Plays

Design for Spirits

This two-act comedy is a gay re-imagining of Noel Coward’s play, Blithe Spirit.

What for Coward in Blithe Spirit was simply a comic device, the physical return to life of a dead spouse, is transformed into a sincere metaphysical proposition in Design for Spirits.

Design for Spirits is about the relationship of Victor and Walter, a married couple. Victor is a novelist who believes in non-physical reality. Walter is a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic.

When Victor accidentally wins a séance with drag queen medium Madam Boyant at a Gay Community Center benefit auction, he convinces Walter to participate in the séance. Unwittingly, Madam Boyant calls Victor’s dead previous lover, Jimmy, back to life.

As the play progresses, Victor's attempts to awaken Walter to the reality beyond ordinary physical reality fall short. But when Jimmy remembers a secret hidden in an old clock on the mantel, Walter at last takes a leap into the unknown.

Margaret Rutherford (Madame Arcati), Kay Hammond (Elvira) and Fay Compton (Ruth), in a 1941 production of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit

A Miracle on Halsted Street

Thirty-something gay best friends Harold and Richard hope to find boyfriends in this two-act comedy set in Chicago.

Harold has a crush on a waiter at the Halsted Street restaurant where he and Richard have brunch every Sunday.

Richard has been flirting on a gay dating site with a user named Dreamboy.

Richard tries to help Harold seduce the waiter and Harold tries to help Richard seduce Dreamboy. But these efforts lead to mistaken identities which both friends have to unravel.

Complications abound as Harold, the waiter, Richard and Dreamboy all get together in the final act.

A scene from A Miracle on Halsted Street was performed at Chicago Dramatists on Wednesday, December 12th, 2018. The scene was performed by Torrence Murphy and Mark Maxwell and directed by Emmi Hilger.

This performance was part of the Scene Shop Showcase in which scenes from 10 plays in development at Chicago Dramatists' Scene Shop workshop were given staged readings for the amazement of the playwrights and their friends and family.