only

A surrealistic romp through the fantasies and realities of a middle-aged couple who are embroiled in the crisis of compromise.

Queen of the One-Liners

A One-Act Play

Cast: 2f; 1 set only

A brief encounter between a formerly popular comedienne of the 50’s and a consummate businesswoman of the 80’s which takes place at 30,000 feet, an altitude which enhances the effects of alcohol, hypocrisy and obsession.

Supermen

A One-Act Play

Cast: 2m

A brief encounter on the top floor of a building between an auto mechanic who is prepared to end his life in order to send his daughter to college and a lawyer who would rather be anything but.

The Innerview

A One-Act Play

Cast: 5m, 3f; 35 minutes

Suppose that a hiring committee of representative citizens was formed to fill the most important “job” in the world. Suppose also that the position was open to all those who believed themselves to be qualified. Just suppose...

Isn’t Love Enough

(A Twining Inquiry in One Act)

Cast: 2m, 1f

An abbreviated look into the future of marriage as an institution with special emphasis on the process of choosing a mate.

Him

A One-Act Play

Cast: 4m, 3f; 25 minutes

The set for this play is whatever you conceive it to be. There is only light and dark and HIM and HER and a few others who don’t count very much, and life and death.

Masks and the All-American Game

A One-Act Play

Cast: 3m, 2f; 1 set only; 35 minutes

This play is set primarily in the front row of a box at a baseball stadium and deals with the premise that “A portion of each person’s life is lived behind a mask of one kind or another. Survival often depends on the ability to get the mask on and off quickly without smashing your nose in the process.”

The Committee

A One-Act Meeting

Cast: 4m; 1 set only; 45 minutes

At the annual meeting of a synagogue nominating committee, the prospective officers are subject to the dictates of a senior member whose doomsday views of the world in general, and Jewry in particular, are calculated to have an effect upon the participants well beyond their initial perceptions.